Next Wave Festival - 1994 - 1985 Next Wave Festival

1985 Next Wave Festival

Whilst the festival is staged every two years, non-festival years see special events. In 1993 Next Wave produced South East, a collaboration of community workers, teachers, young people, and established and emerging artists described as a "cabaret for the nineties" with the spotlight on fusions of contemporary and traditional south-east Asian art forms. Come 1994, the festival played host to events and programs attracting audiences of 80,000 people. In the Art and Technology program, digital artists were attracted from the USA, Japan, Germany and Spain. At a national level, the 7th National Youth Arts Conference was planned to coincide with Next Wave - drawing together delegates from across the country to discuss the future practice and direction of youth arts.

1992 saw Zane Trow enter the role of Artistic Director and steer the festival in new directions. The new program area Art & Technology supported artistic endeavors that explored emerging technologies. BYTEBEAT gave witness to nine local 'techno pop bands' playing to 1000 revellers in the Great Hall of the NGV. Berni Janssen coordinated the growing Writers Programme, with a video documentary of the program made by secondary school students. Behind the scenes, radio trainees took over 3RRR, and RMIT Media Studies students produced reviewing programs for 3JJJ.

In 1990 for the third time Andrew Bleby held the helm of Festival Director, launching both the festival and young artists well into the '90s. As if psychically pre-empting one of the new decade's iconic themes, the 1990 Next Wave Festival opened with 'Planet Earth Boogie' - drawing attention to environmental and indigenous issues through the creative energy of thousands of teenagers and youth. As another first, the festival included a significant program for young writers and readers, a fitting innovation for International Literacy Year.

With the second festival lined up to coincide with Australia's bicentenary in '88, Victorians endured a wait of three years for the next installment of what was already established as the state's most significant arts event. In that time the festival developed in size and scope, with more new works and proportionally more young people as performers, writers, directors, musicians and visual artists. Now a festival institution, the opening saw an invasion of the Melbourne City Square, with a quintessentially '80s titled (6000-people-strong) party, 'The Next Wave Boogie'.

Before the Melbourne Festival was launched off the back of Spoleto, 1985 ushered in the state's major arts festival. In the year of Victoria's 150th Anniversary and International Youth Year, Next Wave was as timely as it was urgent as an expression of the state's emerging youth arts. Under direction from Andrew Bleby, the first festival set precedents to be built on in years to come: 80 per cent of events involved young artists, 90 per cent were Australian, and there were 13 regional festivals across Victoria.