Category: Dance
Review: Dracula Dances Into Melbourne In A Mesmerising Gothic Spectacle
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★★★★★ I have never been more aware of how much a dancer can say without uttering a word. Dracula is hypnotic from beginning to end, drawing you into its gothic world through movement, music and some of the most striking production design I have seen on stage. As a modern ballet,…
Review: Elegantly Wasted Triumphs In A Bold New Fusion
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★★★★★ As I made the brutal, peak-hour commute down the highway from Brisbane to the Gold Coast to the opening of Elegantly Wasted, there was no better soundtrack to set the mood in the car than a Best of INXS playlist. Elegantly Wasted is a world premiere work and the…
Review: VISTA Is A Powerful Reframing Of Reality
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★★★★☆ As one enters any dimly lit theatre for a contemporary dance performance, there is a sense of intrigue and anticipation. At Stephanie Lake Company’s VISTA, it is sustained throughout its distinct two-act production. While Night Feast colours the Brisbane Powerhouse’s forecourt outside, the audience inside remains on the edge…
Review: THREE By Australasian Dance Collective Is A Theatrical Feast
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★★★★☆ Now in its fourth iteration, Australasian Dance Collective’s triple bill THREE returns to the Brisbane Powerhouse, showcasing two brand new works and a Queensland premiere. THREE serves as a fertile ground for artistic risk, and this year’s program is no exception. Featuring MAARUNG by Joel Bray, CUDDLE by Harrison…
Review: Snow White Ballet Returns In Enchanting Style
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Ballet Theatre Queensland returns to QPAC these school holidays with its highly acclaimed production of Snow White. Premiering in January 2025 as a brand-new full-length ballet, it marked a significant milestone for the company, featuring original choreography by Clare Morehen and a newly commissioned score by Lucas D. Lynch. Following…
Review: Hamlet By Queensland Ballet Is Shakespeare At Its Most Beautiful
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★★★★☆ There’s Netflix, and then there’s live Shakespeare. Choose any feeling: love, madness, vengeance, and you’ll experience it in Queensland Ballet’s stunning reimagined Hamlet, currently at the Thomas Dixon Centre. Brisbane’s mild winter evening was a stark contrast to the beautifully gothic Denmark audiences witnessed within the Company’s home theatre in…
Review: Echo by Australasian Dance Collective Takes Joyful Flight
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Dance is often described as a universal language, and in Echo, that language is spoken with remarkable energy, curiosity and conviction. Now in its eighth year, Australasian Dance Collective’s Youth Ensemble celebrates movement as a conversation between artists, generations and communities. Featuring performers aged 14 to 19, the Ensemble brings…
Review: Bangarra’s Sheltering Is Held By Country, Carried By Dance
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There is a line in our Acknowledgement of Country: to recognise Indigenous Elders past, present and emerging. This interweaving of time, with the lived, reciprocal relationship with Country it implies, finds a visual manifestation in Bangarra Dance Theatre’s Sheltering. The triple bill moves through identity, ancestral land and belonging with a…
Review: Strings A Triple Bill By Queensland Ballet
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A mesmerised audience filled the QPAC Playhouse theatre on Friday night, as Queensland Ballet premiered its new triple bill, Strings. The blend of hypnotic movement and music, performed with precision across three distinct ballets, cast a spell over an appreciative crowd of dance and music lovers alike. Most Queensland Ballet seasons…
Review: Dracula The Ballet Delivers Dark Theatrical Magic
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★★★★★ West Australian Ballet’s Dracula has returned to Perth with as much bite as ever, in co-production with Queensland Ballet. Drawing inspiration from both Bram Stoker’s 1897 novel and Francis Ford Coppola’s 1992 film, Bram Stoker’s Dracula, this atmospheric production is dramatic in all the right ways and is sure…
Review: Elastic Hearts Brings Joy Through Dance & The Music Of Sia
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★★★★☆ It is not uncommon in our country’s thriving theatre scene to have multiple shows opening over the same weekend. Such is the case in Brisbane right now, with at least five shows plus a festival hitting the stages over the next few days. One offering that should not be…
Review: Dracula Returns To Adelaide & Makes A Powerful Case For The Arts
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★★★★★ You cannot stage Dracula as a ballet unless you go all in. It has to be lavish. It has to seduce. West Australian Ballet understands that from the first moment, and this production delivers scale, spectacle, and a dark, intoxicating beauty that, like Dracula’s love of Elizabeth, never lets…
Review: Messa da Requiem Opens On A Grand New Era
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★★★★☆ There are worse ways to christen a brand new theatre than with a production featuring a full ballet company, a live orchestra, more than a hundred choristers and enough emotional weight to flatten a room. Opening QPAC’s new Glasshouse Theatre, Queensland Ballet’s Messa da Requiem is a clear declaration…
Review: Code Of Conduct Is Workplace Theatre Like You’ve Never Seen
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★★★★★ If you’re curious about whether to see Code of Conduct, stop reading and go book tickets. Now. I’m seriously not kidding. The world premiere of Code of Conduct is the 2026 season opener from Australasian Dance Collective and takes place on Level 20 in one of the glittering crown…
Review: The Chronicles by Stephanie Lake Company 2026 Adelaide Festival
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★★★★★ When the curtain begins to rise on The Chronicles, it does so slowly. Just a thin orange crack of light appears across the stage. It looks like an eyelid opening. The first breath of a life. Stephanie Lake’s latest work arrives with a strong pedigree. The Melbourne-based choreographer leads…
Review: Theatre Of Dreams by Hofesh Shechter Company 2026 Adelaide Festival
