LEGENDS (of the Golden Arches) 

Joe Paradise Lui & Merlynn Tong

Premiering in February 2025 

Producer: Jeremy Smith and Joo Tan
jeremy@performinglineswa.org.au
joo@performinglineswa.org.au

A powerful and deeply personal examination of the Asian cultural experience and the enduring power of friendship. It showcases the hard-to-articulate blue-collar religiosity that doesn’t exist in Australia and challenges the notion of Chinese culture as sacred.

Two old besties, Merlynn and Joe, find themselves in the midst of a traditional Chinese funeral for their grandfathers in Australia. As they spend the night in vigil, performing the traditional rites of mourning families, they clash over the preservation of culture and tradition.

The Censor

Vidya Rajan & Cassandra Fumi

Premiering in October 2025 

Producer: Kath Papas
kath@perfominglines.org.au

Have you ever been told you can’t read this book or see that movie? Can’t listen to this song or watch that show? Maybe the adults said it was too scary? Or not a good work for kids? What if you still really wanted to read it, see it, listen to it? What if you wondered if there was something the adults were trying to hide? What would you do?

Welcome to The Censor: a world where the children are in charge. Where they make the decisions. Where they decide what media you consume. A work by children for children and their adults.

Rinse

Amrita Hepi

Producer: Thom Smyth
thom@performinglines.org.au

What is it about the beginning that remains intoxicating? Our persistent lust for the first rush of a romance, scene, canon, theory, relationship, meal or country. Created by extraordinary dance artist Amrita Hepi, Rinse explores the romance of beginnings and what happens next, when those initial thrills begin to fade and inertia takes over.

The Visitors

Moogahlin Performing Arts

Producer: Kath Papas
kath@perfominglines.org.au

It’s January 1788 and a mysterious fleet is amassing in the harbour. Seven clan leaders must make a momentous decision: to send these strangers on their way or welcome them?

This award-winning and critically acclaimed major production has just completed a 3-month tour of Australia.

Glass Child 

The Farm

Producer: Vanessa Wright
vanessa@performinglines.org.au

Glass Child is a poignantly revealing depiction of the sibling relationship between Kayah, a young man with Down syndrome and his sister Maitreyah. Expressed through dance, theatre and storytelling Glass Child highlights their connection and how their lives have been affected by other people’s perceptions.

Enemies of Grooviness Eat Sh*t 

Betty Grumble

Producer: Thom Smyth
thom@performinglines.org.au

After a decade of playing within her spiritual access point and avatar, Betty Grumble – performance artist Emma Maye Gibson re-emerges. A self reflective, regenerative dive into the compost bin of making and moving through the trouble; of defying the ever-present cultures of violence and ecocide. Bowing to the powers of Grief and Love Energy, Rage Energy, Hope Energy & Fuck Energy, Gibson invites you to sit with and honour the legacy of makers, mentors, friends, lovers and ‘enemies’ that have formed an ecosystem of aliveness within the perils of eco-grief and structures that certainly no longer serve us.

Deejay x Dancer

Nick Power

Producer: Kath Papas
kath@perfominglines.org.au

Deejay x Dancer brings Hip Hop’s traditional dance and musical instrument back into sharp focus, honouring the initial connection that sparked the worldwide culture, utilising this foundation to create new histories. Featuring 3 of Australia’s most accomplished Breakers fuelled by DJ Total Eclipse on the wheels of steel, this new work continues Nick Power’s choreographic exploration of Hip Hop’s rituals and origins, following on from his past 3 full length dance works; Cypher, Between Tiny Cities and Two Crews.

TWO

Raghav Handa

Producer: Vanessa Wright
vanessa@performinglines.org.au

In a joyful celebration of trust and collaboration, the pair push the boundaries of Indian Kathak convention in a charming and playful testament to friendship, respect and profound exchange. Imagining new ways of working shaped by the sharing and negotiation of power, TWO presents impressive physicality, virtuosic music and witty encounters to expertly demonstrate the creative potential in respectfully challenging tradition.

Equations of a Falling Body

Laura Boynes

Producer: Jen Leys
jen@performinglineswa.org.au

Our contemporary world is wildly unpredictable. The ‘elsewhere’ of distant forces – climate, cosmos, politics, memory – continually intervene in our everyday lives. It’s mostly beyond our control – encountered as idle distractions, radical interruptions or insistent voices inside that re-shape and cypher our thoughts and desires.

