A NIGHTCAP FOR THE HOLLOW AND STEELED

GINNY IS IN A HEAP. HELEN STRINGS HER BACK TOGETHER, A PROJECT OF DISTRACTION. HELEN’S HARDENED EDGES HOUSE A HOLLOW INTERIOR, THE SAME HOLLOW THAT HAS MADE A HOME IN GINNY’S GUT. A SHADOW OF REGRET LINGERS AT HELEN’S HEELS, CASTING ITSELF ACROSS GINNY’S FACE.

Choreographed and Directed by Tegan Jeffrey-Rushton and Holly Finch

DÈRIVE  

DÉRIVE explores the frequencies that shape human movement, emotion, and perception. Drawing upon ideas of musical groove and rhythmic entrainment, the work investigates how our internal states continually influence the rhythms we embody. Liberation unfolds as a continuous trajectory through shifting emotional, physical, and energetic states. Through evolving sonic textures and movement landscapes, DÉRIVE follows the currents that carry us forward, guiding us toward where we are supposed to be.

• Choreographer/Director: Georgette Sofatzis-Xuereb

• Dancers: Lily Tieu, Astrid Cahill, Ashelen Wilson, Grace Burden, Jacarra Drew,  Nicole Su, Madison Pattrick, Sarah Gilmour

FORM & FLOW

FORM AND FLOW is a contemporary dance duet that explores migration as a human, emotional and bodily experience. Through movement and the use of a mobile wooden structure, the work creates shifting images of borders, shelters and territories in transit. As the performers navigate the structure and one another, the duet traces processes of adaptation, connection and the search for belonging while living between cultures. Drawing from lived experiences of migration, cultural transition and the ongoing act of making home elsewhere, FORM AND FLOW reflects on the visible and invisible boundaries that emerge through movement across places, identities and histories. The work invites audiences to connect with resilience, memory and the deeply human need to create a sense of home.

• Cast & Creative Team Choreographer / Director: Daniela Zambrano

• Performers: Daniela Zambrano and Lucky Lartey

• Original Music: Jairo Bonilla

• Lighting Design: Daniela Zambrano

• Prop Concept & Design: Daniela Zambrano

• Prop Construction: John Collins

• Costume: J9

YOU CANNOT MAKE A DEAL WITH A TIGER

You Cannot Make a Deal with a Tiger explores the tension between fear and resilience, confronting the darker spaces of the subconscious; those thoughts and emotions that can be unsettling, yet strangely compelling. It asks what happens when we lose sight of ourselves amidst uncertainty, division, or the weight of collective negativity. The tiger becomes a metaphor for the challenges we avoid and the truths we fear to face. Through moments of vulnerability, resistance, surrender, and transformation, the work invites us to confront our inner struggles and move through them. You Cannot Make a Deal with a Tiger is a journey through darkness toward clarity; an exploration of what it means to let go of certainty, embrace discomfort, and ultimately reconnect with our shared humanity.

• Choreographer – Riley Fitzgerald

• Composer – Dawson Mansell

• Dancers (5) – Siobhan Lynch, Aylish Marshall, Lydia Chapman, Riley Fitzgerald, Cassandra Tattersal

ECHO BODY

Echo Body is a contemporary dance work that explores street dance as an embodied language of connection, communication, and collective memory. Drawing from the improvisational practices of house dance and cypher culture, the work investigates how movement can function as a conversation beyond words—where rhythm, gesture, and presence become acts of listening and response.

 Performed by five dancers, Echo Body unfolds through a series of evolving choreographic scores that blur the boundaries between choreography and improvisation. Individual movement ideas are echoed, interrupted, transformed, and passed between bodies, creating a living network of relationships that continuously shifts between unity and individuality. The performers negotiate leadership, influence, resistance, and belonging in real time, revealing the subtle social dynamics that shape human interaction.

Rooted in street dance foundations while expanding into a contemporary performance context, Echo Body celebrates the intelligence of the dancing body and the creative possibilities of collective decision-making. The work invites audiences to witness choreography as a living process rather than a fixed sequence, where each performance is unique and shaped by the performers’ moment-to-moment choices.

Echo Body offers an accessible experience for diverse audiences. It is a work that highlights connection, play, and shared humanity, inviting viewers to reflect on how we influence one another, move together, and find belonging through the universal language of the body.

• Choreographer: Dechen Gendun

• Dancers/Collaborators: Florence Cheng, Robin Chen, Emily Kenmare, Sam Choek

BACKSHORE

At the edge of the world, where the land holds its breath before slipping into sea, three girls dance. The cliffs of Coalcliff rise behind them—ancient, silent witnesses—while the salt wind threads through their hair like memory.

This is their place. Not claimed, but known. Not owned, but felt in the soles of their feet, in the rhythm of their breath. They move together in a kind of ritual, shaped by the tides and tempered by time. Each step is a conversation, a promise. There is strength in their union—not loud, but lasting. Like the sea that returns, again and again, carving history into stone. They do not speak, yet everything is said in their motion.

 Friendship, fierce and weathered. Resilience, unshaken by time or tide. The dance is not performance—it is remembering. It is becoming. This is the backshore. Not the glamorous edge, not the crashing surf, but the quiet in-between. The place that bears the weight of both ocean and earth. It holds the footprints of the ones who have come before, and it holds them too. The girls. The sisters. The storm and the stillness. And although the waves will wash over again and again, some stories stay. 

• Choreographer: Daniel Navarro Lorenzo in collaboration with AUSTI. Dance and Physical Theatre.

• Cast: Kate Arber and Tara Gilmour

• Rehearsal Director: Michelle Maxwell

FEATHER AND FLESH

Feather and Flesh’ is a contemporary Indigenous work that explores how our Ancestors remain embodied through Country. Inspired by my Pop, this work honours both his story and my connection with him through the spiritual symbolism of the gugurrgaagaa (kookaburra). Reflecting histories of silencing and survival, it celebrates the enduring connection many Aboriginal people share with Ancestral presence. Something that often cannot be explained but is deeply felt.

• Choreographer: Cleo Doyle

• Cast: Clare Beale and Tilona Eades