Ten Days down to three

AFTER two successful weekends in Tasmania’s North-West and North-East, Ten Days on the Island will head south this week for its grand finale.

From tomorrow until Sunday, Hobart will host a theatre premiere, two Tasmanian orchestras, global musicians, award-winning filmmakers, some of Australia’s finest contemporary dancers, and a host of international visual artists.

Artistic director Lindy Hume visited The Springs on kunanyi/Mt Wellington yesterday, which will be the location for a piece titled

Bushland.

“Participants put on a headset, lie on the forest floor, and a mesmeric voice guides them through their body’s decomposition post-death, into the forest floor,” Ms Hume said.

“It sounds gruesome, but it’s very peaceful.”

Ms Hume said she was also looking forward to the music pieces Compassion at Federation Concert Hall and

Breathtaking at St David’s Cathedral, the premiere of theatre performance The

Mares at the Peacock Theatre, and dance piece Dust at the Don Bosco Creative Arts Centre. For the first time, the biennial festival has been spread across three weekends this year, instead of running across ten consecutive days, and Ms Hume hailed the initiative a “fantastic” success.

“People feel they can really make a weekend of it, wherever they are,” she said.