Jonathon Holloway: "“I always knew that I wanted to work in arts, theatre and music. As a five year-old I’d be down in the back-garden with my friends trying to direct little plays."Jonathan Holloway says he loves that moment of anticipation before the fireworks explode in the night sky. The Perth International Arts Festival (PIAF) 2012 will have fireworks for everyone. As Artistic Director, Jonathan has put together a wonderful program of music, theatre, dance, visual arts, literature and film. He spoke with Medical Forum about his artistic background and his personal vision for the festival.

“I always knew that I wanted to work in arts, theatre and music. As a five year-old I’d be down in the back-garden with my friends trying to direct little plays. It’s not just putting on a show either - it’s that whole journey from anticipation and excitement to satisfaction and reflection.”

One early formative influence reminds him that great performances do not finish when the curtain comes down.

“My father was a music journalist for the Sheffield Morning Telegraph and I’d often watch him type up his column at the newspaper office. It was a nice reminder that a performance doesn’t stop at the water’s edge. For some people it’s professional and they’ll write a review, for others they’ll remember and relive what they’ve seen and heard. A truly great performance starts long before the first sights and sounds and lives on for many years after that.”

And every performance has creativity as its lifeblood.

“A creative life is a golden bullet in every profession. I was speaking with Rio Tinto’s CEO Sam Walsh and he said to me that ‘the essence of Rio Tinto is creative people’. I’m really determined that the 60^th Perth Festival will be a creative and collective experience that will allow people to see their city in a new way,” he said, adding that Perth’s location has some real positives.

“There’s a great freedom being next to the sea - that’s why I wanted to begin the festival on the beach at Cottesloe. You lose a lot of atmosphere because of the weather in London, as you can imagine it’s just not the same when the audience is standing under umbrellas. The evenings are so balmy in Perth and there are some iconic outdoor venues for music and cinema. I’m utterly in love with Somerville and Joondalup - I wasn’t able to show films in the same way in the UK. An Arts Festival should be a time when you fall in love with a place and celebrate where you live.”

On the other hand, there are times when an umbrella might be useful!

“One of the factors in programming the festival is Perth’s summer heat – I’d love to do more street theatre and put a stage in the city at lunchtime but it’s just too hot. We’d end up spending more on doctors than anything else!”

Jonathan’s reflections on the links between philanthropy, medicine and the arts are interesting.

“There’s a general rule of thumb that for the first generation of wealthy philanthropists, medicine is usually their first choice. That’s understandable, because well-funded medical research can lead to potentially rapid breakthroughs. After that, when their wealth is more stable, many of them will view the Arts sector as equally important and we’re beginning to see more philanthropists in WA supporting the Festival.”

He said the connection between health and the art world goes much deeper.

“We live in such a complex and interwoven society that the Arts are absolutely bound up in the social, artistic and spiritual health of a nation. On another level, it’s well known that placing works of art in a clinical environment has a profound effect on the mental and physical recovery of patients.”

What of Perth International Arts Festival 2012? What is his vision?

“The artists will create moments of dreaming that I hope will allow the people of Perth to experience their city in a new way. Perth has such a wonderful duality – it’s one of the most remote capital cities on the planet yet it has connections that run deeply into Asia. WA is hugely influential as a resource state and increasingly so as a place of ideas.”

Yet his distinctly creative imagination detects one irony.

“Perth has a wonderful sense of liberation and freedom yet, in some ways, it’s a city with so many rules. It’s a very controlled place from licensing regulations to shopping hours and I think this makes the disruptive potential of the Festival even more delicious.” 

PIAF Details: www.perthfestival.com.au

Photo courtesy Francis Andrijich.