Melbourne's RISING festival closed on June 8 after thirteen nights and more than 100 events spanning music, dance, and theatre, with 376 artists participating and seven world premieres presented across the city's landmark venues.
The 2026 edition was one of the largest in the festival's history. Music headliners included Brooklyn hip-hop icon Lil' Kim, British poet-musician Kae Tempest alongside Saul Williams, spiritual jazz pioneer Kahlil El'Zabar, and Jamaican reggae group The Congos.
The Australian Dance Biennale, presented by RISING every two years, was at the heart of the program. The Royal Family Dance Crew staged an arena-sized show at Hamer Hall with a free public follow-up performance at Federation Square.
One of the festival's more talked-about moments was the reopening of the historic Flinders Street Ballroom as part of an event called 'The Land of 1,000 Dances,' offering public classes across jazz, jive, Bollywood, and ballet. The space had been largely closed to the public for years.
On June 6, the festival-within-a-festival Day Tripper took over Max Watt's and Melbourne Town Hall in a multi-room marathon that continued into the early morning.
Florentina Holzinger's A Year Without Summer was widely cited in post-festival coverage as a standout theatre work, described by one reviewer as 'a riotous musical-comedy cutting into medical science and mortality.' The work received an Australian premiere.
RISING is supported by Creative Victoria. The 2027 dates have not yet been announced.
