Sydney Festival cancels show, makes program changes following Bondi attack
The program for this year’s event has been modified in the wake of the shooting attack last month.
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Sydney Festival has cancelled a performance by physical theatre company Legs on the Wall that was due to take place at Bondi Pavilion later this month following the attack on a Hanukkah celebration at Bondi Beach that left 15 people dead.
Organisers have also modified parts of the program, in particular Live on Hickson Road, an outdoor performance that will replicate the filming of an action movie. Effects, including gunshots and emergency services sirens, will be toned down or removed in the piece from Argentinian collective El Pampero Cine.
Waverider, seen here in a publicity shot before the Bondi shootings, will now not go ahead. Credit:
“Our priority is unequivocally the wellbeing of our community and ensuring that Bondi Pavilion remains a dedicated place of support and sanctuary for those who need it most, and we look forward to presenting this work next year,” said festival director Kris Nelson.
Called Waverider, the Legs on the Wall performance is a family-friendly homage to surf culture and beach life.
“It’s fun, it’s frivolous, it’s literally bouncy with a massive, bouncy, inflatable wave,” said Nelson. “We just felt there’s another moment for us to tell that story at Bondi Pavilion, and we can do it next year. Members of our team feel an incredible amount of solidarity with the Jewish community across Sydney.”
The El Pampero Cine team approached Nelson after the Bondi tragedy to work out how to continue their performance in a sensitive way.
“They came to us proactively to say ‘I think we should change some of the sound effects’,” he said. “[They said] ‘we want to work with the dancers to create a bit of a different effect so we can still do this piece without causing undue alarm’.”
Some parts of Live on Hickson Road will be toned down. Credit:
In the immediate aftermath of the tragedy, some commentators questioned whether a performance by British actor and activist Khalid Abdalla, a vocal supporter of Palestinian rights, should go ahead.
Nowhere is described as “an act of anti-biography that asks how we got here and how we find agency amidst the mazes of history”.
