Dancer moving across the performance floor in a lavender-lit space.

Opportunities

SPACE GRANTS JANUARY-MARCH 2025

Announcing our Space Grant recipients for January-March 2025

Space Grants give artists an opportunity to use The Drill Hall without any predetermined outcomes. Critical Path waives the venue hire fees for The Drill Hall for successful recipients. 

We are excited to announce our recipients: Madeleine Backen, Eliza Cooper, Ira Ferris, Remy Rochester, Kaz Therese, Louie Wisby and Daniela Zambrano for January, February and March 2025.

MADELEINE BACKEN

Dancer kneeling on the ground gazing up to the light above.

Optimal Stopping with Proper Motion and La Infinita Compania at The Town Hall Wollongong 2023. Photography by Children of the Revolution

Faltering falling buffoonery

The unpacking of self and the many elements that lie within. An exploration of the interplay between all these elements.

This studio time will allow for the ongoing integration of self practice and allowing time to play around with ideas, allowing the body and letting the mind be free. I am also working on a solo work that is in the early stages of development. This will give time to continue to keep unearthing everything that is yet to be explored in this project.

@madeleinemilie_

MADELEINE BACKEN

Deep lover of all forms of movement, freelancing artist, Madeleine Backen lives and creates in Sydney, on Gadigal land. During her time with Austi Dance and Physical Theatre (2016-2020) she had the opportunity to work with a wide range of diverse choreographers, primarily from the European contemporary dance scene. She has performed with multidisciplinary company Stalker Theatre (2022), as well as Western Sydney based organisation, Dance Makers Collective and has had involvement with Dirty Feet’s choreographic lab programs. As of 2021 Madeleine began working with Illawarra project-based group, Proper Motion, allowing her the opportunity to perform in Mexico City at the International Festival of Contemporary Dance in August of 2023. In the most recent year Madeleine has participated in Implustanz ALTAS choreographic program held in Vienna, Austria. She is currently diving deeper into her own practice and choreographic capabilities and continuing to seek dancing opportunities that deeply challenge her artistically. 

ELIZA COOPER

Photograph of seven dancers in motion wearing flowing organza dresses against a pale background.

Bat Lake by Eliza Cooper, at Riverside Theatres, FORM Dance Projects, Photographer Dom O’Donnell

Contemporary Folk Dance Sessions

Eliza is researching British folk dances and developing choreographic materials based on their rhythms, structures and functions. In 2023, she undertook the Rapport international exchange residency, a partnership between Dance Makers Collective and South East Dance (Brighton UK). During the residency, she engaged with local folk dancers practicing Morris, Hornpipe, Clog/ Clocsio and Southern Step, musicians playing melodeon, concertina and fiddle, and craftsmen making bell pads and clogs. She is leading 2hr workshops at Critical Path sharing folk dances, folk-inspired contemporary exercises and choreographic applications. She is also working in the Drill Hall and Research Room.

@elizakcooper

ELIZA COOPER

Eliza Cooper is a Sydney-based dance artist presenting her work independently and by commission. She is a member of the Western-Sydney based companies Dance Makers Collective (DMC) and Pepa Molina’s Las Flamenkas. She is a former Dance Captain at Opera Australia and is a Teaching Artist at Sydney Dance Company (SDC). With DMC, Eliza performed in ‘Dads’, ‘The Rivoli’ and ‘All In’ (2021-2025) and with Las Flamenkas, in Pepa Molina’s ‘Las Flamenkas with Live Music’ (2021), ‘FlamencoBITS’ (2024) and ‘A Taste of Spain’ (2025). She presented numerous choreographic works including ‘Old Life/ Dead Life’ (2019), ‘Bat Lake’ (FORM 2022), ‘Revenge Tales and Romance’ (SDC 2024), ‘Play’ (SDC Youth Ensemble 2022), ‘Snake Battle’ (DMC 2023) and ‘Truth and Consequence’ (DMC Future Makers 2023). Eliza undertook the ImPulsTanz ATLAS Choreographic Program (Vienna 2023), Carmen de las Cuevas Professional Tablao course (Granada 2023) and Rapport international residency (DMC/ South East Dance UK 2024). 

