Perth Festival kicks off next month with one of the 66-year-old event’s most ambitious programs yet. Incoming Perth-born artistic director Iain Grandage has centred his maiden program on the theme Karla, a Noongar word meaning “fire”, with a renewed focus on First Nations productions.

The festival opens on February 7, with eight of its 24 days dedicated to Indigenous-only programming, including a landmark Noongar language adaptation of Shakespeare’s Macbeth, a mixed-genre celebration of the music …

Last year on January 25, 4000 people gathered at Barangaroo from dusk until dawn the following day to reflect on what life was like before the First Fleet landed on these shores on January 26 – now officially commemorated as Australia Day. Sydney Festival director Wesley Enoch invited Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians alike to consider our country’s Aboriginal heritage, as well as the impact of colonial institutions and multicultural migration. It wasn’t a protest or …