There’s a lot riding on Salamander, the centrepiece of this year’s Brisbane festival. More than three years in the making, the 80-minute cross-genre site-specific world premiere is perhaps the most ambitious – and expensive – work ever produced by the festival. Driven by internationally renowned British artists Maxine Doyle and Es Devlin, Salamander’s concept, scale and scope are breathtakingly next-level.
Its climatic themes though are universal, as is the production’s intended reach – backed by an extended 21-performance season running the entire festival. Artistic director Louise Bezzina is banking on word-of-mouth to inspire new arts audiences to “take a risk” by trying something different. For those people, Salamander may well be outside their comfort zone – but regardless of what they make of it, there is no doubt Salamander is an “experience”. And an epic one. Afterwards, the thought that kept coursing through my mind was “Go big, or go home”.
