A six-week showcase of Australian arts, the Australia Festival, will bring a slice of down-under to the US city of Pittsburgh.

The Australia Festival will feature some of Australia’s leading artists in 34 performances, four exhibitions and five special events.

The festival, from 10 October to 17 November, kicks off with four shows by Circus Oz and closes with the US premiere of Chunky Move’s Glow.

The Australia Festival is presented by the Pittsburgh Cultural Trust with assistance from the Australian Government through the Australia Council for the Arts.

Australia Council chief executive officer Kathy Keele said the Pittsburgh Cultural Trust had put together an outstanding program.

‘The Australia Festival is a spectacular showcase of Australian artistic talent that will give Americans a taste of the very best of our performing and visual arts talent.

‘It is an important milestone in our ongoing investment in building Americans’ appetite for Australia’s arts and culture,’ Kathy Keele said.

Some of the festival’s highlights are:

• Circus Oz – 10 to 14 October
• Chunky Move, Glow/I Want to Dance Better at Parties – 15 to 17 November
• Lucy Guerin Inc, Aether – 3 November
• Windmill Performing Arts, The Green Sheep – 2 to 4 November
• William Barton, Kalkadoon Man – 10 November
• Workin’ Down Under, video and installation exhibition –19 October to 31 December
• New Works from Utopia, Indigenous art exhibition – 19 October to 31 December

President and chief executive officer of the Pittsburgh Cultural Trust J Kevin McMahon said that several of the performances were being seen in the US for the first time.

‘The dynamic culture of Australia boasts an array of remarkable artists who push the physicality of dance, the notions of theatre and the technological dimensions of visual arts,’ he said.

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