Review: NEW ROMANTICS at Goodwood Theatre and Studios

Review by Lisa Lanzi

Fringe 2026 has launched in Adelaide and the variety and breadth on offer is even more astonishing this year.  Good luck choosing what to see! 

My first outing was to Goodwood Theatre and Studios for New Romantics, a collection of original dance works produced and curated by Alix Kuijpers, a graduate of Adelaide College of the Arts and Flinders University Creative Arts (Honours); Caroline de Wan is credited as co-producer.  Alix’ personal passion for dance and choreography is clear as is their mission to support other emerging talents in the field.  Additionally, if I am not mistaken, all the cast have trained here in Adelaide within the AC Arts dance program, a strong recommendation for the rigour of that course.

New Romantics is a quadruple bill on the mainstage and I would hope that all these works have an opportunity to be seen again.  The artform needs new choreographic voices in this city, and country, as much as we need a sustainable approach to funding for the Arts.

First on the bill, A moment of (redacted).  Choreographed by Ella Molloy and performed by Molloy with Georgia Rubie.  Two extraordinary dancers with presence and great technique.  A blank stage, two bodies in flowing white ‘tattered’ apparel, and two (subtle) treadmill bases diagonally opposed, downstage and upstage.  Starting in stillness the work progresses with the two dancers shifting from walking or running on the treadmill, expertly changing direction on same, then moving into duet work with beautiful exploration of lifting and levels.  Using such a prop could be disastrous in some hands but the inspired inclusion in this work only heightened the whole.

A minimalist soundscape layers the beginning, more musical and rhythmic segments building as the work unfolds during a mesmerising climax and finale.  There are many images that come to mind during A moment of (redacted): yearning, routine, control, loss of individual power, a tone of care and support.  None of this is forced however, but beautifully lyrical, where the movement language is the star.

The Great Thinning made and performed by Sophie Hollingworth was a solo triumph in minimalism aided by collaborator and dramaturg Tayla Hoadley.  A solo figure enters a bare stage to methodically arrange segments of peel and one whole orange on stage, followed by a pause, stillness, a dramatic lighting change, then an extreme downstage slow-motion traverse.  The white clad dancer, revealing a subtle orange under-layer, twists, distorts, and mobilises at different levels in the slow, abstract movement sequences.  

Again, a rich soundscape accompanies the work (no credit available), and Hollingworth is a performer with great spell, drawing the audience into their world.  More rhythmic sound accompanies the latter half of the work including a low heartbeat-like pulse while the dancer and the whole orange duet.  At some stage the orange is torn into and the sensory addition of that strong citrus scent invades the whole space.  Once more, imagery is subtle but evocative: I had a feeling of a soul entering then leaving an ‘Eden’ and moving toward a richer life ripe with possibility.  There are many moments of movement repetition but overall, the work is compelling.

Choreographer Sarah Wilson performs her work Interlocked alongside dancers Amelia Walmsley and Poppy Anthoney.  All three are superb movers and worked seamlessly to create a reality of ‘otherness’ on the stage.  In diaphanous, neutral-coloured robes the three dancers work within, over, and under a maze of rope crossing the space at waist height.  They also manipulate long lengths of more rope in various tasks of wrapping, winding, bundling, or draping and adding to the existing web.  Such work with props can be fraught for performers but the three handled all with grace and precision, despite a very few hiccups where a pesky knot hindered the flow.

This work also offered an audience the opportunity for personal interpretation, though Wilson’s program note mentions the ‘norns’, a group of deities in Norse mythology responsible for shaping the course of human destinies.  Norns are often represented as three goddesses who weave threads of fate and tend to the world tree, Yggdrasil, ensuring it stays alive at the centre of the cosmos.  Though I had not read the program before viewing, images honouring ‘women’s work’ came to mind, as did the notion of shaping destiny and overcoming obstacles as one proceeds through life.  

I want to add here that each of the four works in this season had phenomenal lighting plots – again, not sure who to credit here.  Lighting for dance is supremely demanding and when it is done well, the benefit is obvious.  In Interlocked, there were moments of backlighting where sheer costumes revealed (modestly) the working bodies beneath.  A spellbinding sequence at the downstage edge used ‘audience blinders’ to create an entirely different sensation of urgency as the dancers frantically wound or bundled lengths of rope.

Co-choreographers and performers Isobel Stolinski and Alix Kuijpers presented Starry Eyed, more dance theatre than the other three works, but no less absorbing.  Here, the setting was more opulent – red velvet curtains upstage and partially closed red front drape.  Into this boudoir-like setting, Kuijpers carried Stolinski on their shoulder from the back of the auditorium to the stage.  The duo, dressed in black, with the draped form of the female also ‘wrapped in plastic’ mounted the stage and the suited figure ritually arranged and unwrapped the female.  Stolinski’s movement was mesmeric like a mannequin or sculpture freeing themselves from stillness but exploring slowly the possibilities of position, flex, extension, and form.

For the most part, the two figures had some brief encounters, moving together, lifting, swapping clothes, with sequences reminiscent of contact improvisation duets, but Kuijpers persona led the narrative.  I wasn’t entirely understanding of the overall thematic leaning but enjoyed the powerful, sometimes suggestive, movement plus strident vocalization of text and song that ensued from Kuijpers; all somewhat urgent, dynamic, immediate, and potent.  Both are powerful, expert performers in possession of incredible stage presence and I pondered Starry Eyed as possibly being a fragment that might be expanded upon to create a full-length, standalone dance theatre piece.

Bravo all. 

Image Supplied