Festival Background

Under current Artistic Director, Lindy Hume four themes - Journey (2004), Transcendence and Transformation (2005), Earthly Pleasure (2006) and The Human Family (2007) - give Perth International Arts Festival artists and audiences a shared portal through which to celebrate different, but interrelated, aspects of the human condition; simply being alive - in this city, in this country, in the world. The Festival’s programmes embrace the entire community, not only those who identify as art-lovers, bringing Art into everyday life.

Founded in 1953 by The University of Western Australia, the Perth International Arts Festival is the oldest international arts festival in Australia and Western Australia’s premier cultural event. For over 50 years the Festival has welcomed to Perth some of the world’s greatest living artists.

The extraordinary programming range and physical reach of the Perth International Arts Festival connects with over 300,000 people each year who attend theatre, dance, music, film, visual arts and literature events ranging from the Great Southern to the Pilbara. No single art genre, concert, performance or exhibition series can cover the breadth of intellectual and imaginative territory as the Festival, nor reach as broadly into the community. For two generations of locals, summer in Perth without the Festival is simply unimaginable.

The Festival has grown in the past 54 years to become a Festival of major international standing with an enviable worldwide reputation in the arts for its innovative development, presentation of new works and provision of quality arts. The Festival is committed to placing local work of excellence in an international context; to raising the national profile of the arts; to being informed by the cultural and environmental context of Western Australia; to offering a diverse international programme and encouraging partnerships that offer lasting benefits.