Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds and PJ Harvey to Rock Sydney Festival 2017

Three-week Long Annual Holiday Festival Features 1,021 Artists from 15 Countries

Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds is performing at Sydney Festival 2017 today and tomorrow, while PJ Harvey takes over on Sunday. Over three weeks, Sydney Festival will be bringing live entertainment to the city until 29 January.

Originally conceived by the Sydney Committee, the NSW State Government and the City of Sydney in 1977, the festival aims to attract people into the city centre during the holiday month of January.

Arts NSW, New South Wales government arts and culture policy and investment body and The Star, Sydney’s entertainment hub, are official government and principal partners of the festival.

Sydney Festival 2017 is comprised of 150 events, 73 of which are free. 454 performances will take place across 46 venues, featuring 1,021 artists from 15 countries. In total there are 16 world premieres, 9 Australian premieres and 14 Australian exclusives.

The Beach at the Cutaway at Barangaroo Reserve, a free interactive installation made of 1.1 million recyclable polyethene balls, has proven to be a festival hit with audiences far and wide coming together to experience the 60-metre wide ocean free of sand.

In a world premiere performance, Sydney Dance Company portrayed the major summer Sydney International Art Series exhibition Nude: Art from the Tate collection, for Nude Live. Extra dates have been added due to popular demand.

A UK home theatre company, Cheek by Jowl and Pushkin Theatre Moscow presented Shakespeare’s Measure for Measure in Russian over the opening weekend. Other highlights include 1967 Music in the Key of Yes, a Sydney Opera House concert to mark the 50th anniversary of Australia’s 1967 Indigenous rights referendum.

Another UK-based company, Complicite from Broadway, premiered The Encounter, an award-winning work directed by Simon McBurney.

To mark the 150th anniversary of the Canadian Confederation, Canadian artists performing include Company 605; Gabriel Dharmoo; Native Earth Performing Arts; and Cirque Eloize.