The George Town Festival starts with a bang on the last weekend of July and continues with a month of cutting-edge arts experiences celebrating Penang’s status as a global cultural hub Turning a seductive seven this year, the George Town Festival is once again set to dazzle audiences with scintillating performances and exhibitions around and about city.

The festival attracts an international audience – but festival director Joe Sidek is keen also to draw the local audiences in. “Three quarters of our events are free this year which makes them accessible to everyone,” he says. “I see the arts as crucial in feeding people and the George Town Festival creates the most amazing public energy which builds year on year.

And we don’t neglect our friends over the water either as the Butterworth Fringe Festival, which will take place over the weekend of 13 and 14 August, has a very vibrant programme.”

Some of the opening weekend highlights are across a range of arts – installation, live music, dance, theatre from Australia and around Southeast Asia in a mega two-day event to be held at the Esplanade.

Named the A+SEAN Showcase, the Esplanade will play host to the Snuff Puppets from Australia gigantic hand-made installations, which combine the elements of puppetry, live music, visual and physical theatre.

Far larger than life, they are definitely the stuff of dreams or perhaps nightmares. The company refers to its ‘roaming acts’ as ‘interventions’ as Snuff Puppets specialise in creating mayhem in the streets, playing with traffic and shoppers.

For those who enjoy a live performance or two, some of the most popular bands from both Malaysia and around the region will be performing. These include Nidji, whose singles have been used as Manchester United’s anthem in 2013, as well as the background score in the Southeast Asian promo for the highly popular television series Heroes.

Also performing will be Malaysian favourites OAG and Ocean of Fire, as well as singers Dasha Logan and Bihzhu.

As a tribute to indigenous music from the region, Svara Bhumi will play at the Dewan Sri Penang on the opening night of the festival. The concert will feature Australia’s leading aboriginal band ‘The Black Arm Band’, Ria Hall from New Zealand, and others from Indonesia and Malaysia.

It is doubtful that the Esplanade will have ever seen anything like the Strandbeest before. Since 1990, Dutch artist Theo Jansen has been creating these extraordinary giant skeletons, PVC installations that move dreamily across a landscape, driven by wind alone. He will build Penang’s very own Strandbeest – for the first time in Asia – and it will be launched on the opening weekend.

There will also be plenty of action on the side with a chance to indulge in some creative retail therapy at a lifestyle market featuring the best of art, books, and fashion from around the region, as well as delicious food in mobile stalls.

Other festival highlights include a specially commissioned show – Pearl of the Eastern & Oriental – by LimYu Beng and Tan Kheng Hua (the team that brought 2 Houses in GTF 2014). This will take place at the E&O Hotel. There will be the Asian premiere of Triptyque by Les 7 Doigts de la Main – which is a breathtaking fusion of dance and circus.

Other acts include – Kaash by Akram Khan Company, Missing by UK’s Gecko Theatre, and All that Fall, a black comedy, and a murder mystery. Chekara comes from Andalusia and celebrates the music, dance, and the passion of flamenco.

Don’t miss Moved by Padi, by Chekara choreographer and dancer Aida Redza. It’s an installation that will see Asia’s staple food, rice, grown in a George Town street as part of a community celebration honouring the semangat (or spirit) of paddy.

The Game of Drones draws on the famous wall-based wire art that chronicles the history of George Town. Taking this idea to the next level, French sculptor Matthieu Robert-Ortis creates two sculptures in one just using simple metallic wire.

They look like fluid line drawings in 3D and appear to morph into different shapes depending on the angle you look at them.

One of his most popular works is the Elephant x Giraffe sculpture, in which a pair of giraffes appear to morph into a giant tusker as the line of sight changes. A video of this artwork has garnered over 84 million views on Facebook.

Robert-Ortis will be showcasing one of his unique two-in-one sculptures at George Town Festival this year – an eagle that morphs into a drone – hence Game of Drones.

Joining the festival will be the committee members of FACP (Federation for Asian Cultural Promotion) from all over Asia. FACP holds an annual conference hosted by a different Asian city each year and Penang was selected to host the 34th Annual Conference. The conference aims to provide a platform for arts and artist managers, cultural entrepreneurs, and leaders so as to facilitate international touring and discussion of issues that the art industry faces.

Joe Sidek is exceedingly grateful to George Town Festival’s sponsors but he also stresses the importance of people donating small sums of money from the heart. The festival has always worked on giving back to the community and one such initiative has been to provide community tickets and organise fund-raising projects.

This year, these efforts will be formalised with the Arts For Humanity project whose aim is to crowdfund more community tickets as well as provide educational workshops and artistic grants. Together with this project, there will be a talk titled Stories, Humanity and What About The Arts? One of the international speakers will include Larry Harvey from the legendary Burning Man Festival, now thirty years old.

From its humble beginnings on a San Francisco beach to the tented city created annually in Nevada Desert, Burning Man radically re-defines what “festival” means. It’s an experiment in community and art, where festival-goers, or burners, participate in the events rather than just watching them. It often leads to significant personal transformation. One person who’s sure to be at Larry Harvey’s talk taking notes for next year’s George Town Festival, which is already in its early planning stages, will be Joe Sidek.

Be a part of the George Town Festival

The festival’s programme will run from 29 July to 28 August 2016. For more information on the festival, as well as ticket purchases, visit georgetownfestival.com. If you would like to donate US$1, or approximately RM4, to the crowdfunding project Arts for Humanity please click on the site’s donate button.