Over twelve glorious days, Bleach* Festival will utilise the Gold Coast’s more unconventional venues as it delivers a program of incredible arts and cultural goodness across all genres including dance, theatre, contemporary music, opera, installations, circus and major public events. Bleach* is set to impress as it presents its largest event to date in 2019, with 28 unique productions and 132 performances, including four world premieres and three Queensland premieres, headlined by its centrepiece event, ‘Verdi’s Requiem’ – a blockbuster opera production featuring more than 150 musicians and singers, performed under the stars at HOTA’s outdoor stage.

You’ll also find in the packed program ‘Throttle’, a drive-in live-action movie performed by Gold Coast-based dance theatre company, The Farm. From the road to the river, ‘Water Songs’ is a musical concert series that will travel through the Gold Coast’s waterways and even into peoples backyards. Moving back from canal to coast, Townsville’s Dancenorth presents ‘Tectonic’, a free 15-minute performance staged twice a night on Burleigh Beach. Celebrating womanhood is ‘My Urrwai‘, Ghenoa Gela’s funny and moving one-woman show recounting her journey as a gay woman from the Torres Strait raised in a family of Jehovah’s Witnesses. Another female-led performance set to wow is ‘Landing’, the response of Perth artist Tanya Lee to Australia’s detention policies, conducted over 24 hours in the Gold Coast Aquatic Centre with participants trying to swim the distance from Australia to Manus Island in one continuous relay. Whoa.

Providing the laughs is ‘Terror Australis’, a grindhouse cabaret rampant with black humour, anti-burlesque, live art and Hills-Hoist-pole-dancing. From the creator of Blanc De Blanc, ‘Limbo Unhinged’ is also set to impress audiences with an energetic and raunchy show beneath the spiegeltent in Broadbeach. For lovers of live tunes, the oceanfront Bleach* at Burleigh entertainment precinct is returning, hosting free live music and entertainment across the 12 days including a concert headlined by ARIA-winning songstress Montaigne, a pub choir at the pop-up Burleigh Bleach* Club (a bar on the beach – yes please) and sets by Mama Kin Spender and Kira Puru.

Excited? We know we are – peep the full program at Bleach* Festival.

Image credits –
Image one: Bleach* Festival
Image two: Bleach* Festival
Image three:  Art Work Agency
Image four: David Collins
Image five: Thoeun Veassna