Dive into the On&On Festival, a dynamic celebration that weaves through Federation Square, Melbourne’s nightclubs, and the city streets before culminating at Arts Centre Melbourne’s The Show Room and Fairfax Foyer.
This three-day program spotlights street dance, its vibrant communities, and the innovative artists driving its evolution across Australia and the Asia Pacific. Engage with exclusive conversations, hands-on workshops, and powerful performance excerpts from leading figures in the street dance world.
Kick off the festival on Thursday 19 February with an intimate conversation featuring Thai street dance collective Thrixept. Explore community-building, the emergence of Bad Vibes Festival, and performance practices in Thailand’s thriving street dance scene. Formed in Bangkok in 2020, Thrixept is a multidisciplinary dancer and designer collective. Rooted in hip-hop, its members, dancers who are also creators, designers, and innovators, push beyond traditional battles and stages. They fuse dance with theatre, film, digital media, design, fashion, and community initiatives, reimagining its cultural reach. Conversations on Street Dance from Across the Asia Pacific takes place from 3–4:30 pm in Fairfax Foyer. This event is free.
On Friday 20 February, be among the first to discover insights from the pioneering report Street Dance in Focus: Practices, Communities & Futures in Australia, led by Dr Jason Ng, the first research of its kind in the country. This session gathers key contributors and case-study artists, including Amanda Vanderkleij, Demi Sorono, Dr Jason Ng, Efren Pamilacan, and Geoffrey Lim, to discuss the report’s findings, challenges, and visions for the national street dance community. The Street Dance in Focus report discussion runs from 3–4:30 pm in Fairfax Foyer. This event is free.
Experience a festival highlight on Saturday 21 February: the premiere theatre excerpt DARK!1 by CONJAH. This character study delves into the multiple beings and environments of DARK!DARK!DARK!, an evolving performance project. CONJAH transcends conventional physical performance, crafting immersive worlds filled with evocative characters. As a collaborative hub of friends, artists, world-builders, theatre-makers, dancers, designers, and facilitators, CONJAH creates multidisciplinary experiences. Their work engages with non-human phenomena, bodily memory, cultural mapping, resistance, reimagined futures, and emotional depth. Hailed as one of the most thrilling performance collectives from the Oceanic region, CONJAH balances intense impact with profound care in cultural exchange. Their visceral works and spaces draw on ecologies of transformation, imagination, and kinship, probing collective dreams, nightmares, and what emerges when we confront them. The performance will be followed by an artist in-conversation. DARK!1 by CONJAH runs from 1–3 pm in The Show Room. Tickets are $10 (BlakTix), $18 (Concession), and $20 (Standard).
Book now for On&On Festival at artscentremelbourne.com.au.
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