To mark Critical Path’s 20th anniversary, choreographer and curator Azzam Mohamed opened the festival Every Wild Idea with a bold experiment in process-led performance. For one night, seven artists – Amy Flannery, Jackson Garcia, Amelia O’Leary, Angelica Osuji, Gabriela Quinsacara, Remy Rochester and Marcus Whale – were set loose across the Drill Hall in a roaming “mini-residency challenge,” each responding in real time to a randomly assigned provocation. As audiences drifted through the building’s hidden corners, they witnessed the Drill transform into a live choreographic laboratory – an unfiltered glimpse into how dancers think, improvise, and create. In this conversation, Mohamed reflects on the values behind the event, the artists he brought together, and the thrill of the unknown that shaped the night.
Tell us a little about your background.
“I was born in Sudan, raised between Sudan and Saudi, coming to Australia in 2016. I’ve really only been in the dance sector since 2020, so I still feel like a baby in the scene!
Dance has always been part of life – culture, community, social gatherings. I actually studied engineering, so dancing was something I did at parties, weddings, graduations. Even at uni, we’d chip in for a sound system and just have a boogie. In Saudi, I started seeing street battles (breaking, hip hop) and thought, ‘I want to learn that.’ It wasn’t until I moved to Malaysia to study engineering that I really got into street and club styles: popping, house, hip hop, blending them together. My training ground and practice was parties and battles.
When I moved to Australia, I kept doing the same thing. Then in 2019, Nick Powell saw footage of me and my crew online and reached out about doing a work with two crews, us and another from Paris, in a theatre. I had no idea about theatre. I thought you had to do ballet or contemporary until I saw one of his works and realised, ‘Okay, I’m allowed to be in this space.’ We ended up collaborating for Sydney Festival and Adelaide Festival in 2020, and that led to my first residency with Critical Path.
I remember getting the email and thinking, ‘What is a residency?’ They handed me the keys and said come in whenever you want, and we will pay you. It blew my mind. Since then, I’ve wanted to sit in both worlds.”
When Critical Path invited you to curate the opening night of its 20th anniversary festival, what was the first idea, impulse, or question that sparked Every Wild Idea?
“When Anya (McKee) reached out, the first thing I thought about were the values of Critical Path. Being on the board, I know the organisation has always been about research, process, and that ground-zero moment where an idea begins. You walk in with nothing but a thought, try things out, talk to people, experiment. That’s the world Critical Path has always operated in; it has always been a leader in research.
I started thinking about how to highlight that. In hip hop, we talk about sampling – taking something old, flipping it, and making something new. That idea of research sparked from an experience Jack Prest and I had at Monumental in 2022 at the Art Gallery of NSW. We spent four hours in the space working, talking, trying ideas, an open lab, and people would ask when we were performing. And we’d say, ‘We are performing right now.’ It made me wonder how you perform process, thinking, improvisation – not just the final result.
For the festival, I wanted to activate the whole Drill, bring artists in with minimal prep, give a provocation, and let things happen. It was also a celebration of 20 years, so we looked at how to connect the past and the future – bringing in artists who had been part of Critical Path before and pairing them with the next generation to imagine the next 20 years of the Australian dance sector.”
Tell us about the idea for the envelopes – what kinds of provocations were inside them? Conceptual? Physical? Spatial? Emotional?
“I wanted the envelopes to really get people thinking. Doors opened at 7, but at 6 we did a draft – three rounds where the dancers came in with whatever they wanted and discovered which space they’d be performing in. I had seven coloured envelopes, one for each artist. They picked a provocation at random, didn’t read it, and sealed it until the audience arrived. It was about keeping things raw and honest, showing process and connecting past, present, and future.
For the first two rounds, each artist worked in their own space. Then in the third round, we removed three spaces so only four were left, which meant people had to work together. Suddenly, you had your own provocation and someone else’s. Do you follow yours, theirs, or blend them?
The final round brought everyone into the Drill Hall. With 40 minutes on the clock, each artist directed an idea live on the mic for five or six minutes so the audience could literally watch their thinking in real time. Seven artists, seven brains, seven totally different ways of approaching the work.”
What kind of provocations were in the envelopes?
“For example, Anton gave us a transcript of notes from a rehearsal 16 years ago. Here’s an excerpt from the journal: ‘Blurred body, busy mind. I activate now. And now. And now. And now. Quick sticks, edge, dissolve. Sensations, confusion.’
