WHEN THE MELBOURNE Festival, arguably the most high-profile arts festival in Australia and the Pacific Rim, kicks off on October 17, pundits are in for a big event that goes out of its way to be small and even eccentric.
The 17-day culture glut will not feature the pomp and pageantry usually associated with large festivals. There are no mighty orchestras or grand operas. Theatre and dance are richly innovative, but not drawn from the world's A-list. And to top it all off, the visual arts component is small and decidedly esoteric.
At her Flinders Street office, a literal stone's throw from Melbourne's spectacular new city arts complex, Federation Square, artistic director Robyn Archer puts things into perspective.
'What we're seeing everywhere today is dramas being played out in small spaces, at a time of enormous anxiety,' she says. 'The prospect of going to war [with Iraq] and possibly losing husbands, lovers, brothers, sons, is a huge concern for many of us.'
With about 60 performing and visual arts offerings, including 18 world or Australian premieres (with Asia contributing several of them), the festival is certainly not small in scope but will nonetheless be intimate on matters close to the heart.
That said, the line-up this season is definitely off the beaten track. Blazing passions will be the order of the night when the 2002 Melbourne Festival opens at the city's State Theatre with Fire, Fire Burning Bright. Presented by an all-indigenous cast, this extraordinary work, which blends traditional song and dance, historical footage, tableaux and masks, weaves the true harrowing story of the massacre of two Aboriginal tribes from the Kimberley region of Western Australia in the early 1900s. Fire should pack a powerful punch because it sets the tone of the festival at the start: a look at ethnic violence at a time when tolerance is desperately needed.