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★★★★★ Hofesh Shechter is one of the most in-demand choreographers in the world. In a knockout return to the Adelaide Festival, Hofesh Shechter Company brings us Theatre of Dreams for an unmissable limited season. Direct from the United Kingdom, the ensemble has been a boundary-breaking force in contemporary dance since 2008, creating…
Review: The Other Side Of Me Is A Powerful Dance Of Identity
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★★★★★ Acclaimed for its cross-cultural collaboration, The Other Side of Me premiered in 2023 at the Darwin Festival. In 2024, the production toured Western and Central Australia and in 2025, it premiered at DanceX Festival in Naarm. The Other Side of Me is choreographed by renowned dance industry leader, Larrakia man, Gary…
Review: Faraway Australian Dance Theatre 2026 Adelaide Festival
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★★★★★ Coming into full bloom this Adelaide Festival is Australian Dance Theatre’s latest work, Faraway. It is unsettling and evocative, and has you utterly transfixed in a world of visceral fantasy. The work asks the question: where do our collective dreams and nightmares take us? Under the Artistic Director of Australian Dance…
Review: Time Goes By at Woodville 2026 Adelaide Fringe
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★★★★☆ There is something comforting about a grandfather clock on stage. It promises structure. Rhythm. Time behaving itself. In Time Goes By, that promise lasts all of five minutes. The show opens in a smoky Chicago music hall of the Jazz Age. Costumes shimmer. Shoulders roll. The music swings. A…
Review: The Great Gatsby Jazz Ballet Odyssey Is A Triumph
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★★★★★ The Great Gatsby, written by F. Scott Fitzgerald in 1925, is a classic piece of American literature. Its ever-relevant themes and opulent setting have seen it adapted for the stage and screen many times over the years. Now, BIG Live present their version, magnificently capturing the heart and soul…
Review: Sisa-Sisa Bankstown Art Centre 2026 Sydney Festival
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There are nights in the theatre where applause feels insufficient, where clapping hands struggle to meet what has just been offered. Sisa-Sisa is one of those nights. This double-bill of solo dance works is not performance as spectacle, but performance as remembrance – an act of listening to bodies that carry histories…
Review: Alice In Wonderland Ballet Is A Dazzling Golden Age Delight
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Alice in Wonderland, a brand-new full-length ballet, has arrived, presented by Ballet Theatre Queensland (BTQ) for a spectacular limited season at QPAC. This marks BTQ’s second new work in as many years, following Snow White, which premiered in 2025. Like Snow White, this production features an entirely original score by…
Review: The Nutcracker Ends Its Era In A Flurry Of Festive Magic
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Queensland Ballet is welcoming in the festive season with a dreamy sense of whimsy and wonder in The Nutcracker. Join Clara on her fantastical adventure across the Lemonade Sea to the Kingdom of Sweets. Enjoy meeting her magical new friends as they entertain with spectacular performances set to Tchaikovsky’s timeless…
Review: BIG Live’s The Nutcracker Shines With Seasonal Charm
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Tchaikovsky’s The Nutcracker has been danced, re-danced, reinvented and fiercely protected since its 1892 premiere at the Imperial Mariinsky Theatre. Australian audiences have seen everything from the grand, gilded Russian interpretations to streamlined contemporary versions. BIG Live, an emerging company, takes the classicist route. Clean lines. Faithful storytelling. Plush Victorian nostalgia. With…
Review: Elastic Hearts Presented By Queensland Ballet & HOTA
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The opening of Queensland Ballet’s Elastic Hearts was a night of exquisite artistry that left the audience on their feet in a standing ovation. Set to the music of Australia’s own Sia, Elastic Hearts is a powerful symphony of movement, music and imagery. Elastic Hearts blooms with passion, playfulness and an irresistible touch of…
Review: Two Blood Australian Dance Theatre 2025 OzAsia Festival
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Time doesn’t unfold in a straight line in Two Blood. It coils in a circle of ash. The opening moments place two dancers in an embrace, surrounded by a smouldering ring that draws as much from Tagalaka and Chinese ancestry as it does from volcanic echoes and forensic memory. Inspired by…
Review: Elements Of Freestyle 2025 Brisbane Festival
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Elements of Freestyle is an unmissable masterpiece where dance meets extreme urban sports. Crafted by the renowned ISH Dance Collective, this adrenaline-fuelled production pushes the boundaries of performance. Fusing breakdance, inline skating, skateboarding, freestyle basketball, BMX, and parkour with exhilarating live musicianship, the result is an explosive vision which leaves the…
Review: Dracula Continues To Cast Its Spell Across The Country
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Dracula, an iconic Gothic character created by Bram Stoker in 1897, has always intrigued and delightfully horrified audiences. BIG Live, otherwise known as Ballet International Gala, has unleashed a haunting new ballet adaptation, and it is absolutely spectacular. The ability to tell a story solely through music and dance, as…
Review: Gems By L.A. Dance Project 2025 Brisbane Festival
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To headline this year’s Brisbane Festival, L.A. Dance Project presented a trilogy of contemporary ballets known collectively as Gems. The triptych of works, created between 2013 and 2016 for the company’s major patron, Van Cleef & Arpels, were all inspired by gemstones. L.A. Dance Project was founded by former New…
Review: Bad Nature 2025 Brisbane Festival
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Bad Nature makes its highly anticipated world premiere in an exclusive Brisbane Festival season which sees Australasian Dance Collective team up with The Netherlands’ Club Guy & Roni. Bad Nature is described as an unflinching exploration of our relationship with the environment and one another. It delves into humanity’s contradiction…