Sue Healey gave us a provocation that was dedicated for the event: ‘I want you to think about all the artists that have come by…go in this room. Notice the smell, the small things, the insignificant cracks, the odd colours and textures. The spider, the dust, the gap and the gap between the floorboards. Dance these seeming seemingly insignificant things. Feel the energy of other artists who have dreams within this structure. Honor their endeavour but make it your own.’
Someone gave us duct tape. And again, all the artists just responded to it really nicely.
The dancers had the name of the artist who wrote the provocation, so they got to recognize who they were responding to. At the end, when the dancers picked one of the provocations to do their directing, they could announce to the audience, ‘I received this provocation from this person, and this is my interpretation.'”
You selected seven artists from very different lineages: contemporary, street, club, African diasporic forms, interdisciplinary makers. What was the logic behind bringing these artists together, and how did you think about the ways their practices might collide or cross-fertilise in real time?
“Honestly, the first impulse was selfish, I just wanted to see these artists together in one room. I’m a fan of all of them, so the thought of bringing them into one melting pot was really exciting.
Practically, I also wanted everyone to have at least one familiar face in the space so they felt comfortable, because the environment was very raw. I’m the link between all of them, but I knew I’d be busy on the night, so those existing connections mattered. Each artist also represents a different community and lineage – First Nations practices, African forms, Latin, contemporary, hip hop, club styles, ballet – so putting them together was a chance to build bridges across those worlds.
You rarely see these genres at each other’s events, so I wanted to show different ways of approaching a task, different ways of thinking. With seven artists trained differently, you’re going to get seven different responses, and that’s the point. It was amazing watching how they each read the provocation, used the space, and developed something in the moment.
One highlight was when Gabby was leading a section, teaching popping on the spot in front of the audience. You could immediately see who was comfortable and who wasn’t, and it gave everyone a new appreciation. And the approaches were so different: a First Nations artist might start from land or story, a street dancer might begin with the music or style – asking, what am I listening to, what form am I drawing from, and how do I make it speak in this context? Seven artists, seven different ways in.”
The Drill becomes a free-roaming choreographic laboratory. What did you imagine the audience’s role to be as they move through the building?
“Initially, we thought the audience would each get an envelope and offer their own provocations, but we dropped that idea because of time and the size of the spaces. Some rooms barely fit two or three people, others maybe 20. Instead, we leaned into intimacy: the audience could be almost one-on-one with the artists, watching them think, test ideas, even talking to them directly. People could literally ask, ‘What are you working through right now?’
In performance, we usually only see the final 5–10% of the process – the polished outcome. We rarely see the research, the labour, the setbacks, the injuries, the messy middle that leads to the work. Every Wild Idea flips that. It’s about witnessing how an artist thinks and builds in real time, every performance is intimate.
Some artists even handed their provocations to audience members to read aloud, forcing them to respond instantly. I never expected the dancers to move nonstop for two hours. If someone wanted to talk, they talked. The whole event functioned like a mini-residency spread across the building, which is exactly why we activated every space.”
Is there something about the Drill itself, its history, its architecture, its sense of spaciousness, that shaped how you curated the event?
“The Critical Path is an amazing building; it’s very beautiful. Every time I go to Critical Path, any event is always happening in the Drill Hall downstairs in the studio, and that’s pretty much it. The only time I go upstairs, is when I go to the office. Nobody actually has a chance to see what this venue looks like. So I thought, all right, let’s use this as a reason for people to explore the entire space. We had Frankie (Clark) lighting up the whole building. And it was so beautiful. All the various spaces, everyone approached them differently. It was really cool just to see people roaming around, and up close with the artists.”
What’s the most exciting unknown for you going into the night?
“For me, the excitement lies in not knowing what will emerge between the artists. We all come in with years of training and habits, and it takes time to dig past the surface ideas. The real spark happens in the space between people – space, light, task, bodies all colliding. Nick Powell once told me that if you walk into a residency and simply do what you planned, you’ve failed, because you didn’t allow anything new to happen. That really stayed with me.
I want to create environments where artists can genuinely surprise themselves and the audience. When an unexpected idea or movement appears, that’s the thrill. And whatever happens, it’s useful: if it doesn’t work, you learn; if it does, you build on it.”
By Linda Badger of Dance Informa.
Share this:
