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When you talk to Wendy Martin, vignettes of her career – from television arts broadcasting to performance on an Olympic scale – underscore a sense that each job appears to have brought her one step closer to the Perth International Arts Festival. Her father and grandfather would applaud her taking the helm of a midsummer festival that took root at UWA and has flowered into one of Australia’s most ambitious cultural events.

The second Australian appointed as PIAF’s artistic director, Wendy Martin has showbiz in her DNA. Her grandfather, born in Perth in 1898, was the Tivoli theatre circuit’s impresario, and her father (who stage managed the touring Folies Bergère as a teenager) took over, before training as an accountant and becoming the Sydney Opera House’s longest-serving general manager.

Wendy was working in New York when Sydney won the Olympics bid. “I had to be there,” she remembers – and she landed the job organising the outdoor entertainment program. But it was the Opera House that beckoned, and after the Olympics, she found herself walking across its forecourt with an application to head the theatre and dance program. “It was a beautiful spring morning and I remember thinking: Would it be possible to come to this place and make things happen?”

Culturally speaking, she’s been ‘making things happen’ ever since. Her first job at the opera house was organising a string of Indigenous cultural events, including the inaugural Message Sticks festivals. Initially staged in a variety of venues (“we wanted communities to have ownership”) many later migrated to the Opera House. “The Deadly Awards began in Redfern, moved to the Opera Theatre, and finally to the Concert Hall – bringing with them performers and audiences who’d never thought of being there – it was amazing!”

Then came London and the themed festivals she produced for the Southbank Centre, a ‘People’s Palace’ of culture on the Thames that draws millions to theatres, recitals, and galleries. She clearly loves engaging with communities in the widest possible way, and this is a key driver – along with a passion for dance in its most contemporary and adventurous forms.

These twin passions are likely to become Wendy Martin’s signature for the 2016 festival. She has signed up brilliant performers from Europe, Brazil (Lia Rodrigues), India (Adita Mangaldas Dance Company), France and Japan (Aurelien Bory and Kaori Ito) and forms of dance never before seen in Perth.

“Belgium choreographer Sidi Larbi Chekaoui’s Apocrifu for example explores ideas from the world’s great philosophical and religious texts with three different dance styles, setting them side by side, just as people from different cultures find themselves living side by side,” she explains. “I am hoping they draw audiences from across Perth’s different communities.”

Another signature program is an interactive installation, A Mile in my Shoes , a unique audio portrait of a community that will feature the narratives of ordinary people in our multicultural community whose life journey may be a world away from ours. A Sikh taxi driver she met on a trip from the airport, a FIFO engineer, an abattoir worker are just some of the locals likely to be involved.

“It’s about taking a brilliant idea that worked in the UK and making it work for us – and painting a portrait of Perth that lets us see and understand each other. It’s my job and responsibility to communicate with the various communities in this city and it’s my hope that events like this will speak to the community – because it’s their festival.”

The community as a whole can expect a truly spectacular opening event. Having worked with some of Australia’s leading artists from singer Archie Roach to composer Elena Kats- Chernin, Ms Martin has an amazing network of talent to call on, including Nigel Jamieson who orchestrated part of the Sydney Olympics opening ceremony – and who will add the visual ‘wow’ factor to an evening that begins with the traditional Welcome to Country.

Of course these are just a handful of what is on offer at our award-winning festival. The 2016 program was launched at the beginning of November and you can check out full details and booking arrangements at perthfestival.com.au .