Ten Days on the Island 2021 will fill all corners of the island across three weekends in March (5–21 March) with a program that will ignite connections with communities from St Helens to Zeehan and Stanley to Sorell as well as Burnie, Launceston and Hobart.

The international arts Festival program features over 45 events with more than 450 participating Tasmanian artists and community members exploring this extraordinary island and its inhabitants.

The Minister for the Arts celebrated Ten Days on the Island 2021:

“From the challenges of lockdown, border closures and travel restrictions, Ten Days on the Island has created an international program from Tasmania. I’m delighted with the way in which our artists have responded and congratulate Ten Days on its bravery and belief in presenting an almost entirely local program. I encourage Tasmanians – wherever they live – to allow their curiosity to lead them on a journey and I look forward to sharing these marvellous arts experiences with communities around the state.”

Ten Days on the Island 2021 gives Tasmanians the opportunity to engage with arts experiences all around the island.

Opening the Festival is mapali – Dawn Gathering in Burnie, a Welcome to Country that involves dancers, musicians and communities from across the North West coast. Women Of The Island, to be presented for the first time in the North West city, created by filmmakers Rebecca Thomson and Catherine Pettman and screened alongside their new work There is no I in Island, is based on stories collected from Tasmanians during lockdown in 2020.

First Nations will be strongly represented with Hide the Dog, a new trans-Tasman creation from lutruwita/Tasmanian playwright Nathan Maynard (pakana) and writer Jamie McCaskill (Māori) that will be an experience for the whole family. Alongside this work is Sinsa Mansell’s new solo dance theatre piece, BACK.

Emmy-Award winning multi-media artist Lynette Wallworth will present three of her most powerful works – Collisions, Awavena and Evolution of Fearlessness, and we warmly welcome the return of Robyn Archer AO, the inaugural Artistic Director of Ten Days, who will perform a new work, Mother Archer’s Cabaret for Dark Times, at Hobart’s Odeon.

The 2021 program reveals a romantic island, with two new works from Marta Dusseldorp and Ben Winspear interpreting Shakespeare’s Venus & Adonis and Favel Parret’s Past the Shallows and ARIA Award-winning Tasmanian singer-songwriter Monique Brumby joining with the TSO to perform her new album Closer to the Truth in Stanley Town Hall and the Odeon Theatre. Romance of a bygone era is on show with The Marvellous Corricks, celebrating a band of family entertainers who travelled the world in the early 20th century at the Princess Theatre in Launceston.

We invite you to discover the adventure in our 2021 program, across the ten halls in our signature project If These Halls Could Talk which will take audiences from the Western wilds in Zeehan, through Rowella, Scottsdale, Liffey, Ross and St Helens, to Sorell and Glen Huon. The program ranges from the screening of Leonard’s Beautiful Pictures with a new score performed live by Dean Stevenson at the Gaiety Theatre in Zeehan and the Scottsdale Mechanics’ Institute Hall, a suite of new works by Tasdance, Where do we start? in Rowella, an exhibition of Julie Gough’s work in the Ross Town Hall, new works by Van Diemen’s Fiddles in St Helens, MADE’s Belvedere Ballroom in Sorell to chamber music in Glen Huon. Intimate Epics offers a whole weekend of events in New Norfolk. We encourage audiences to take the road less travelled and explore these stunning venues around the state.

Announcing the program Artistic Director Lindy Hume said:

“Creating the 2021 edition of Ten Days on the Island has been a festival-making journey unlike any other. We are proud to present a program that celebrates the brilliance, innovation and ingenuity of lutruwita/Tasmania’s global local artists. I thank the artists who have shown great faith and passion in creating work for our Festival and welcome audiences to celebrate with them.”

There is much more on offer and the full program can be explored at tendays.org.au from Thursday 28 January.