Blending physical theatre with verbatim text, the production creates a searing and unapologetic look at how prejudice and bias have contributed to the violence against LGTBQI+ Australians for decades.

Our Blood Runs in the Street
13 – 16 July 2022
Metro Arts, West End, Brisbae
www.metroarts.com.au

The festival is an opportunity to showcase the world-class street dance artists right here in Brisbane and across Australia. B-boys, B-girls, poppers and lockers, and hip-hop heavy-weights are taking over Metro Arts for an unmissable 2-week line-up of performances, creative developments, battles, workshops, artist talks and activations.

Mad Dance Festival 2022
8 – 18 June 2022
Metro Arts, West End, Brisbane
www.metroarts.com.au

Over 10 days from 21 April to 1 May, 2022 more than 114 extraordinary performers will thrill, entertain and mesmerise audiences with 76 diverse performances across 6 venues in Brisbane including Brisbane Powerhouse, Metro Arts, The Tivoli, La Boite Theatre, The Ron Hurley Theatre, and Kingston Butter Factory.

The brainchild of Cluster Arts, the nations’ celebrated production house for performing arts’ Circus & Physical Theatre companies, CIRCFest22 Meanjin will showcase First Nations artists, independent companies, and Australian international superstars of the circus world.

Circus has come a long way from the sawdust big top with a ringmaster whip-cracking tired lions through hoops. Australian contemporary circus is a modern performance artform of breathtaking human athleticism, raw emotional power, pure entertainment, and sharp social commentary. CIRCFest22 Meanjin offers everything from blazing burlesque to stiletto funambulists, powerful physical theatre to radical drag, crazy clowns to breathtaking acrobats.

Directors Deb Wilks and Kate Malone who have programmed 14 Queensland premieres celebrating Brisbane’s colourful underground history as a circus city said, “CIRCFest22 Meanjin brings together a bold and ambitious program that celebrates circus in all its richly diverse forms – there is something for everyone. Our focus has been on delivering a festival where the artists are at the heart of every decision and that makes for some spectacular outcomes.”

As well as a public facing program, CIRCFest 22 Meanjin will have key industry activations, hosting a number of forums & sector development opportunities including a First Nations led sector development for circus & physical theatre. This will be done in conjunction with The Australian Performing Arts Market (APAM). It is hoped in the future, as borders reopen for touring, international buyers and presenters will attend, along with Brisbane audiences being able to experience international circus companies’ performances.

Ruth Wikler Deputy Director of Programming, TOHU from Montreal said, “The proposed virtual exchange between Montreal’s International Contemporary Circus Market (MICC) & Brisbane’s Cluster Arts will draw on the momentum built over the past two years. CIRCFest22 Meanjin’s international digital platform, followed by the MICC’s in-person market, provide an ideal opportunity for this & underpin a reciprocal touring arrangement between Canada & Australia -two global circus countries.”

Australia is recognised internationally as a leader in the artform and Brisbane is its hothouse, home to companies like Circa, Casus Circus, Briefs Factory, Hoopla Clique, ARC Circus and Chelsea McGuffin & Co who are in high demand on every international festival circuit.

CIRCFest22 Meanjin will see Brisbane come alive with death defying feats, breathtaking spectacles and something to entertain and engage everyone from the subversive and sexy for adults only to the fun and thrilling for the family.

CIRCFest22 Meanjin
21 April – 1 May 2022
Brisbane Powerhouse, Ron Hurley Theatre, The Tivoli, La Boite Theatre, Kingston Butter Factory, Metro Arts
www.circfest.live

However, one girl just like her, her niece Maddie, has just shown up on her doorstep in the middle of the night, disillusioned and far away from the same community that Leila left behind, and she’s about to make her understand just how far she’s strayed from home.

Face to Face is an intimate drama about two women navigating the complex effects of disconnecting from Country, and criticism from your community, your family, and above all, yourself.

This is one of three plays in Playlab Theatre’s 2022 season, presented in partnership with Metro Arts.

Face to Face
16 – 26 March 2022
New Benner Theatre, Metro Arts
www.metroarts.com.au

When a woman finds scars left by her ex-boyfriend of many years ago etched into her bones, she is compelled to unpack her past and discover how he got under her skin.

Based on the true story of two teenagers’ romance as it blossoms then warps in the heat of bustling Singapore, Blue Bones is a one-woman show told with incredible honesty by Merlynn Tong. Combining multiple characters, Kung Fu and arcade games; Blue Bones is a whirlwind of love and naivety, violence and courage, with the wreckage felt across the years.

