Dancenorth Australia’s wonderfully deflating show is back

Dancenorth Australia’s hit show RED has been remounted for a short season in the Playhouse at QPAC until Saturday.

RED dancers Michael Smith (QUT graduate) and Marlo Benjamin. The performance highlights the universal challenges of human survival.

Dancenorth Australia’s hit show RED is the most deflating experience you will ever have in a theatre. And that’s a good thing.

This production by the acclaimed Townsville-based company was a hit at Brisbane Festival in 2022 and has been remounted for a short season in the Playhouse at QPAC until Saturday.

It features two red-haired dancers struggling to survive inside a large transparent inflatable structure. Call it a bubble if you like.

Conceived, directed and choreographed by Dancenorth Australia’s husband and wife team Amber Haines and Kyle Page it’s a short powerful exploration of existential angst in a world beset by environmental threats.

Kyle Page says it is “an ode and a stark warning for what we do to the natural environment we also do to ourselves”.

“Human health is intrinsically linked to environmental health.”

Set to a score by Alistair Macindoe featuring music by Ellen Arkbro and vocals by Sara Black it is unnerving and entertaining in equal measure. The two ranga dancers (their hair has been dyed for the performance) are Marlo Benjamin and Michael Smith who are naked inside their bubble by the end of a show which is, according to Benjamin “the most exhausting how I have ever been a part of”.

“It’s a really intense super wild ride,” she says. And by the finale the naked dancers are trapped inside their bubble which takes just under an hour to deflate.

qpac.com.au