A work of art is only as great as the ideas and emotions it provokes, and these Artists in Conversation are the place for the lively exchanges that follow.

Every Saturday of the Festival Artistic Director Jonathan Holloway will join artists from the program for a discussion about their work and its place in the world. The conversations will be led by keen cultural observers from the editorial staff of The Saturday Paper and The Monthly—including editors Erik Jensen and Nick Feik—who will guide our tour through the flourishing artistic terrain of the 2017 program.

Saturday 07 October—“An engaged audience”

Hosted by Erik Jensen (The Saturday Paper) and Jonathan Holloway

Yan Duyvendak’s Please, Continue (Hamlet) and Sam Lo’s Game of Leaders are rooted in an element of audience participation, but in very different ways. In this talk the artists will discuss the ways audiences change their work, and their work changes audiences.

Saturday 14 October— “Across platforms”

Hosted by Martin McKenzie-Murray (The Saturday Paper) and Jonathan Holloway

In this session, choreographer Wayne McGregor (Tree of Codes) and film maker Rithy Panh (A Requiem for Cambodia: Bangsokol) discuss the cross-genre collaboration in their work.

Saturday 21 October—“A chronicle of life”

Hosted by Nick Feik (The Monthly) and Jonathan Holloway

In Germinal four performers attempt to create the entire universe from scratch, while EVER starting point is two iconic 20th Century chamber works, exploring themes of permutation, transformation and the infinite. In this session the Antoine Defoort (Germinal) and Philip Adams (EVER) will discuss their work and processes, exploring how their productions respond and interpret the world today.