Asia TOPA kicks off this week, bringing a three-week city-wide adventure of art, culture, and community from 20 February to 10 March, 2025. To help you navigate the program, the LGI team has curated our top dance picks.
1.Gapu Ngupan – World Premiere
A must-see Asia TOPA performance bringing together tradition with contemporary culture. Featuring song, dance, atmospheric sound design and large-scale visuals, this powerful and joyous new First Nations commission transports you onto Country. Created over five years of cross-cultural collaboration, Gapu Ngupan has been made by extraordinary Yolŋu, Paiwan and Amis artists from North East Arnhem Land and Taiwan.
2. Lapse – Australian Exclusive
Descend into disorder at the Australian premiere of acclaimed Indonesian artist Melati Suryodarmo’s new work. A seminal figure in performance art with an internationally-celebrated body of work, Suryodarmo has created Lapse in response to the increasing chaos of our times. Lapse traces the fractures in our society, exploring systemic breakdowns, ethical decline and societal disillusionment while striving to imagine what collective transformation and change might look like.
3. Pulau [Island] – World premiere
Pulau is a site-specific response to Yayoi Kusama’s iconic body of work, choreographed by Melanie Lane. Commissioned especially for Asia TOPA and the National Gallery of Victoria’s landmark Yayoi Kusama exhibition, Pulau is performed in the NGV’s Great Hall, beneath Kusama’s seminal installation Dots Obsession 1996/2024.
4.Bunyi Bunyi Bumi – World Premiere
Bunyi Bunyi Bumi entreats us to hear and embody the sounds of the earth –of Country–carrying the stories of shared kinships across the Asia-Pacific region. Thrumming with dance, body percussion, syncopated rhythms, and stunning visuals, the performance unites Aboriginal, Torres Strait Islander, and Indonesian artists in a powerful rebuke of colonial amnesia.
5. U>N>I>T>E>D – World Premiere
Enter an exhilarating speculative future on the stage of the iconic Sidney Myer Music Bowl. Chunky Move’s highly anticipated and ambitious stage spectacle U>N>I>T>E>D premieres as part of Asia TOPA.
A stellar lineup of six dancers explore machine mysticism and the persistence of spirituality in a post-industrial digital age, set to gamelan-infused, Javanese trance-inspired techno beats.
6. Borrow and Exergie – Butter Dance
BORROW consists of diverse fragments of performance and research that have influenced Suryodarmo’s artistic journey, put together in a performative presentation. Attend Suryodarmo’s Unpacked No. 2: Political for a two-show discount.
7. Unpacked No. 2: Political
Unpacked No. 2: Political delves into the political dimensions and circumstances of Suryodarmo’s work. Attend Suryodarmo’s Borrow and Exergie – Butter Dance for a two-show discount.