Here’s arts editor HELEN MUSA’s latest Arts in the City column.

Canberra Writers Festival’s Out of Season series presents playwright, screenwriter and former Sydney Theatre Company artistic director Andrew Upton in conversation with fellow former STC artistic director Kip Williams about Upton’s debut novel, Krank Fuss, a fable set on a small farm in Nazi Germany on the eve of war. The Street Theatre, August 12.

Afternoon of the Harpies is a wildly imaginative collaboration by Judith Nangala Crispin and Stephen Harrison, bringing together fantastical creatures, insect angels, vessels for incarnation, carpets and luminescent fish trap spaceships. Grainger Gallery, Fyshwick, August 13-September 9.

The Canberra International Music Festival has announced the dates for its 2027 festival, to be held from May 5 to 9. The announcement follows a successful end-of-financial-year appeal that raised more than $16,000 and confirmation of multi-year artsACT funding until 2030.

Canberra’s Dan Toua has been selected by Creative Australia as one of eight creative and cultural practitioners from around the country to take part in this year’s Biennale Delegates Program. An independent curator, scholar and arts worker, Toua is recognised for his work in Pacific art, anti-colonial curatorial methodologies and cultural collections.

Former Canberra dancer and QL2 member Penny Chivas, now based in Glasgow, will perform and choreograph Where We Choose to Stand, a new work inspired by climate activism and political change, at the Assembly Festival as part of Dance Base during the Edinburgh Festival, August 7-16.

Australian soprano Miriam Allan returns home to perform Bach’s Wedding Cantata and the comic Coffee Cantata with Bach Akademie Australia. She will be joined by her father, baritone Christopher Allan, in a rare family collaboration. Wesley Music Centre, August 11.

Pop culture spectacular Oz Comic Con Canberra returns with two days of cosplay, gaming, comics, anime, film, television and family entertainment. Highlights include Cosplay Central, esports and tabletop gaming, Artist Alley and interactive activities.  EPIC, August 15-16.

International cellist Nicolas Altstaedt joins French lutenist Thomas Dunford for a Musica Viva recital fresh from their Carnegie Hall success, performing music by Marais, Forqueray, Pärt, Duparc and JS Bach. Llewellyn Hall, August 13.

News all day, every day at CityNewsQBN.com.au.