Adelaide Festival

As the original home of the Adelaide Festival, we are proud to support this celebration of creative excellence.

Our connection with the Adelaide Festival goes back over six decades. When the first event launched in 1960, our venues hosted the majority of the program, and our Professor John Bishop was the inaugural artistic director.

The full 2024 program is now on sale, check it out here!

Adelaide Festival

In 2024, we are proud to support this remarkable celebration of creative excellence as an official partner—our sixth consecutive year of doing so. 2024 is an extra special year for this partnership as we celebrate the University of Adelaide’s 150th year with our co-presentation, Floods of Fire, in addition to hosting Festival performances at our North Terrace campus. To find out more, read on below.

Floods of Fire

Floods of Fire , a collaborative effort with the Adelaide Symphony Orchestra, The University of Adelaide and over 100 South Australian partner organisations, will premiere over two days on the Festival's closing weekend.

On the Saturday afternoon, the University of Adelaide campus will be transformed into a hub of free events featuring songs, theatre, dance, creative writing, storytelling, workshops, and artistic surprises, featuring artists from the University's Elder Conservatorium of Music – all inspired by the theme of climate change and the Create4Adelaide priority focusing on extreme weather events.

Floods of Fire concludes on Sunday night, closing out the 2024 Festival, with Floods of Fire: Our Celebration with Electric Fields and the ASO. Adelaide’s award-winning electronic music duo Electric Fields joins Adelaide Symphony Orchestra for this one-night-only program, featuring a brand-new song by Electric Fields commissioned for Floods of Fire and the world premiere of the Floods of Fire Symphony.

Adelaide Festival: Floods of Fire

Blue

An outstanding first play by rising star Thomas Weatherall, Blue dives deep into the beauty, joy and pain of growing up.

Mark has always wanted to be a writer, just like his mum. When Mark moves out of his childhood home, his mum starts writing him letters, just checking in, keeping a gentle hold on her son. Until one letter brings news nobody wants to hear.

State Theatre Company South Australia brings this powerful and moving play to the University of Adelaide’s Scott Theatre following a hit premiere season at Belvoir St Theatre.

Adelaide Festival: Blue

Daylight Express

Enjoy the Festival by day in this series of short concerts with exceptional musicians from across the country and around the world. Daylight Express celebrates the joy of brilliant music-making and provides an opportunity to encounter some of our artists in the intimacy and fine acoustic of Elder Hall.

Adelaide Festival: Daylight Express

I’ll Be Your Mirror

Laurie Anderson is working at the cutting edge of new arts technologies such as artificial intelligence (AI). Her exhibition I’ll Be Your Mirror premiered in 2023 at Moderna Museet Stockholm, featuring work generated by AI Laurie Anderson and AI Lou Reed. For Adelaide Festival, the exhibition will also feature Scroll (2021), an AI-generated version of the Bible created by Laurie Anderson and first shown at the Smithsonian Museum in Washington DC.

As well as presenting an exhibition in the 2024 Adelaide Festival at the State Library of South Australia, Laurie Anderson will join us at Bonython Hall via live stream for a conversation about art, artificial intelligence and more, on Wednesday 6 March at 11:00am.

Adelaide Festival: I'll be Your Mirror

Special Offers

Our partnership with Adelaide Festival brings many special benefits for University students, staff and alumni.

All University staff can receive 10% off tickets to the selected shows below by entering the promo word SPONSOR at checkout. 

Alumni can access to 10% off tickets to Adelaide Festival's Baleen Moodjan by clicking the link below. 

Tickets are subject to availability and transaction fees apply.

Get alumni tickets

 

Baleen Moondjan

Baleen Moondjan is a contemporary ceremony from creative visionary Stephen Page in his first major commission since leaving Bangarra Dance Theatre.  

Inspired by a story from Stephen’s grandmother from the Ngugi/Nunukul/Moondjan people of Minjerribah (Stradbroke Island), Baleen Moondjan celebrates First Nations’ relationships between baleen whales and communities’ totemic systems. The signature elements that have defined Stephen Page’s career are all present in this work with dramatic storytelling, striking choreography and haunting live music integrated into a stunningly designed world from Jacob Nash.  

 

Time Machine

Time Machine is an exhilarating work of physics and force, dance and Extreme Action that will entertain audiences of all ages. 

Extreme Action, a new art form invented by award-winning performer Elizabeth Streb, takes choreography beyond dance to defy gravity and pushes the human body to its limits. Using prototypic ‘Action Machines’ that move with and against them, her dancers become ‘Action Heroes’ who thrill, scare and delight their audiences. 

The Promise

The Promise began as a bold experiment at London’s famous new writing theatre, the Royal Court, bringing together playwrights, artists and musicians to co-create, starting with the idea that some things can only be expressed through song.

Wende, the star Dutch singer and composer, comes to the Adelaide Festival for the first time with this captivating modern song cycle, which was co-written with leading writers from the Royal Court, including EV Crowe, Debris Stevenson, Stef Smith, Somalia Nonyé Seaton and Sabrina Mahfouz. A truly collaborative work, The Promise delves into themes often overlooked in traditional songbooks, exploring women’s experiences of motherhood, identity and self-discovery.