Rising Festival Highlights

The Rising festival in Melbourne is hosting a series of theatre, dance, and performance art works, including a controversial musical, a dance piece using body-tracking technology, a performance art critique of capitalism, and a dance work examining working-class youth culture.

A Year Without Summer

Theatre performance at Arts Centre Melbourne, running until May 31.

Directed by Florentina Holzinger, the piece is a musical inspired by Mary Shelley's Frankenstein and set against the historical backdrop of the 1815 Mount Tambora eruption and the subsequent 1816 climate anomaly known as the "Year Without a Summer."

The cast includes female and non-binary performers from theatre, dance, circus, body modification, sex work, and porn industries. The performance includes explicit content such as nudity, simulated sex, body piercing, blood, and simulated vomit and feces.

Key scenes include:

A solo performer narrating the story of the 1816 climate event.
Portrayals of historical figures Sigmund Freud, Josef Mengele, and Georges Cuvier, referencing their controversial actions and theories.
A live body modification act where hooks are inserted into a performer's face.
Holzinger giving birth to a baby figurine from a pouch in her thigh.
Use of a large inflatable vulva, robot dogs, and a staged sex orgy.

The work explores the intersection of medical science, nature, and humanity, critiquing historical and contemporary scientific practices including eugenics, biohacking, and AI-driven robotics. It also highlights the lived experiences of the cast with the medical system. The piece includes a reenactment of a pelvic exam and a monologue about the "Hottentot Venus" by Cuvier.

Reviewed by Cameron Woodhead.

Glow

Dance performance at Chunky Move Studios, Southbank, running until March 31.

Choreographed by Gideon Obarzanek, the piece uses real-time body-tracking technology to project light patterns around the dancer. The performance is executed by Sara Black, Melissa Pham, or Layla Meadows.

Reviewed by Andrew Fuhrmann.

We Come to Collect: a flirtation, with capitalism

Performance art at Arts Centre Melbourne, running until June 7.

Directed by Jenn Kidwell, with Brandon Kazen-Maddox providing ASL interpretation, the piece critiques late capitalism and audience complicity through participatory elements.

Reviewed by Cameron Woodhead.

Hard to be Soft: A Belfast Prayer

Dance performance at Malthouse Theatre, running until May 30.

Choreographed by Oona Doherty, the work examines the postures and habits of working-class youth in Belfast. It is structured in four chapters with male and female dancers, including local dance school students.