Rising 2025 Program Reveal: Suki Waterhouse, Mount Kimbie and More

You couldn’t have chosen a more difficult time than Covid to launch, and re-launch, and re-launch a festival. But that was the reality for winter arts festival Rising, which now seems hard-wired for adaptability. Every year co-artistic directors Hannah Fox and Gideon Obarzanek learn from the past, doubling down on what worked practically, what resonated artistically and striving to create a version of the festival Melburnians will love and continue to love. Dive into this year’s program and you’ll see what we mean.

The returns

In its short history, Rising has made a habit of consistently bringing back certain venues, themes, media and artists, giving the festival a distinct personality and pleasing continuity, even if every year is radically different.

The Melbourne Art Trams project takes to the streets once again, this time with a tribute to First Peoples women. Selected by a curatorium of Victorian First Peoples curators, the 2025 edition showcases a powerful collection of artworks drawn from private collections and state and regional galleries. Convened by Rising senior curator Kimberley Moulton (Yorta Yorta), curators include Belinda Briggs (Yorta Yorta, Wamba Wamba, Wurundjeri and Ngiyampaa), Gail Harradine (Wotjobaluk, Djubagalk, Jadawadjali), Caine Muir (Yorta Yorta, Wati Wati and Ngarrindjeri), and Stacie Piper (Wurundjeri, Dja Dja Wurrung and Ngurai Illum-Wurrung).

Night Trade, which debuted in 2023, is the festival’s always-on party – this time lighting up the Capitol Arcade with cocktails, karaoke sessions run by Mummy’s Plastic (also returning from last year), unsettling latex cartoon characters created by Japanese artist Saeborg (“cyborg”) and underground African music curated by Nyege Nyege, a festival based in Uganda. Distinct from Night Trade, but attached to it and also free, is intangible #form, a laser show by Japanese artist and TeamLAB alum Shohei Fujimoto. He’s data-mapped the Capitol Theatre to create an immersive field of red beams that respond to movement.

“Festival-within-a-festival” Day Tripper is back for its second year, commanding Melbourne Town Hall, Max Watts and Night Trade’s soundsystems over the King’s Birthday Weekend with an eclectic, globe-spanning program taking in electronica, dancehall, hardcore, post-punk and more courtesy of Mount Kimbie (DJ set), DIIV, Annie and the Caldwells, Bktherula, RippleEffect, Tikiman & Richard Akingbehin, Bad Vacation and Antenna.

Also part of Day Tripper is a special event celebrating veteran label Chapter Music, now 33 years old. The label has announced it’s winding down contemporary music releases to focus on “occasional re-issues”. It’s taking over Max Watts for an End of an Era party soundtracked by Npcede, Ryan Davis, LUGs, Tenniscoats, Andras & Oscar, Sidney Phillips and Gregor. Plus, a special farewell performance from co-label head and Australian music icon Guy Blackman.

Dance company Stephanie Lake, a regular at Rising, is also back this year. The group will present The Chronicles, “a sweeping meditation on time, change, and collective resilience” that sees 12 dancers moving to music by long-time collaborator Robin Fox, plus live vocals from baritone Oliver Mann and The Yarra Voices children’s choir. Another dance production, The Act is a collaboration between dancer-choreographer Amrita Hepi and sex work activist Tilly Lawless, and explores the intersection of dance and sex work.

One of the most intriguing and talked-about pieces of Rising 2021 was Flow State, which saw participants climbing into baths on Herring Island to gaze at the stars and listen to submerged audioscapes. Sound artist Sara Rettallick, who was one of two people behind that original installation, has returned with Saturate, to turn the historic Melbourne City Baths into a resonant, underwater concert hall. Pull on your swimmers.

Finally, there’s one thing coming back almost unchanged, and that’s Shouse’s Communitas, originally held in St Paul’s Cathedral. Last year the participatory piece had about 1000 people singing the duo’s mega-hit Love Tonight together. This time round Melbourne Town Hall will allow even more voices to join the choir.

The debutantes

Rising has opened up Flinders Street Station Ballroom before, but never for anything as gloriously down-to-earth and silly as Swingers: The Art of Mini Golf, a playable art show with nine holes designed by female artists. Japan’s Saeborg is back with more latex goons, alongside American filmmaker Miranda July, Australia’s own Anangu culture x pop-culture princess Kaylene Whiskey, and more.

But if Swingers is the most, well, popular program item Rising has ever announced, it’s nothing compared to Suki Waterhouse. The model and actor is headlining the music contingent, with a Melbourne exclusive show at the Athenaeum and another at PICA, Rising’s new music hub in Port Melbourne. Other acts pencilled in for the hub include indie darlings Japanese Breakfast and legendary rap duo Black Star (Talib Kweli and Yasiin Bey).

Back in the CBD, the Forum, the Athenaeum, Max Watts, Hamer Hall and Melbourne Town Hall will get the usual workout as Rising continues to flex its considerable music muscle.

New Rampant Optimism Roadshow at the Athaneum is a “raw, shoot-from-the-hip” folk show conceived by Ned Collette, Leah Senior and Michael Beach. So far, so interesting. But it gets really unmissable when you consider their chosen collaborators: Mick Turner of Dirty Three for guitar and Chris Abrahams of The Necks for piano, plus Uzi and Live Skull’s Thalia Zedek flying out from the US. Truly one of a kind.

At Max Watts, catch London grime duo Pete & Bas, two blokes in their seventies who put their first music online in 2018 and have watched the appreciation roll in ever since, including from likes of Dizzee Rascal and Jaykae.

At Hamer Hall, vocalist Beth Gibbons (Portishead) will perform Lives Outgrown, her long-awaited solo debut. The Brit has barely released in the last 20 years, lending her voice to just two songs: one with Kendrick Lamar and another with MF Doom, so this is a rare treat in the truest sense.

Over at Melbourne Town Hall, Aotearoa’s Marlon Williams will debut his Māori-language album Te Whare Tīwekaweka over two nights, with help from The Yarra Benders and Kapa Haka group. Written over five years, the work blends Williams’ buttery voice and traditional Māori rhythms with country, bluegrass and pop tropes.

And very close by, at Fed Square, lose yourself at Blockbuster, an extended celebration of South Asian culture, featuring visual art, street food and hands-on experiences during the day, and Pakistani R’n’B, Punjabi rap, Sufi melodies and more.

If it all sounds a bit overwhelming, just make a beeline for QV and South Korean artist Woopsyang’s internationally acclaimed Space Out Competition. Originally created in 2014 to deal with burnout, it challenges participants to sit still for 90 minutes with no distractions or cop-outs. No sleeping, no talking, no laughing. In other words, literally compete to see who’s the best at doing nothing. Rising’s artistic directors would surely come in last.

Tickets go on sale Monday March 17.

Broadsheet is a proud media partner of Rising, which runs from June 4–15, 2025.

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