IRA FERRIS

A handwritten timeline with years and rises and falls according to activity per year.

Critical Path history timeline by one of the artists.

Vignettes, flickers, fades …

Reminiscing on the 20 years of Critical Path, this memory project traces the significance of Critical Path through multi-sensory recalls of the dance community that has weaved its fabric and sculpted its form.

After spending a couple of months in the Critical Path research room, going through the physical archives of the past 20 years of Critical Path, I was left curious about the gaps – the anecdotal memories of the encounters, laughters, pathways, shapes, experiments that were housed here since 2005. What corners of the Drill Hall pulsate with recollections, which ones have been unattended to? What collaborations have been birthed here, which movement epiphanies released? What somatic sensations are imprinted in the embodied echoes of this place? This project unfolds through a series of one-on-one conversations with some of the artists who form part of Critical Path’s history. A memory questionnaire travels from Rushcutters Park to a hot spot in the Drill Hall, paying equal attention to that which is remembered and that which is forgotten or transformed into an utterance. Vignettes, flickers, fades, … These conversations will form the next edition of Critical Dialogues and a sound-installation at Critical Path’s birthday celebrations later this year.

@artemisprojects

IRA FERRIS

Ira Ferris is a dance and multidisciplinary artist, also working as a writer and radio journalist. Her projects are rooted in dialectical processes that involve collaborative thinking and conversation. As a researcher, she is interested in time and memory, and is currently diving deep into the ‘affective archives’. With Elia Bosshard, Ira has co-authored SPACE BODY HABIT, a book of somatic exercises that explore the many ways we perceive or fail to perceive spaces. The book includes a chapter on memories housed within spaces, or how spaces can be ‘charged’ by the pasts they have held. Ira makes works and takes time on the unceded land of the Eora nation and pays respect to the ongoing custodians of this land; Elders past, present, and emerging. Always was always will be. 

KAZ THERESE

Group of partially clothed people hugging

They Will Be Kings, Kaz Therese, Danica Lani, Angel Tan, Becks Blake, Chris McAllister, May Tran, Gail Priest, Martin del Amo, Frankie Clarke and Caitlin Cowan, 2025.

They Will Be Kings

THEY WILL BE KINGS is a new performance project about the politics of joy, power and gender. The project unpacks the contemporary stereotypes of trans & gender diversity from the perspective of trans-masc. non-binary and lesbian Drag Kings.  THEY WILL BE KINGS will be radical celebration and demonstration of how a thriving, but often invisible queer community creates new futures for gender expression. Bringing together some of Australia’s most exciting & critical trans activists, drag king performers and award-winning artists, it will work to rewrite the queer history of 21st Century Australia.

Creative Team: Kaz Therese, Danica Lani, Angel Tan, Becks Blake, Chris McAllister, May Tran, Gail Priest, Martin del Amo, Frankie Clarke and Caitlin Cowan. Partner organisation: Kings of Joy

This project is supported by Creative Australia, LINC and Critical Path.

