Proximity Festival is the first one-on-one intimate performance platform of its kind in Australia. Co-founded in 2011 by James Berlyn, Sarah Rowbottam and Kelli Mccluskey, Proximity Festival provides critical peer support, encouraging artists from all disciplines to experiment with new modes of practice in the creation of participatory art.
As an artist-led initiative, it provides independent artists with a chance to take creative risks, push their practice and make cost effective, portable, small-scale work that can be packed in a suitcase and toured. Proximity aims to provide audiences with transformative experiences that place them at the centre of the work, activating them to rethink what performance can be.

Each year Proximity Festival takes over a venue in its entirety and invite emerging, mid-career and established practitioners from all disciplines to re-purpose the building and seek out alternative uses for hidden, forgotten or negative spaces. Twelve artists and/or groups are curated into the program and participate in a two-week mentored, fee-free development LAB prior to the performance season.
Proximity Festival runs for two weeks and involves a curated season of intimate one-on-one performances, a Symposium of national speakers, a public masterclass and an opening event of performances by local artists. Audiences can select a program of four performances lasting 60 minutes or experience a marathon of all twelve performances around three hours.

For more information on Proximity Festival visit www.proximityfestival.com

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