Bleach festival turns up the volume

If there is one city in Australia that knows how to party, it’s the Gold Coast. And as the warmer months approach, the din of celebration rises. Suddenly, you feel like dancing. Enter: Bleach festival. The Gold Coast’s much-loved arts and culture festival returns from 1-11 October. With a new artistic director, Felix Preval, at the helm, Bleach will provide 11 days of Australian and international art and performance at HOTA, the Home of the Arts. “It’s a whole new chapter for Bleach and the festival will look and feel quite new this year,” Preval says. “We’ve moved the festival dates to October to harness the warmth and energy of springtime on the Gold Coast, allowing the festival to spill out of the venues and across the HOTA precinct.” Don’t miss a beat Artist Morag Myerscough. With its neon heart ablaze, the festival will open with Beacon, an installation created by the UK artist Morag Myerscough and led by the participatory arts experience group Everybody Now! This impossible-to-miss installation, featuring hundreds of Gold Coasters, promises to be a riot of colour, pattern, movement, poem and song. As the sun sets, the lights will come up, before a 100-strong community choir raises the energy to fever pitch. And things will be only just kicking off. The all-ages and free outdoor stage concert series will include an astounding double bill. The internationally acclaimed Lady Blackbird will bring the diva-worthy sounds of neo-soul and jazz, while Australia’s own Eurovision icons Electric Fields will provide the power and elation of traditional culture meeting electronic music. Pack a picnic for this one and settle in for a heady night of soul and storytelling. If you need a guarantee that this will be a good-vibes-only kind of festival, the New Zealand stadium favourites Six60 will be bringing their genre-blurring fusion of pop, reggae and soul into the mix. Enough said. For something altogether more unruly, keep an eye out for Ocker, a world premiere from the First Nations company Na Djinang Circus. Expect risky acrobatics, strange encounters and chaotic playfulness. There is more to get the blood pumping. The Butterfly Who Flew Into the Rave will push three dancers through a non-stop hour of techno-thumping endurance, capturing raving as an act of communal joy and sweat. In Cuddle, contemporary dance takes on the unlikely influences of martial arts and figure skating; gather around as if for a wrestling match gone totally surreal. Shundori, by Naina Sen. For a change of pace, step inside Naina Sen’s Shundori, an immersive video installation that was more than five years in the making, featuring more than 500 women across India and the Indian diaspora in Australia. Come for the party, stay for the feast Wilderness, a pop-up dining and art experience, will take over the Exhibitionist Bar, reimagining traditional Balkan street food through the lens of high art in response to the installation Kaleidoscope Skies, by Claudio Kirac. Order a Wilderness spritz of fruit brandy, mountain herbs and butterfly pea flower. That’s right: high art. Kaleidoscope Skies, by Claudio Kirac. With Hota as its primary hub, Bleach brings art out into the Gold Coast’s sunshine and balmy nights. “We’d love the Gold Coast and our visiting friends to dive in – come early, and stay late!” says Preval, pointing to a program that’s intentionally staggered from midday to midnight, with most events free. Book now. Join the party. Bleach festival runs from 1-11 October. Register now so you don’t miss out.