Joe Sidek

Joe Sidek

Director of George Town Festival
In 2008, George Town on the island of Penang in Malaysia was added to the UNESCO World Heritage list. In the British colonial period the island of Penang was called Prince of Wales Island and served as a trade base for the British East Indies Company and today it is one of Malaysia’s prime tourist destinations. The central George Town district still retains much of the colonial period architecture and its diverse population of roughly 400,000 has many ethnic Chinese, Malays and Indians. In this World Heritage town the George Town Festival was launched in 2010. Since then the festival has welcomed such internationally renowned artists as Akram Khan in 2011 and Roysten Abel in 2012 and has tied up with international programs like Tropfest, the largest short film festival that began in Australia. Another mainstay of the festival is the “Street Art Project” making use of venues on the streets and scenic places around George Town and productions based on the traditional Malay martial art of Silat and other arts and culture indigenous to the island of Penang that the festival actively promotes.