
Our Top 10 Picks for Melt Festival 2025
If you’re already suffering from Brisbane Festival withdrawal symptoms, don’t worry: Brisbane’s Melt Festival is just around the corner (22 October-9 November)—and probably in many corners near you.

Chatter | Spencer Novich
Great art happens when the artist is willing and able to externalise the most true and human parts of themselves on stage for an audience. Chatter is absurd, funny, confronting, and feels deeply real and undeniably honest. It is a compelling rollercoaster of an hour that loops through the silly and sad with a deft artistic hand and slick sound and lighting design. I only wish that I had been able to review this show at the start of its season, so I could have told everyone I know that they simply had to see it.

White Noise | Touch Compass
White Noise is a piece of performance art that communicates aspects of lived experience as a mother with disability, and encourages us all to ‘consider our place in the conversation.’ Dance and circus are at the centre of a show that is an all-encompassing artistic event that incorporates voice, animation, art, microphone manipulation, and an excellent soundscape.

6 Degrees | Chimera Arts
Chimera Arts has created a bold new work that explores the ways in which our lives are often closely inter-connected, and the potential of that social network. The use of ‘100 metres of chunky yarn’ is a clever device to reinforce messages about connection, and about the unravelling of power, represented through the excellent set design, and in the ways in which the artists gradually tear down the barriers and emerge from underneath the pieces.

“Hands down the craziest things I’ve ever done for Strut & Fret.” Spencer Novich on Late Night Vice
“When you don't allow phones suddenly an audience is more engaged. They're less self-conscious and artists are given sort of a pass to do things that they normally wouldn't feel comfortable doing otherwise if it was recorded…”

Our hot pics for BrisFest 2025
BrisFest returns to town this year from 5 to 27 September for Artistic Director Louise Bezzina’s sixth and final festival. With so much arty goodness on offer, it can be hard to know where to start, so the writers of NEHIB have dived into the program and have come up with a list of what you simply must see at BrisFest this year.

Divine Trash | GALORE! Presents
The evening is a fever dream of drag, burlesque, clowning, stand-up, improvisation, physical theatre, and absurdist comedy. Framed with the irreverent spirit of filmmaker John Waters - famed for celebrating outsider culture and disrupting mainstream society—the show deliberately smashes conventional norms around gender, sexuality, performance, and taste.

Cirque Alice | Tim Lawson & Simon Painter
Props to the producers, as they’ve assembled one of the hottest team of carnies to hit a stage in Magandjin for some time, bring tricks rarely scene in our corner of the world.

Cirque Bon Bon - Le Retour | JACs Entertainment
There were so many excellent moments in Le Retour, but one special highlight for me was contortionist and foot archery artist, Shannen Michaela, who performed her spectacular and technical archery act. The crowd was blown away by the acts, how she was able to set the scene, with accompanying epic music, as well as her charisma and perfect execution.

Limbo - The Return | Strut & Fret
Without spoiling too much, it was an enchanting blend of artistry, music, and acrobatics that was sensual, whimsical, intense, and dangerous. If you fancy a ride into a sinister and sexy circus netherworld that will leave your heart pounding, then ‘Limbo-The Return’ is the perfect show for you.

Briefs Factory on The Art Boat | Briefs Factory & Cluster Arts
Super entertaining, very festival-y in its novelty, and by far the best boat trip I’ve had down the Maiwar (Brisbane River).

Our hot picks for BrisFest 2024
Spring is in the air and what does that mean for Magandjin / Meeanjin? It’s time for BrisFest! Running from 30 August to 21 September this year, we’re once again spoilt for choice with some epic offerings of theatre, circus, musicals, dance, cabaret, live music, installations and so much more. This is way too much goodness in the program for this year’s festival, so who better to turn to than the writers of NEHIB to let you know what you simply must see at BrisFest this year.

Dido & Aeneas | Opera Queensland & Circa
I found that the inclusion of movement added so much to the experience of this work. The acrobats were able to bring the more abstract, mystical, violent, grotesque, glimmering elements of Dido and Aeneas’ world to life. Each and every member of the company (both acrobat and singer) brings a level of virtuosity to their work that reminds one why these forms have lasted the test of time.

Dangerous Goods | Polytoxic
If you want to see a subversively hot, femme-fuelled show full of hot babes smashing the patriarchy, go see Dangerous Goods at QPAC. It’s one of the best shows I have seen. Bonus is, there'll be various guest artists throughout this season so no two shows will be the same. You’ve got another three weeks to see this unmissable show.

Cirque Jingle | JACs Entertainment
There are a lot of great choices for a festive-themed show this season, including shows that have returned for many years. It’s great to see that JACs Entertainment has produced a show that complements those choices, offering an event that is suitable for the whole family.

AWAKEN: Backbone Festival 2023: “Where the arts come alive, and dreams take flight.”
Often as artists, we hear ‘No’ so often that we start bending and breaking our artistic practice to fit someone else’s limits. Our Young and Emerging Artists present unique and exciting works that haven’t been limited by anyones ‘No’.

Duck Pond | Circa
If you enjoy seeing circus performances, you’ll enjoy this show. The cast do a wonderful job and display a wide range of fabulous skills. It won’t be a production that leaves a life-changing impression on you, but you will enjoy it even if you leave somewhat confused by the overall narrative. If, like me, you go in as an audience member with a critical eye for circus and dance productions and with a knowledge of the classical greats however, you may leave somewhat disappointed and confused.

Common Dissonance | Na Djinang Circus
Under the purposeful glare of the spotlight, the sight of two bodies cocooned in a tight embrace appeared before us. I saw their fingers endeavouring to make imprints on the skin of the other, pressing and digging into soft tissue. As they pushed themselves into each other while trying to simultaneously pry and peel themselves off the other, I gathered that the uneasy, uncomfortable yoking of their physical beings underscored the theme of common dissonance deliberately right from the get-go.

Break | Cecilia Martin & The Farm
Highlights were the directness and vulnerability with which the story was told, and the interweaving of acrobatic skills. We hear insights into the close relationship between skilled performers—including the sheer joy of ‘getting it right,’ as well as the pain and pressure of training, travel, and surgeries, and we see great use of the spinning plates, walking on broken china, incredible athleticism (and skipping), and quite amazing trapeze and aerial acrobatics.

Tipsy History | Glitter Martini & Anywhere Festival
One thing I love about the Glitter Martini shows I’ve seen is they’re always audience participation heavy, which is great to keep the crowd entertained at changeovers between the acts. A particular crowd favourite this time was a modern spin on an Ancient Greek drinking game, which everyone got right into, and it really brought out their competitiveness. These interactive segments made the show intimate and that little more special and memorable for everyone.