The program will resume on Wednesday, March 3 with ART FEAST; a decadent feast for the senses where sumptuous dining is paired with performance, film, installation and live music to create an immersive experience designed to stimulate and satiate. Chef Danny Sanchez and the talented team from The Rechabite’s own Eating House Double Rainbow will flex their collective creative muscle to create a degustation filled with surprise and delight where each dish is paired with a matching performance until the end of Perth Festival on Sunday, March 14.
Like most expressions of the western canon, at ART FEAST your seat will determine your status. The High ticket holders will be treated to a six-course degustation served to their seated balcony tables, whilst The Low ticket holders will feast from bountiful buffet tables up close to the action. Over the course of the night, and with each course, performances will happen across multiple stages with food processions moving through the revellers.
Exploring both sides of the human existence, The Darkness and The Light, the two weeks of ART FEAST will be dramatically different and attendance to both weeks is encouraged to experience the full feast.
ART FEAST – The Darkness is a world of smoke and mirrors, a fever-dream of decadence and depravity that reflects the current age. It features a specially commissioned film being shot in The Rechabite Hall with performance artists projected as a monumental altar-piece and backdrop to the action, live scored by classical instrumentalists playing over an atmospheric soundscape. An eccentric menagerie of the exotic and the erotic will make appearances across multiple stages and in the air, joined by special surprise guests each night.
ART FEAST – The Light is a release, a revelation and a celebration of the last week of Perth Festival 2021. All artifice will be stripped from the hall and the light will be let in with all window shutters being removed from the century old hall for the first time in decades and a rainbow spectrum pumped in as the hall is filled with light, love, lashings of food and live music, all served under a huge suspended floral installation. Local music heroes, Abbe May and Ofa Fotu have helped to curate a five-night live music program of diverse solos, duos and trios for ART FEAST – The Light. The WA Badass Gospel Choir are set to be one of the highlights of these, with two special concerts following ART FEAST on Friday, March 12 and Saturday, March 13.
Over the four nights at The Rechabite that align with the two weeks of ART FEAST: The Darkness and The Light, a wildly diverse assortment of some of Perth’s most celebrated musicians will present a series of concerts that rocket from one extreme of the musical genre spectrum to the other.
The Dark Church on Friday, March 5 will feature a carefully cleaved line-up of underground noise and metal mavericks alongside the special Church of Belligerence flavour of post-apocalyptic punk gothic ritual, cabaret and spectacle. Featuring live music from Wrath of Fenrir, Giant Dwarf, Dead Jerk with performances by Sonnenmasse, Circus Carnis, Sister Feisty and DJs Trebt & Vetch.
Revellers are also invited to experience the latest incarnation of live multi-percussive dance ensemble, The Epic of Gilgamesh, presented by Injured Ninja on Saturday, March 6. It will feature a cacophonous orchestra of live and electronic instrumentalists, accompanied by multiple drum kits and a fleet of percussionists. The performance will surround and engulf the audience with a wall of building sound, filling the space with raw energy.
First manifested in 2009 as part of the closing program for legendary local music venue, The Bakery, The Epic of Gilgamesh has returned only a few times since. This is set to be its loudest and heaviest reincarnation yet and alongside DJ sets from Trebt & Vetch and live sets and performances from Ohm Rune, Revenant, Doublethink Prism, Ignis Jakeus Pyro and a new Rammstein tribute band called R+ Rated, The Rechabite will have its century-old bones shaken to their foundations.
The Rechabite hosts ART FEAST from Wednesday, March 3 until Sunday, March 14. The Dark Church happens on Friday, March 5. The Epic of Gilgamesh performed by Injured Ninja goes down on Saturday, March 6. For more info and to buy tickets head to therechabite.com.au
