Festival Director: Lindy Hume

In Lindy Hume’s first year as Festival Director, Sydney Festival opened with another spectacular Festival First Night. This time the Domain stage was headlined by Al Green, in his first ever Australian performance, along with The Black Arm Band featuring Jimmy Little, Archie Roach, Ruby Hunter and Dan Sultan.

From the classics to the avant-garde, Circa 1979: Signal To Noise celebrated the unique and influential period when post-punk, new wave, experimental and early electronic styles of music cultivated in a thriving underground scene, heard on Sydney-based labels M Squared and Volition. Germany's prestigious theatre company Schaubuhne Berlin won audiences with Hamlet (pictured above) and Fabulous Beast enraptured with Giselle.

Bringing talks to the forefront, The Scope connected audiences in animated and provocative conversations with a dynamic mix of artists, academics, leaders, thinkers and dreamers. Part think-tank, part performance and part lecture.

FESTIVAL FIRST NIGHT

Nigel Jamieson, Kasey Chambers, Poppa Bill & The Hillbillies, The Manganiyar Seduction, The Black Arm Band, Hidden Republic, Al Green

THEATRE

Hamlet
Schaubuhne Berlin

Six Characters in Search of an Author
By Luigi Pirandello
In a new version by Rupert Goold & Ben Power
Directed by Rupert Goold
Headlong

Oedipus Rex & Symphony of Psalms
By Igor Stravinsky
The Sydney Symphony and Sydney Philharmonia Choirs
Conducted by Joana Carneiro
Directed by Peter Sellars
Chorus Director: Brett Weymark

The Manganiyar Seduction
Roysten Abel

Ruhe
Muziektheater Transparant

The Fence
Urban Theatre Projects

DANCE

Giselle
Fabulous Beast

Tempest: without a body
Lemi Ponifasio
MAU

Dark Matters
Kidd Pivot Frankfurt RM
Choreographer: Crystal Pite

Balé de Rua

CABARET

Smoke and Mirrors
Directed by Craig Ilott
Created by Craig Ilott and iOTA

ABOUT AN HOUR

Oedipus Loves You
Pan Pan Theatre

Music Alive: Zeeko

One Small Step
Oxford Playhouse

Happy as Larry
Shaun Parker & Company

Love Lost In The British Retail Industry
Isy Suttie

Hugh Hughes in…360
Hoipolloi

Party
The Invisible Dot

Tim Key: The Slutcracker
The Invisible Dot

MUSIC

A.R. Rahman

Al Green

Big Bad Voodoo Daddy & Black Joe lewis and the Honeybears

Breakestra, J-Rocc (Beat Junkies) & Space Invadas

Camera Obscura, Slow Club & Popfrenzy DJS

Diotima String Quartet

Dirty Three & Laughing Clowns

DJ Yoda's National Video Vacation & DJ Sampology

FBi Night: The Very Best, Radioclit & Ro Sham Bo DJS

Fink

Fractured Again
Ensemble Offspring

Grizzly Bear

Grizzly Bear & The Middle East

John Cale

Laura Marling

Leonard Bernstein's Candide
Australia Opera And Ballet Orchestra

Marcin Wasilewski Trio

Medeski Martin & Wood

Neko Case

Patrick Watson

Rogue's Gallery
Hal Willner

Seckou Keita Quintet

Severed Heads, The Reels & Stephen Mallinder (Cabaret Voltaire) DJ Set

Sharon Shannon Band

The Books

The Handsome Family

Toumani Diabate

Toumani Diabate Symmetric Orchestra

Trevor Jackon, Yen (live) & Future Classic DJS

Vieux Farka Toure, The Mess Hall & Dan Sultan

Winterreise
Schubert/Muller

Wonderful Town with The Sydney Symphony
Sydney Symphony

TALKS

Signal to Noise Sessions
Tom Ellard (Severed Heads), Andrew Penhallow (Volition Records), Stephen Mallinder (Cabaret Voltaire), Roger Grierson (Thoughts Criminals)

The Scope: 5th Pacific Thought Symposium - Bringing Forth the Ancestors
Lemi Pontifaso

The Scope: Are We Happy Yet?
Dr Geoff Gallop

The Scope: Keynote 2010 - Crisis, Catharsis, Renewal
Sydney Festival and ABC Radio National

The Scope: Microscope - Festival Artists in Conversation with Caroline Baum
Thomas Ostermiei/Lars Edinger (Hamlet), Roysten Abel (The Manganiyar Seduction), Lynette Wallworth, Michael Keegan-Dolan (Giselle), Guy Coolen (Ruhe)

EXHIBITIONS & INSTALLATIONS

Olafur Eliasson

Edge of Elsewhere
Campbelltown Arts Centre, 4A Centre for Contemporary Asian Art

Bear Witness

Invisible By Night, Evolution of Fearlessness and Duality of Light
Lynette Wallworth

FAMILY

Barely Contained
Circus Oz

Optimism
Malthouse Melbourne

The Arrival
Red Leap Theatre

AUSTRALIA DAY

AAMI Ferrython