George Town Festival is an annual, month-long celebration of arts, culture, heritage and community. Celebrating its 8th year, the Festival runs 28 July - 3 September 2017 and aims to make arts accessible to the community by transforming the city into a global stage, showcasing world-class collaborations from international and local artists alike. Take a look at some of the programme highlights:

• Good Good Fortune (5-6 August) is a live performance installation by Lucy Marinkovich (New Zealand) that engages the audience to reflect upon the role of fortune in our lives, and consider our agency in creating our own experiences and circumstances. The performance process advocates both conscientious decision-making and intuitive reaction. Audiences are individually led through a series of game-plays, questions, chance activities, and instinctive responses that ultimately lead them to the selection of their personal “fortune”.

• Yangon Echoes (28 July - 3 September) The exhibition (photography by Tim Webster) takes viewers behind the façades of Yangon’s heritage buildings, to offer intimate views of life in the cosmopolitan city formerly known as Rangoon, Burma. An unprecedented work of oral history, this is a rich anthology of stories exploring notions and values of heritage and home. Storytellers speak of joy and tragedy, simple pleasures and aching issues. They share thoughts and feelings of living through Yangon’s emergence from decades of stagnation to engagement with a rapidly spinning world. Told with courage and charm, these informal stories of home offer insight into what has happened and is happening to the city.

• Butterworth Fringe Festival (12-13 August): Returning for its third year, the Butterworth Fringe Festival is a vibrant free and public street event celebrating the arts, culture, and heritage of this fine town. Held concurrently with the George Town Festival, this weekend will feature exciting, family-friendly acrobatic and comedy shows open to everyone.

• The Italian Restaurant (26-27 August): Naohiko Umewaka, a grand master of the Japanese traditional Noh theatre, teams up with the innovative performer and choreographer, Aida Redza, to present a new production of The Italian Restaurant, an existential Noh, written and directed by Umewaka. The story emerges from a chance meeting of a woman and a man in a restaurant. Destinies are forged and hearts are entwined. The play makes use of symbolism and metaphors - using the golden Noh mask, yakan - to create the tranquil and yet chaotic forward momentum of the story.

• Anthar Agni (30-31 August): Fire is the most powerful force of nature. Burning at 400 degree celsius, it is aggressive and destructive, yet it is also a great unifying catalyst. With fire, copper and zinc forms brass. With fire, sugar and milk becomes caramel. With fire in their hearts, dancers and musicians from different backgrounds unite and create art. Anthar Agni, led by 2011 Young Artist Award recipient Nawaz Mirajkar from the Temple of Fine Arts, is a music and dance tribute to the sacred fire (Agni), The show celebrates deep spiritual significance of the integration of various cultures.