Stunt Double

The Farm

Producer: Vanessa Wright
vanessa@performinglines.org.au

Cycling through take after take of high octane stunts; flips, jumps, fights and more; the doubles put their body on the line while the actors reap the glory. In Stunt Double it’s the hardest working people who get paid the least and exploited the most. Sound familiar? Well that’s because some things never change. The show is a hilarious tongue in cheek dive into the complex and absurd power dynamics of the film industry, into exploitation as a bloodsport; and the human costs of celebrity and our quest to come out on top.

WAKE 

THE RABBLE

Producer: Kath Papas
kath@perfominglines.org.au

Exploring the ever-increasing hostility towards women’s bodies particularly for older people, WAKE features acts of artistic courage created by the participating women, featuring anything from a ukulele solo to a professional wrestling bout; a Shakespeare monologue to a political speech. In an age of dislocation, WAKE is a work of solidarity.

Black Brass 

Mararo Wangai

Producer: Jen Leys and Jeremy Smith
jen@performinglineswa.org.au
jeremy@performinglineswa.org.au

A stirring deliberation on the choices we make and how they shape our lives, Black Brass is a theatrical feast; playful yet mysterious. Written and performed by Mararo Wangai, joined live onstage by musician Mahamudo Selimane, this intimate and soulful experience celebrates stories of resilience – private victories rather than public actions.

Black Brass draws inspiration from interviews conducted with Perth’s Zimbabwean, Sudanese, South African, Central Congo, Mauritius, Nigerian, Congolese and Kenyan communities on the theme of resilience. Through its story it gives voice to the marginalised, offering a window into the lives and voices not often heard in the theatre.

The Act

Amrita Hepi

Producer: Thom Smyth
thom@performinglines.org.au

Everybody dances, everybody has sex. Though the line for a professional in these industries is different. The Act explores the body in professional service, in a collaboration between a choreographer/dancer and a sex worker. So often when lost in the act or observations of moments of irreverence or desire, we forget the transmissions or transgressions that have led us there. The labour that leads us to the sex, dance, pleasure, race and the brief encounter with the thrill of a body.

Love Less Tender 

Raghav Handa

Producer: Vanessa Wright
vanessa@performinglines.org.au

Love Less Tender looks at the complexity of love and pleasure through the Sanskrit scripture, Kama Sutra.  

The piece, a danced, spoken and sung conversation between the quartet, explores the motivations behind and the borders that lie between love & pleasure and how they are shaped by personal, cultural & contemporary forces.  What would you do for love? Is it ever too much?  Is pleasure always guilty? 

From Here, Together 

Emma Fishwick

Producer: Jen Leys
jen@performinglineswa.org.au

What was discarded becomes new again in an upcycling of choreographic intent and a redirection of the original.  

Equally hypnotic and hauntingly beautiful, From Here, Together looks at space and how it informs our views of gender, power, and labour among other concepts. 

CRISIS ACTOR

Vidya Rajan

Producer: Haneen Mahmood Martin
haneen@performinglines.org.au

Playful, probing and emotive, CRISIS ACTOR explores what it means to live in our current time of increasing emergency and increasing reality collapse – and the intrinsic link between the two. With the help of the audience, CRISIS ACTOR blends narrative fiction with live art, role-playing and social game design, plunging everyone into an alternate reality of our collective making.

Us And All Of This

Liesel Zink

Producer: Jane Schon
jane@performinglines.org.au

In a world increasingly defined by rising geopolitical tension, ecological mismanagement, deteriorating labour conditions and social isolation, Liesel Zink’s Us And All Of This offers a rare moment of calm reflection. Bringing together 100 local dancers for a large-scale contemporary performance work, unfolding across large plots of urban public space, not in the pursuit of profiteering , but in the pursuit of togetherness and communion.

WAKE 

THE RABBLE

Producer: Kath Papas
kath@performinglines.org.au

Exploring the ever-increasing hostility towards women’s bodies particularly for older people, WAKE features acts of artistic courage created by the participating women, featuring anything from a ukulele solo to a professional wrestling bout; a Shakespeare monologue to a political speech. In an age of dislocation, WAKE is a work of solidarity.

Simon Wellington
Executive Producer

Simon@performinglines.org.au
WhatsApp: +61 477 277 795

Simon joined the Performing Lines team as Executive Producer and CEO in June 2024. Simon is an arts manager, programmer and producer who has worked in Australia, Indonesia and the United Kingdom. Previous roles have included: CEO of Hobart’s Theatre Royal; general manager for Sydney’s Griffin Theatre Company and Urban Theatre Projects; and programming and producing for festivals and events, including Ten Days on the Island and the Australian Theatre Forum. He has also worked with Arts Council England in the UK.