Asia TOPA (Asia-Pacific Triennial of Performing Arts) will welcome 410 artists and collectives from 17 countries across the Asia-Pacific, and the world, to showcase more than 1,000 individual performances and activations across 62 events. This year’s triennial also includes 18 world premieres and 18 new commissions at 20 venues and locations around Melbourne.
Venues include, Fed Square Bunjil Place Arts Centre Melbourne Melbourne Recital Centre National Gallery of Victoria The University of Melbourne and Abbotsford Convent to name just a few.
After a five-year hiatus, Asia TOPA returns from 20 February – 10 March 2025 with an extraordinary program of new art and performance from across the Asia-Pacific. Every three years, Asia TOPA brings the best of Asia-Pacific arts, culture and ideas to Melbourne for a three-week-long city-wide celebration that spotlights our diverse and dynamic region.
“As a major international arts event, this festival aims to foster ties with our global neighbours, bringing together cultural innovators and visionaries from the Asia-Pacific to our city. We are privileged to have so many incredible artists as part of the program this year; there is truly something for everyone,” said Asia TOPA Creative Director Jeff Khan.
Highlights of the performance program include Milestone, an unmissable triennial opening night performance at Hamer Hall celebrating the work of William Yang, one of Australia’s pioneering Asian-Australian creatives; U>N>I>T>E>D a new international dance and music collaboration at the Sidney Myer Music Bowl and Gapu Ŋupan (Chasing the Rainbow), a groundbreaking cross-cultural collaboration featuring First Nations artists from Arnhem Land and Taiwan.
The 2025 triennial includes breathtaking new works across dance, theatre, music, visual art and beyond, alongside a new Nightlife and Knowledge program.
Asia TOPA: Asia-Pacific Triennial of Performing
Arts is a joint initiative of Sidney Myer Fund and Arts Centre Melbourne built to celebrate the creative imagination of artists and culture in the Asia-Pacific region.
The first two triennials were presented in 2017 and 2020, led by founding Creative Director Stephen Armstrong. These inaugural editions of Asia TOPA established the triennial as a key cultural event in Australia’s arts calendar, working with essential Australian and Asia-Pacific voices to realise ambitious and vital works and bring audiences together across boundaries and cultural difference.
Delivered by dedicated teams of festival experts, Asia TOPA quickly established an important place in the cultural life of Melbourne. Across the 2017 and 2020 festivals 1,960 artists and 631 individual events were presented.
Asia TOPA is a joint initiative of Arts Centre Melbourne and the Sidney Myer Fund, supported by the Victorian Government through Creative Victoria, Playking Foundation and the Australian Government Department of Infrastructure, Transport, Regional Development, Communications and the Arts.