https://www.thewerewolf.com.au/work/they-will-be-kings

KAZ THERESE

Kaz Therese (them/they) lives on Gadigal Land and grew up on Darug Land in Mt Druitt, they are queer, Hungarian/Australian. Kaz is the founder of WEREWOLF, they are an award-winning theatre maker and interdisciplinary artist with a practice grounded in performance, visual arts, activism and community building. In 2023 Kaz was supported by the Creative Australia to research transformative matriarchal leadership practices in arts and culture collaborating with In Between Time (Bristol) and Kolkata Centre for Creativity (India). In 2022 Kaz presented the world premiere of their solo work “SLEEPLESSNESS” commissioned and presented by Carriageworks and Parramatta Riverside. Kaz directed and co-wrote ACTION STAR with Maria Tran, premiered at OZASIA FESTIVAL 2022. From 2013-2020 they were Artistic Director of PYT Fairfield and Founder of FUNPARK, Mt Druitt, establishing a dynamic new arts program and practice for the Western Sydney region. Kaz directed the Helpmann nominated PLAYLIST presented in Festival UnWrapped at the Sydney Opera House (2019). Other works for PYT include JUMP FIRST ASK LATER (Sydney Opera House, National Tour, Helpmann and Australian Dance Award) TRIBUNAL presented at PYT Fairfield, Griffin Theatre, Museum of Contemporary Art, ArtsHouse Melbourne, Sydney Opera House and Carriageworks, 2018 Sydney Festival; WOMEN OF FAIRFIELD in collaboration with the Museum of Contemporary Art’s C3West program, which won the FBiSMAC Award for Best Arts Program (2016) FUNPARK (Sydney Festival 2014) and WOMEN OF PARRAMATTA, Sydney Biennale, NIRIN. Kaz is a Fellow of the Creative Australia’s Arts Leaders program and is currently Lead Programmer of Public Programs at the Museum of Contemporary Art (MCA) Australia. Kaz was Lead Programmer Public Programs at the Museum of Contemporary Art Australia, 2024. 

LOUIE WISBY

Person sitting on a plinth holding a phone listening intently and wearing only one shoe.

Louie Wisby, Sybylla, 2024, still from a film featured in live performance at Temerance Hall Fringe program, Temperance Hall (Naarm); Temperance Hall and Lucy Guerin Inc (Out of Bounds); Jeff Busby.

Wood:Fire:Earth:Metal:Water

The moving body and the five elements

This project continues my physical research into the application of the Five Elemental theory onto the performing body. The Five Elements is a cycle of correspondences that seeks to explain the relationship between the many parts of the human body and the diverse elements of the environment it is immersed in. It is an ancient knowledge system that informs many cultural and knowledge systems in Asia and is a foundational theory in Traditional Chinese, Japanese and Korean medicines. I am interested in the conversation that might occur between this way of seeing the body, and those accumulated through a history in dance.

LOUIE WISBY

Louie Wisby is a physical artist who was born in Naarm on the stolen lands of the Wurrundjeri people and has recently relocated to Gadigal land in Sydney. Louie graduated from the Victorian College of the Arts in 2018 and since then has pursued the creation of her own work and others. She has enjoyed working with Phillip Adams (Glory, Prelude), Jo Lloyd (Garden Dance, Bang Stop, FM: Air, Paris Was Yesterday), Geoffrey Watson (Rachael Wisby) and Yuiko Matsumoto (3). Her work has been presented by Temperance Hall (Please Do Not Move, Sybylla), Lucy Guerin Inc (Roses) and Dancehouse (Judy and Me). Her physical proposals are concerned with the fabricated, the fantasized and the fictitious body, and practices of body healing. They often conjure up hypothetical relationships between bodies and places through the use of improvisational frameworks. Louie is a student of the body and her formal studies in Traditional Chinese Medicine informs her metaphysical improvisational practices.

DANIELA ZAMBRANO

A photograph of seven performers sitting on top of a wooden structure with wheels. They are all wearing black outfits, smiling and looking directly at the camera.

Gabriela Quinsacara, Anna McCullan, Natalia Machado, Daniela Zambrano, Em Yali, Zain El-Roubaei ~~, Ko Yamada. Residency Space at Critical Path 2024. Photo Credit: Uday Alexander

Form and Flow
The Art of Contrast… a dance between sharp precision and fluid expression.

