Glass, Lepage and some Canadian ice-skaters help Jonathan Holloway blur borders in his inaugural programme.

Jonathan Holloway, the new artistic director of the Melbourne Festival, has unveiled his first programme, which runs across 18 days in October. From an outdoor spectacle that will take over the city streets to a one-on-one theatre experience, from iconoclastic ice-skaters to one of the most influential music-makers of the 20th and 21st centuries, the Festival will present 62 works and 207 performances by artists and companies from around the world.

The work will explore a vast array of forms and styles across genres from the idiosyncratic to the immersive to the ecstatic. “This year’s Festival is full of events that freely and inquisitively traverse borders in all their forms. We shine a spotlight on the ever-shifting borders between childhood and adulthood, between life and death, between dreams and reality. We puncture the creative borders between artforms, and between the arts and society. We have sought every opportunity to blur the borders between artists and audiences,” says Holloway.

^{Le Patin Libre. Photo by Alicia Clarke}

Speaking to Limelight ahead of the launch, Holloway says: “We’ve hit...