By Lauren Ferrone
Published: Monday, September 24, 2018
With OzAsia Festival around the corner, here's a list of must-see shows to leave you in awe at the talent coming out of the world’s largest continent. Best of all? RAA members get a 10% discount off these shows and many more.
Close Company
When: 25–26 October
Where: Nexus Arts, Lion Arts Centre, Corner North Tce & Morphett St, Adelaide
Duration: 30 minutes
Choreographed by Adelaide’s own Alison Currie, Close Company literally gets up close and personal with the audience. Dancers from Singapore’s RAW Moves move their bodies in and around the audience to demonstrate the power of being emotionally and physically connected and dependent on other human beings.
Dancing Grandmothers
When: 25–27 October
Where: Dunstan Playhouse, Adelaide Festival Centre
Duration: 1 hour, 15 minutes
Definitely a show to take your grandma to, this contemporary dance performance – Dancing Grandmothers – (pictured top) was inspired by Korean choreographer Eun-Me Ahn who embarked on a trip around her native country to meet the women who founded modern Korea – many of whom are now grandmothers. The dancers tell the story of these inspirational women before being joined on stage by a group of Korean grandmothers for an epic dance-off.
Assembly Operation
Where: 27–28 October
When: Space Theatre, Adelaide Festival Centre
Duration: 1 hour
Forget traditional instruments – paper, masking tape, children’s toys and other seemingly everyday objects can have you tapping your feet too. Eugene Ughetti – who is 1 part of this 3-piece percussionist group – came up with the idea to create Assembly Operation where he could share these unique sounds after collecting children’s toys at markets in Beijing, Shanghai and Hong Kong.
Here is the message you asked for…
When: 1–3 November
Where: Space Theatre, Adelaide Festival Centre
Duration:1 hour, 10 minutes
The stage may be covered in comfy white beds, but the last thing you’ll do is doze off during Here is the message you asked for… – a show created by one of Beijing’s leading theatre figures. It follows a group of millennial girls who are obsessed with using their phones, and eventually become disconnected from the real-world. But it’s you – the audience – who’ll turn into the leading stars when you’re encouraged to download a social app to exchange texts with the girls while they perform. What message do you have to share?
Nassim
When: 1–3 November 2018
Where: AC Arts Theatre, 39 Light Square, Adelaide
Duration: 1 hour, 15 minutes
Most big stage performances require months of rehearsals – not Nassim. There are no rehearsals, or even directors. Instead, a sealed box is given to different guest actors each night with a script by Iranian playwright Nassim Soleimanpour. Although Nassim is a spontaneous show that allows the actors and audience to make the story their own, Soleimanpour originally wrote the script in his native language Farsi so his mother could understand and enjoy his work.
SUTRA
When: 2–3 November 2018
Where: Dunstan Playhouse, Adelaide Festival Centre
Duration: 1 hour
What do you get when 19 Shaolin Monks and an award-winning Chinese choreographer kung fu their way onto the stage? SUTRA – a dance performance created by Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui that puts the human body to the test with jaw-dropping acrobatics.
Andropolaroid 1.1
When: 9–10 November 2018
Where: Space Theatre, Adelaide Festival Centre
Duration: 45 minutes
Do you find it hard just to touch your toes? You’ll be amazed by the flexibility of Berlin-based Japanese choreographer Yui Kawaguchi as she takes to the stage in a solo dance performance – Andropolaroid 1.1 – combining ballet and hip-hop. Kawaguchi twirls and curves her body to the rhythm of pulsing electronic sounds and flashes of light beaming from suspended white neon tubes.
