After much anticipation, the full line-up of Bleach* Festival 2017 has been announced. The progressive festival, which has been cemented as one of the most distinctive events on the city’s arts calendar, will this year explore the relationship between sport and art, and how they share strength, passion, power, risk, grace, endurance and beauty. The program is set to be highly physical and visual, featuring big names alongside up-and-coming artists and a mix of free and ticketed events. Music, circus, theatre, dance, cabaret, installations and spectacle will bring to life more than 20 spectacular public spaces and venues from beautiful beaches to a community town hall, a Spiegeltent, a locker room and a skate park.

Saltwater Sessions on the Coolangatta foreshore will kick off the opening weekend, featuring Dope Lemon (Angus Stone), Ash Grunwald, Tia Gostelow and Emily Wurramara. The festival will also feature the world premiere of Churaki Hill by artist Craig Walsh, as well as works by visual artist Amanda Parer, who will light up Varsity Lakes with amazing giant illuminated humanoid figures.The world premiere of Frank Enstein by dance company The Farm and West Australia’s Co3 will electrify kids and grown ups with magic, dance and comedy at The Arts Centre Gold Coast. Meanwhile The Forwards, a theatre work about footy written by Zeal Theatre and performed by Shock Therapy Productions, will play the first weekend at Griffith University and the second in the Broadbeach Cats AFL Club’s locker room. The ocean will provide the backdrop for Inherit the Wind, where string orchestra DeepBlue and master percussionist Michael Askill will perform the world premiere of Song to the Earth. And, for the very first time a Spiegeltent will open its ornate doors in Broadbeach when Strut and Fret’s international hit burlesque show Blanc de Blanc takes residence for a massive 23 performances … we’re pumped for this one!

On the second weekend, the epic Fun Run by Melbourne participatory arts and dance company All The Queens Men, will see artist Tristan Meecham run 42 kilometres on a treadmill as homage to the legend of Pheidippides, who ran to Athens to announce the Persians’ defeat in the battle of Marathon (and dropped dead on arrival). Snake Sessions will be a spontaneous performance at Pizzey Park, featuring professional skaters, BMX riders, dancers and parkourists, alongside local skate park users who’ve been recruited for the week, all set to live drumming and brought together by Sydney’s Branch Nebula. Surf Safari Feast will be a celebration of surf music in Palm Beach, while The Beauty Pageant will take over the historic Mudgeeraba Hall. Wired at Paradise Point will be a lively day of alfresco contemporary circus and music, a world premiere featuring some of Australia and the world’s leading high-wire artists including Kane Petersen and Jessica McCrindle.

The third and final weekend of Bleach* Festival 2017 will see a new outdoor trampoline and parkour spectacle by Sydney’s internationally renowned aerial theatre company Legs On The Wall called Highly Sprung. A closing night concert will feature the Australian debut of the sensational Peruvian Salsa Dura orchestra Sabor y Control. Three words – we cannot wait!