Form & Flow is a project that explores migration through the themes of adaptation, overcoming challenges, and connection. It blends popping and contemporary dance styles to tell this story. The focus is on refining the movement language, choreographing key scenes, and creating smooth transitions. The rhythmic interplay between the sharpness of popping and the fluidity of contemporary dance will be enhanced by a dynamic final music composition. The dancers’ interaction with a movable wooden structure will help intensify both the emotional and visual impact. The goal is to offer the Adelaide Fringe audience an immersive experience that connects deeply to themes of displacement, resilience, and unity.

www.plonovadance.com

DANIELA ZAMBRANO

Daniela is a Sydney-based, Colombian-born choreographer and dancer, renowned for her versatility across urban, afro, latin styles and contemporary dance. She began her career with the National Ballet of Colombia, merging Colombian folklore with modern dance. Daniela holds a Bachelor of Choreography and Contemporary Dance from the Superior Academy of Arts in Bogotá (2014) and completed DIP 2023 Anton Lachky- Puzzle Work in Belgium. Under the pseudonym ‘Plonova Dance’ Daniela created acclaimed works in Colombia, addressing real-life issues through dance and improvisation. After relocating to Sydney in 2015, she choreographed notable projects such as ‘Borderlines’ (Hong Kong International Choreography Festival) and ‘Shapes & Shadows’ (ARA Darling Quarter Theatre). During the pandemic, her short films were featured in international festivals, including Inspire Dance Australia Film Festival 2022 and Florence Dance on Screen Festival 2022. Daniela also worked with UNHCR for ‘Displaced,’ raising awareness for refugees. Her latest work, ‘Pulse,’ premiered at Adelaide Fringe Festival 2024.

REMY ROCHESTER

Two performers wearing blazers and black pants in a large room with black curtains and flooring, backlit. They balance against each other chest to chest, with arms outstretched beyond the other.

Remy Rochester & Angus Onley, Please… continue?, Contemporary Dance/Physical Theatre, the Drill Hall, Critical Path, 2025.

Please… continue?

‘Please… continue?’ is an experimental contemporary dance work that navigates the ever-shifting dynamics between two people and their world. Blurring physical theatre and contemporary dance, the work weaves pedestrian nonchalance with complete abstraction to create its vibrant, surreal landscape. Reality bends, expectations unravel, and meaning constantly reshapes itself. With its playful storytelling and disorienting movement, ‘Please… continue?’ is a heartfelt homage to the richness of not-knowing and to the absurdity of our everyday.

@remyrochester

@angusonley

REMY ROCHESTER & ANGUS ONLEY

Remy Rochester is a contemporary dancer, choreographer, educator and physical theatre artist based in Sydney. She has worked extensively as a performer with iconic Australian companies including Opera Australia, Legs on The Wall and Catapult Choreographic Hub. She has performed works of multiple independent artists including Stephanie Lake, Omer Backley-Astrachan, Eliza Cooper and Anton Projects. Her debut choreographic work LOVE ARENA (2024, in collaboration with Jazz Luna), received critical acclaim including ‘Best in Dance’ in Sydney Fringe Festival’s Weekly Shortlist. Remy trained at Sydney Dance Company’s Pre-Professional Year 2019-2020, and since graduating has worked with the company as a Teaching Artist. She is a recipient of the Emerging Creator Fellowship from Catapult Choreographic Hub, The Ian Potter Cultural Trust Travel Funding, and Legs On The Wall Menteeship.

Angus Charles Onley is a multidisciplinary artist working in forms of Dance, Theatre, Visual art, and Performance art. Based in regional nsw, Angus currently works with a variety of independent practitioners across Melbourne and Sydney. Training at Sydney Dance Company’s Pre-professional Program, and Flying Fruit Fly Circus prior to that, he has an eclectic palette of skills and practices that have since been developed through workshops, conventions, and intensives worldwide.

FEATURED IMAGE CREDIT: Madeleine Backen, One Night for Dance, Dance Makers Collective, 2023. 

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The Drill, 1C New Beach Rd,
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