Midsumma Festival offers Melbourne audiences a diverse array of spectacular performances.

Midsumma Festival will reveal itself in all its finery again, bringing a kaleidoscope of preeminent queer arts and cultural festivities from 19 January to 10 February 2019. Celebrating LGBTQIA+ cultures since 1988, Midsumma Festival offers Melbourne audiences a diverse array of spectacular performances, exhibitions, talks and social events with leading international, national and local artists.

On the back of a hugely successful 2018 season under the direction of CEO Karen Bryant and her team, the 2019 Midsumma Festival will unite around the theme of BODY – a suite of programming for and by Victoria’s trans, gender diverse and intersex communities. Championing the notion that individuals should have sovereignty over their bodies, this initiative amplifies the cultural voices of marginalised queer voices, allowing them to set their own social and political agenda.

“This year’s Midsumma Festival represents diverse ideas that will reach out and stimulate us emotionally on many levels, and perhaps even change us in unexpected and profound ways. We are also proud to be presenting major works by an intersex artist for the first time,” said Midsumma Festival CEO Karen Bryant. “This is the opportunity to choose your own festival adventure as you navigate your way across 23 days of Midsumma.”

The heart of BODY will be pumping at Arts House across three days from 31 January to 1 February, as well as satellite events at Arts Centre Melbourne and Incinerator Gallery.

Highlights include the ever-popular Midsumma Extravaganza featuring Joel Creasey, Zoe Coombs Marr and Trevor Ashley, Truly Madly Britney, the tale of two boyfriends embarking on a pilgrimage along the holy sites of Britney Spear’s 2007 breakdown, and MDSLX by Motus, touted as a “perceptions-scrambling trip” by the New York Times.