West Australian artists the Triffids, the Drones, the Panics, John Butler and the Pigram Brothers will take part in Home, a massive part-concert, part-visual installation that opens Perth International Arts festival (Piaf).

Piaf is the longest-running festival of its kind in Australia and coincides with a number of other late-summer festivals in Perth across literature, film and music. We’ve selected some of our festival favourites, encompassing satellite events in the coastal towns of Albany and Denmark.

Home – Perth International Arts festival

Directed by Nigel Jamieson and with help from Noongar elder and artist Richard Walley, Home unites the Triffids, the Drones and the Waifs with writers Kim Scott, Tim Winton, Robert Drewe and actor and WA’s international musical comedy star Tim Minchin. The concert event celebrates Western Australia – from the Pilbara to the edges of the Indian Ocean – in song, script and art. Artist Shaun Tan has written a short story exclusively for the event, illustrated by a series of images from his three award-winning books, including Tales from Outer Suburbia.

• Home is at Langley Park, Perth on 13 February

The Snake Run project, Great Southern festival

Travel 4.5 hours south of Perth and you will reach Western Australia’s Great Southern festival, where music, theatre and film events will take place (and transfer from Perth festival) over three weeks.

Opening the festival is a special event at Albany’s Snake Run – the world’s oldest community funded skate park still in use today – featuring visual artist Shaun Gladwell, who has made a career out of combining skateboarding and visual art in his video work. The event combines skate, dance, parkour and street art.

Also appearing will be US skate legend Russ Howell. More than 40 years ago, Howell opened the Snake Run, a skatepark born from the imaginations of Albany high school boys who raised $3,000 towards the project.

• The Snake Run project is at the Snake Run, Albany on 13 February

Roman Krznaric: A Mile in my Shoes – Perth International Arts festival and Perth writers’ festival

Author Roman Krznaric, a specialist in empathy, believes that outrospection could solve everything from inequality to climate change. He is the founder of the Empathy Museum, whose installation at the Perth International Arts festival – which will see the Stirling Gardens transformed into a giant shoebox – is designed to help people see the world from other perspectives.

Slip your feet into a pair of shoes – they may belong to a refugee, a sex worker or a fly-in-fly-out operator – and walk one mile listening to the story of the owner.

Krznaric will also give an address on the power of empathy at the Perth writers’ festival opening on 18 February. He will be joined by authors and thinkers including Richard Dawkins, Simon Winchester, Patrick deWitt, Masha Gessen and Lauren Groff.

• A Mile in My Shoes is at Stirling Gardens, Perth from 18 February to 6 March
• Perth writers’ festival is in Perth and Albany from 18-21 February

Dheepan and The Wait – Lotterywest film festival

Across two open-air settings – the University of Western Australia, Somerville and Edith Cowan University, Joondalup Pines – Perth’s Lotterywest film festival presents a selection of the best new films to see under the stars, including five that are making their Australian premiere.

Two of the top flicks on show include Jacques Audiard’s 2015 Palme d’Or winning Dheepan about a former Tamil Tiger who pursues a new life in Paris, and Denis Dercourt’s romantic drama The Wait, set in rural France where a mother, played by Juliette Binoche, grieves the loss of her son.

• Lotterywest film festival is at the University of Western Australia and Edith Cowan University until 10 April

Claire Cunningham: Guide Gods and Give Me A Reason to Live – Perth International Arts festival

Glasgow-based artist Claire Cunningham trained as a classical singer, but the self-identifying disabled artist eventually switched to dance. Having used crutches since age 14, Cunningham takes advantage of her upper body strength and jettisons traditional dance techniques.

In Australia for the first time as Perth International Arts festival’s artist-in-residence, Cunningham presents two works exploring how the world’s major faiths view deafness and disability: Guide Gods and Give Me A Reason To Live. She presents her findings on whether she could – and should – be healed. Cunningham also invites the audience to stay for tea, a chat, and the chance to ponder their beliefs.

• Guide Gods is at St George’s Cathedral, Perth from 11-21 February
• Give Me a Reason to Live is at Perth Cultural Centre from 2-5 March

Every Brilliant Thing – Perth International Arts festival

Guardian’s theatre critic Lyn Gardner dubbed Duncan Macmillan’s Every Brilliant Thing “the funniest play you’ll ever see about depression”. British comedian Jonny Donahoe, who co-wrote the play with Macmillan, stars as a young boy who constructs a list of ways to help his hospitalised mother find happiness.

The interactive monologue charts the lengths we go to for those we love.

• Every Brilliant Thing is at the State Theatre Centre of Western Australia, Perth and the Albany Entertainment Centre from 11-20 February
  

Refuse the Hour – Perth International Arts festival

South African artist William Kentridge’s five-screen video installation The Refusal of Time was one of the major draw cards of the 2014 Perth International Arts festival. Two years later, Kentridge is back with a theatrical companion piece, Refuse the Hour, led by a team of fellow South African artists.

Refuse the Hour interweaves dance, live music, projections, drama and scenic design, with Kentridge recounting a tale that begins with the myth of Perseus and ends with Einstein’s visionary findings.

• Refuse the Hour is at Perth Concert Hall from 12-14 February

Ballet at the Quarry: Five by Night – Perth International Arts festival

Perth’s Quarry Amphitheatre, a former limestone quarry, hosts the West Australian ballet’s annual summer season under the stars. Bring a picnic to the Quarry steps and enjoy some of the company’s most recent short works by emerging and established choreographers.

The headline piece, David Dawson’s On the Nature of Daylight, is a pas-de-deux on the mystery of love, set to a score by Max Richter. It sits among four other works including a piece titled 5, choreographed for five dancers to music from Adolphe Adam’s Giselle; Andre Santos’s In Black about a dancer’s training’ Ambiguous Content by Craig Davidson; and To the Point, a hip-hop ballet fusion piece featuring dancers from the West Australian Ballet and B-boy champion Pepito.

• Ballet at the Quarry: Five by Night will be performed at the Quarry Amphitheatre, Perth from 5-27 February

The Tiger Lillies perform Hamlet – Perth International Arts festival

British musical trio the Tiger Lillies have put a cabaret spin on Shakespeare’s revenge tragedy and staged it around the world. Following its debut in Hamlet’s Denmark birthplace, the trio took their Weimar era-styled show across Europe. The Tiger Lillies tell Hamlet’s story with circus acts and giant puppets, while the band’s frontman Martyn Jacques sings out the protagonist’s sorrow with his haunting falsetto.

• The Tiger Lillies perform Hamlet is at Regal Theatre, Perth from 17-21 February

The Wild Duck – Perth International Arts festival

Simon Stone’s The Wild Duck, co-adapted with Chris Ryan, reworked Norwegian playwright Henrik Ibsen’s 19th century play for an Australian audience. Having premiered in Sydney in 2011, it travelled to Norway, Holland and the UK and was critically lauded in Vienna, where Stone believed it was successful because it was was “so Australian”.

In this stripped-back retelling of the Ekdal family – who were rich until scandal cast them into poverty – the audience is spectator to their inner lives.

• The Wild Duck is at the State Theatre Centre of Western Australia, Perth from 3-13 March