Review: Elegantly Wasted Triumphs In A Bold New Fusion

★★★★★

The Scoop Queensland Ballet Elegantly Wasted at HOTA Gold Coast

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 second instalment in a three-year partnership between Queensland Ballet and HOTA, Home of the Arts. The partnership will see three music-led world premieres created exclusively for the Gold Coast, with Elastic Hearts, featuring the music of Sia, kicking off the series in 2025.

This year, INXS, one of Australia’s most celebrated cultural exports, becomes the soundtrack to a new contemporary ballet choreographed by Annabelle Lopez Ochoa.

Set within the polished anonymity of a grand hotel lobby, Elegantly Wasted explores a world where image is everything, and nothing is quite as it seems. In this space, spontaneity is curated, intimacy is choreographed, and even solitude becomes a performance.

As a ballet lover and deep appreciator of INXS, I was eagerly awaiting this premiere. It delivered and left me wanting more.

Thirteen INXS songs feature in this work, which runs for just over an hour. As both a music nerd and a fan, it is therefore my pleasure – and obligation – to list the songs at the end of this review.

Having also seen Elastic Hearts, I believe Elegantly Wasted is the more successful of the two at fusing music, movement and storytelling.

The song selections are particularly effective, with the lyrics taking on new meaning to reinforce the work’s central ideas: the desire to belong, the excitement of youth, and exploring what it means to be ‘cool.’

The hotel lobby set brings these ideas into the modern world, with shopping bags emblazoned with familiar emojis and words like ‘visibility,’ ‘platform,’ and ‘click,’ firmly placing us in the age of social media. Other words like ‘blonde’ and ‘liberate’ offer more direct nods to INXS.

While Sia’s music fittingly felt more deconstructed, orchestrated and remixed, the INXS songs appear to have undergone minimal interference. Given how deeply ingrained the music is for many people, that creative choice works. Indeed, whether Need You Tonight had any reworking beyond a stylised ending is up for debate.

The musical variations did lead to some interesting moments in the opening night audience. It was a particularly supportive crowd, but there were several instances of awkward applause, breaking out in moments that didn’t necessarily call for it, while occasionally failing to arrive where you might expect it. This is hardly surprising, though; the audience is finding its way through the work too.

But let’s get to the performance highlights, and there are many. Ines Hargreaves and Joshua Ostermann dance a compelling pas de deux to Taste It. Jon Buswell’s lighting design amplifies their silhouettes onto the wall, and I found myself admiring both their live movements and their shadowy counterparts. Hargeaves, in particular, impresses throughout the work and is a compelling young dancer to watch.

The Taste It segment bookends Learn To Smile, which sees Sophie Zoricic hanging from a luggage trolley in a series of seductive visual formations as she is wheeled around the stage by Luca Armstrong and D’Arcy Brazier.

The Gift features six male dancers, who expertly intertwine their movement with the set pieces. There is a lot of dynamic couch-ography in this work, and I am so here for it.

Need You Tonight, featuring Rian Thompson flanked by Ines Hargreaves and Jessica Stratton-Smith, is a campy crowd favourite.

By My Side, featuring an emotional pas de deux from Vito Bernasconi and Renee Freeman, culminates in a dramatic acrobatic finish. The lighting effect across Freeman as she enters the space is particularly inspired.

At the centre of the work is the iconic Never Tear Us Apart, featuring Ruby Day and Edison Manuel, who bring drama and technical skill to their pas de deux. The song is intercut with a segment from the company, unexpectedly wearing flat, black lace-up ankle boots.

On the costumes, Josh McIntosh’s designs help tell a clear story. What starts in blacks and greys with just a hint of silver, sparkle and fringing, gives way to full-blown splashes of colour, most spectacularly in the Don’t Change finale.

Without knowing the creative process, it appears that individuality has been prioritised over cohesion, resulting in an eclectic blend of costume pieces and styles across the company. (The black sequin hot pants are a huge yes from me.)

Elegantly Wasted is a reminder of just how exciting contemporary ballet can be, particularly when bold music, movement and design come together so imaginatively. The Queensland Ballet and HOTA partnership continues to produce ambitious work that challenges its dancers, engages its audiences and leaves you wanting more.

As I resumed my highway playlist at the end of the night, I found myself hoping Elegantly Wasted might return as part of Queensland Ballet’s 2027 season, following in the footsteps of Elastic Hearts. And while this second instalment has left me keen to see where the partnership goes next, I’ll be eagerly awaiting the announcement of its third and final work.

Elegantly Wasted: Featuring the Songs of INXS is presented by Queensland Ballet in partnership with HOTA, Home of the Arts. It runs to 12 September at HOTA on the Gold Coast.

Tickets: https://www.queenslandballet.com.au/performances/2026/elegantly-wasted

Website: https://hota.com.au/events/elegantly-wasted-featuring-the-songs-of-inxs

Socials: https://www.instagram.com/hotagc/ and https://www.instagram.com/qldballet/

Read our Interview with Ruby Day

Photo credits: David Kelly

Elegantly Wasted Song List:

Suicide Blonde
From the album X, 1990

Mediate
From the album Kick, 1987

Taste It
From the album Welcome to Wherever You Are, 1992

Learn To Smile
From their self-titled debut album, 1980

Disappear
From X, 1990

Kill The Pain
From the album Full Moon, Dirty Hearts, 1993