Scorched Earth | Attic Projects
Scorched Earth is a phenomenal testament to the respective powers of theatre and dance, and needs to be seen to be believed. Equal parts dreamlike and nightmarish, it’s more of an experience than a conventional narrative act, and I hope to see more works like it on local stages in the next few years.
Escape | Diavolo: Architecture in Motion & Brisbane Festival
Escape is a captivating, athletic and fast-paced blend of acrobatics, circus skills, and contemporary dance. Expect moments of break dancing, powerful contemporary dance, incredible aerials, circus leaps, and acrobatic tumbles. Be ready to delight in the almost balletic door duet, and be amazed at the often-surreal imagery, jumps and moves.
No One Gets Out Of Here Alive | The Farm
I found the show to be very touching, and honest about grief while also being honest and appreciative of the everyday miracles of connection, love, and the bliss of enjoying the moment and each other. We all live a doomed life - but we also get to live, and that is where the magic happens.
HEAT | Zen Zen Zo
Heat takes place in the sweetly nostalgic backyard of Morningside Scout Hall, a classic school-yard style building with layered timber and a tall roof. The addition of a clothesline, a ring of eucalypts, a sunset and a passing trainline results in a richly sensory experience that charms the early show audience.
FUSE | Anabella Gregory
As an exploration of ‘why do we gravitate towards certain people,’ FUSE presents audiences with several chapters or movements that illustrate moments of connection, provoking reflection about the nature of family, friendship, and partnership. While the five performers each have their moment at centre stage, I found the interactions between the cast to be most compelling, which is unsurprising for a show that explores how ‘we are emotionally wired to connect.’
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.
Wired Differently | Screech Arts & Zen Zen Zo Physical Theatre
As we have come to expect from Screech Arts, Wired Differently is honest, direct, clever, entertaining, funny, authentic and courageous. Thanks to the support, talents and creativity of Zen Zen Zo Physical Theatre, Wired Differently is an inspiring and ultimately moving celebration of what it means to be alive.
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.
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.
Blushing | Zen Zen Zo
Each performer was equally captivating, and they worked so cohesively together you could easily forget who specifically had just done what. Strikingly choreographed, with engagingly over the top movements and reactions. These were recognisably human, but also sometimes exaggerated beyond normal expression like a hall of mirrors, performed in a stylised way that made me lean into the action.
Blushing | Zen Zen Zo
Sometimes it felt like the two acted as friends, or sometimes lovers, in other scenes I felt as if they were reflections of self and shadow self., hidden desires pushing up through layers of societal expectations, repressions and social niceties. The chorus swung in and out and around the two as they journeyed through different trials of purity and expression, emancipation and repression.
Harpies | Eli Free
At times graceful and at others deliberately repugnant, these actors gave their all for this show, creating a sense of community with each other and their audience as they progressed. They also involved other artistic elements including electric guitar, puppetry and roving, and it was clear that this is a multi talented, local cast.
Us and All of This | Liesel Zink, Lawrence English, & Performing Lines
Zink and English have achieved something incredibly special here - a true collaboration with highlights coming from both mediums present within the work, it was an honour to watch it in this iteration, with these performers, at this location. Installation art has the ability to change the world in which it exists, and nowhere have I found this to be more true than with Us and All of This.
Horizon | Bangarra Dance Theatre
If you are new to Bangarra’s work, then Horizon is for you. If you are looking for a memorable creative and cultural experience, then Horizon is for you. If you want to admire exceptional cutting-edge contemporary dance, with great music, lighting and costumes … Horizon is also for you. angarra’s Horizon is an unmissable experience.
AMOR | D.I.V.E. Theatre Collective
Each phrase is a delightful piece of poetry expertly delivered. I long to read the script in it’s entirety, so that what was shared could be later accessed as a source of wisdom. I contemplate returning for another night just to hear it all again. Recitals came through in various dialects and the tonality of each reminds us of love’s universality. We all can sometimes struggle in it, or thrive in it, regardless of cultural background.
Jack Sharpe and The Curse of The Forbidden Fruit | Fake Blood
I loved the detailed research, the entertaining Harry Potter and Indiana Jones references, the story arc of the show, and the high-energy performances by each of the three artists. And I enjoyed the clever use of the apples as a metaphor for opening the eyes of performers, creatives, commentators and audiences.
Crazy Fucking Bitches | A Little Life Theatre
We start by going back to the story of Eve and I liked seeing her in the garden, five Eve’s consuming perfect red apples in the lustful manner they deserve.
Kuramanunya | Thomas E.S.Kelly
The invasion comes, the gun fires, Thomas E.S.Kelly, actor and performer and a Yugambeh/Wiradjuri/Ni-Vanuatu man speaks in language and moves from a place of gathering to anguish as the room melts into a wash of red.
Personal | Jodee Mundy Collaborations
Personal is such a heartfelt story of being a Child of Deaf Adults (CODA) and hands down deserves the awards it’s won as both excellence in theatre, and educational in terms of advocacy for the d/Deaf experience.