Air Time turns urban athletes into stage performers

Branch Nebula presents a groundbreaking show featuring urban athletes.

Branch Nebula's upcoming groundbreaking performance, Air Time, will debut at the Seymour Centre for the 2025 Sydney Festival season.

Seeing the world through a different lens is what performance art is all about – and Branch Nebula’s upcoming groundbreaking performance Air Time will do just that when it debuts at the Seymour Centre for the 2025 Sydney Festival season in January.

The production seamlessly integrates skateboarding, BMX, dance, and parkour into a traditional theatre space, bringing to life the vision of creators Lee Wilson and Mirabelle Wouters, who had a goal of bringing street performance into a theatrical setting, turning urban athletes into stage performers.

“We want to share an experience with the audience that highlights the creativity and ingenuity of street-styles – these forms are now often linked with sport, but there is a whole culture that is richly artistic and not about competition, but a whole team of winners who collaborate to invent and explore ways of moving and seeing the world,” Wilson tells Insider.

“The geography of Sydney is stunning – there are so many beaches and spots tucked into the urban environment.

“There is a wildness in the subcultures here that is wonderful to discover.

Air Time brings street performance into a theatrical setting.

“Speaking to the people around us, to our local audience and to be recognised in the place where we live gives us a solid foundation for us to exist within.”

They presented Concrete And Bone Sessions at the 2013 Sydney Festival at Dulwich Hill skate park, which Wilson described as “absolutely magical”.

Branch Nebula found there was a whole culture that was richly artistic and not about competition.

BMXers, skaters, dancers, and parkourists will launch into gravity-defying sequences that bring the raw energy of the street into the heart of the theatre.

“We want to unleash a devastatingly powerful experience again that will imprint in the minds of audiences of all ages in a way they will never forget.”

In this fearless new production, ramps tower, wheels spin, and bodies soar as BMXers, skaters, dancers, and parkourists launch into gravity-defying sequences that bring the raw energy of the street into the heart of the theatre.

“We are continually challenging ourselves as performance makers. Like the street-style artists we work with who push their bodies, we squeeze everything we can out of our creative minds, to push the boundaries,” Wouters says.

“With Air Time we have stretched the street-style culture into new territory for the audiences’ minds to be blown, beyond the spectacle, and the risky tricks, but also those elements are the glue, the rhythm of the piece.”

Air Time features performers including pro skateboarder Austin Gray, professional BMX rider XXXX, dancer Cloeì Fournier, breakdancer Feras Shaheen, and roller skater, Larrakia woman Tia Pitman.

Sydney Festival, January 7-11, sydneyfestival.org.au/events/air-time