Feminine supernatural forces rise from the shadows this August as Chunky Move premieres PHANTASM, the haunting new contemporary dance work from leading Australian choreographer Melanie Lane. Opening Friday 8 August and running until Saturday 16 August at Chunky Move Studios, PHANTASM invites audiences into a world where the spirits linger beneath the surface.
Created during Melanie Lane’s 2023-2024 tenure as Chunky Move’s Choreographer in Residence, PHANTASM weaves a mesmerizing tapestry inspired by tales of feminine spirits, ghosts, jinns, and underworld heroines. This evocative work conjures a liminal realm where boundaries blur between the seen and unseen. Performed by four dancers—Nikki Tarling, Rachel Coulson, Ashley McClellan, and Georgia Rudd—the piece explores a transformative dance language, intertwining the spiritual and corporeal as bodies shift fluidly between worlds.
On developing the work over a two-year period, Lane said: “Being able to explore this work with time, space and resources at Chunky has been an incredibly rare and invaluable experience. It has given my practice the space to deepen and to dream into new territories of performance making with my collaborators. To work on ambitious ideas and follow them through in real terms is a gift for an independent artist.”
Lane, a choreographer of Javanese and European descent, is known for her visually striking works. Working across visual art, theatre, music and film, her practice interrogates cultural memory and contemporary mythologies, projecting them into surreal and shifting futures. Her previous works have been presented across Europe, Asia, the United States and here in Australia.
Lane’s accolades include the 2018 Keir Choreographic Award and Germany’s 2017 Leipziger Bewegungskunstpreis. She has also been recognised with nominations for the Green Room and Helpmann Awards, including the Shirley McKechnie Award for Choreography. She was a recipient of the 2023 Creative Australia Fellowship for Dance and 2024 Sidney Myer Creative Fellowship.
In addition to her residency at Chunky Move, Lane launched Corps Conspirators in 2024, a Creative Victoria–supported initiative exploring collaborative choreographic practices and multi-art form experimentation. Along with PHANTASM, Lane’s notable projects included under this initiative include Pulau (AsiaTOPA 2025), Arkadia (Rising 2024), Dream Swamp (Melbourne Fringe 2024) and Mountain (Now or Never 2024).
PHANTASM continues Chunky Move’s commitment to bold new contemporary performance, offering audiences a haunting, embodied experience where the spirit world is not only imagined, but deeply felt.
PHANTASM runs from 7-16 August 2025 at Chunky Move, 111 Sturt Street, Southbank.
Tickets are now on sale via: PHANTASM.eventbrite.com.au
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