The festival, which calls itself "the South Island’s premier arts event", starts towards the end of March — hot on the heels of this year’s Dunedin Fringe Festival.
The full programme was officially released at Errick’s yesterday and features nearly 40 shows.
It promises a mix of circus, comedy, theatre, opera, music, dance and visual arts, including shows from Canada, the United Kingdom and Austria.
The festival usually runs as a biennial event, last running in late 2022, but due to disruptions with the Covid-19 pandemic was postponed by about six months.
"It has been a longer gap between drinks than normal, but we're very excited," Festival director Charlie Unwin said.
The role of an arts festival was to bring arts experiences to a community that did not normally have access to them, Mr Unwin said.
They could fly in artists from around the world, and their shows tended to be on a larger scale.
He had fully curated this year’s programme himself, which involved being aware of worldwide, national and local trends.
"I've gone off and seen shows and put together a festival of hits.
"You won't be disappointed, and there is something definitely in there for everybody and an arts experience is like no other experience."
This year’s lineup included Animal — a Canadian circus experience putting a spin on rural cliches, such as a tractor doing wheelies and giant cowbell juggling — and the premiere of Commentary Of Dreaming by Dunedin-born dancer and choreographer Jeremy Beck.
A celebration of dance three years in the making, it assembles a team including six of the country’s finest contemporary dancers and 15 "non-dance-trained friends" from Dunedin.
Some international shows were not going to travel all the way to Dunedin without being part of a festival, which took the risk on their behalf, Mr Unwin said.
He "fell in love" with An Evening Without Kate Bush — a UK cabaret celebrating the aforementioned pop icon — which he saw in Adelaide last year, and the only way to secure the show in the festival had been to put together an entire New Zealand tour to make it worthwhile for the performer to travel this far.
It was really important to open ourselves up to stories from different cultures, perspectives and from around the world "rather than just listening to our own the whole time," he said.
For the arts community, it was also good to be able to see what else was happening out there and to be inspired.
The 2025 Dunedin Arts Festival will run from March 26 to April 6 — with the first show The Night Has A Thousand Eyes showing from February 14 to 16.
