TOPA Asia is a three-week city-wide celebration, a joint initiative of the Melbourne Arts Center and the Sidney Myer Foundation, and supported by the Victorian Government through Creative Victoria. It includes collaborations and partnerships with cultural innovators from across the Asia-Pacific region, including the Taipei Performing Arts Center, the Esplanade in Singapore and the Aichi Prefectural Arts Theater in Japan.
Centered at the Melbourne Arts Center in the city centre, Asia TOPA will see many of Nahm/Melbourne’s leading community spaces and cultural institutions – including the National Gallery of Victoria (NGV), Federation Square, Footscray Community Arts and Bunjil Place – hosted Fascinating events and incredible new performances.
The Triennale consists of three public programs: Performance, nightlife and Knowledge. The headline program of Asia TOPA, Performance The program has a total of 33 performances, 18 of which are world premieres and 18 are new works commissioned by TOPA Asia and the Melbourne Arts Center. Performance Generously supported by lead partner Playking Foundation.
Highlights of the performance program include: milestone, Hamer Hall’s triennial opening night show is not to be missed, celebrating the work of William Yang, one of Asia’s leading creative minds in Australia; U>N>I>T>E>Da new international dance and music collaboration at the Sidney Myer Music Bowl; and Chasing the rainbow, This is a ground-breaking cross-cultural collaboration involving Aboriginal artists from Arnhem Land and Taiwan.
Asia TOPA nightlife The program – a late-night collision of contemporary art and club culture – will be announced on December 10th. triennial Knowledge The program – artist conversations and workshop events – will be announced on January 14, 2025.
Dance Highlights
Chunky Move’s highly anticipated and ambitious spectacle U>N>I>T>E>D (February 27 – March 2, 2025) will premiere on the iconic Sidney Myer Music Bowl stage. Accompanied by the technological beats of Gamelan and Javanese psychedelic styles, six dancers wore upgraded exoskeleton costumes and transformed into mythical characters decorated with post-human technology. The landmark work is a major international collaboration with Javanese experimental tech collective Gabber Modus Operandi, Balinese streetwear brand Future Loundry and Naarm/Melbourne-based Creature Technology Co., a world leader in animatronic design.
ceremony (6-8 March 2025) is a new work in development by critically acclaimed queer Aboriginal arts collective FAFSWAG at The Show Room at Melbourne Arts Centre. Recalling the Aitu, or sacred connection between the Old World and the lives of its Samoan descendants, ceremony Told through a Samoan worldview, our relationship with animals and the environment offers curious reflections. The presentation at TOPA Asia shared excerpts from the early stages of development of the work, and was conducted in partnership with Creative New Zealand and Manchester Factory International. The completed work will have its world premiere in Manchester in summer 2025.
Pulau (Island) (22-23 February 2025) is a site-specific response to the iconic work of Australian/Javanese choreographer and performer Melanie Lane Kusama. Commissioned by TOPA Asia and NGV’s iconic Yayoi Kusama exhibition, Pulau (Island) will take place in the NGV lobby beneath Yayoi Kusama’s groundbreaking installation, point of obsession 1996/2024. The dance piece reflects Lane’s encounter with the work of Yayoi Kusama, whose obsession with body erasure and immersive world-building echoes Lane’s own choreographic work.
Famous Indonesian artist Melati Suryodarmo will premiere in Australia Invalid (March 6-8, 2025) A captivating dance and live music piece that responds to the increasing chaos of our time. Suryodarmo is staged at The Martin Myer Arena at the University of Melbourne (VCA), with a distinguished group of artists from Indonesia, Singapore and Taiwan, including a live musical performance by Yuen Chee Wai. An internationally renowned pioneer in the performing arts, Suryordarmo will also give two performance lectures at Dancehouse looking back at her seminal work during the Triennale.
With dance, body percussion, syncopated rhythms and stunning visuals, sound of earth (23-24 February 2025) Reimagining Australia’s relationship with Asia, shifting between Aboriginal, Torres Strait Islands and Aceh stories informed by ancient songs, mythical pasts and anti-colonial perspectives intertwined. Legendary choreographer Raymond D. blanco and renowned performance artist Dr. Priya Srinivasan join forces with renowned visual artist Vernon Ah Kee to unite Aboriginal, Torres Strait Islander, Tamil and Indonesian artists at Bunjil Place to joyfully denounce colonial amnesia disease.
For more information on the complete program, please visit asiatopa.com.au.