Against the backdrop of Singapore with all its beauty, rigidity and insistent chaos, Blue Bones will enchant and disturb, and perhaps even wake the stories dormant in your bones.

Blue Bones is presented in partnership with Metro Arts at the New Benner Theatre, Metro Arts.

Blue Bones
2 – 12 February 2022
New Benner Theatre, Metro Arts
www.metroarts.com.au

The three-day program features a dazzling program of celebrated and emerging talent, packed with bespoke events, unique collaborations and bold new works.

Festival Curator and award-winning cellist Danielle Bentley said, “I’m so excited to announce the fourth edition of Restrung Festival has found its home at the incredible new Metro Arts venue this October.”

“For the uninitiated, this is an experience for the savvy listener and the curious at heart. The 2021 festival will be a roller coaster ride of string-centric art music and immersive installations.”

Restrung Festival explores the spaces within and between musical and artistic genres of classical, electronica, folk, jazz, rock, pop, minimalism and more. These performances cannot be put into a box or bound by a single word – the bill has been curated specifically to challenge people’s perceptions.

The always-surprising and ever-evolving Topology promise a cathartic release with their new work Killing Music, while the newly formed supergroup Hope’s Beautiful Symphony offer a bracing meditation in sound.

Other highlights include experimental-sound stalwarts Dots+Loops, renowned ensemble Bentley String Quintet performing GANGgajang’s Robbie James’ new work Dreaming In The Sand, and a double-bill performance by electronic voyagers Tess King and Voltfruit.

On Saturday evening, Metro Arts’ outdoor Factory Lane will come alive with free pop-up performance sincluding Zac Sacrewski, Sallianna Seven and Bentley & Scott, alongside theatre performances by the legendary David Bentley Trio joined by virtuoso violinist Shenzo Gregorio, and the Closing Night Party with Estampa serving an unbridled journey from a 1930ʼs Parisian jazz club to the streets of São Paulo.

In addition to genre-bending performances, audiences can immerse themselves in installations created by Pat Hoffie, Leah Barclay and more.

Expect joyous explorations, spontaneous art making, and a musical smorgasbord of the new, the raw and the beautiful.

Restrung Festival
14 – 16 October, 2021
Metro Arts, 97 Boundary Street, West End
www.metroarts.com.au

From surfing trains to taming horses to wandering the desert, this work unpacks your ability to have a complete, genuine, and meaningful experience as an imagined self.

Saddle up and enter the world of Cowboy for a poignantly funny yet sensitive ride.

Cowboy
4 – 6 September 2020
Metro Arts, West End
www.brisbanefestival.com.au

Passers-by become audience as they bear witness to gentle giants sharing an invitation to pause, watch and listen. Towering above passers-by, children peer, play and pace, asking audiences the question; do you notice us now?

Created in collaboration with children through a series of exploratory workshops, Giants Among Us is a reflection on Article 13 of the UN Convention on the rights of the Child, which states that “the child shall have the right to freedom of expression; this right shall include freedom to seek, receive and impart information and ideas of all kinds”.

Giants Among Us
1 – 15 February 2020
Carriageway & Out-the-back, Metro Arts
www.metroarts.com.au

Now we turn the tables on opera and musicale! With the stunning voices of Irena Lysiuk and Henry Kafoa, music’s greatest genre rivals are entwined in their own romantic comedy Forbidden Romance: A love cabaret! Drama and hilarity will ensue!

Join Brisbane City Opera as we explore the turmoils and tantrums of this forbidden love through the all-time favourites of opera and the modern musicals.

Forbidden Romance: A Love Cabaret
5 – 8 February 2020
Epson Lumen Room – Metro Arts, Brisbane
www.metroarts.com.au

Two performers. Dozens of vintage leotards. A million sequins.

Who were the women who wore these leotards? What were their secrets? And how many interpretive dance routines will there be?

Leotards reveal the truth of the body, underneath the most absurd layers of adornment. In LEOTARD, Boyle and Waters reveal the truths of these characters under their absurd adornment of mental sequins. Leotard is a timely exploration of the performance of womanhood via lashings of Lycra.

Boyle and Waters in Leotard
4 – 8 February 2020
Sue Benner Theater, Metro Arts
www.metroarts.com.au