Chunky Move will premiere Phantasm, choreographer Melanie Lane's haunting new contemporary dance work exploring feminine supernatural forces.
The production opens on Friday 8 August and runs until Saturday 16 August at Chunky Move Studios in Southbank. Phantasm invites audiences into a world where spirits linger beneath the surface, drawing from stories of feminine spirits and fictions to conjure a liminal space of ghosts, jinns and heroines emerging from the underworld.
Developed as part of Lane’s 2023-2024 Chunky Move Choreographer in Residence tenure, the work has been crafted over a two-year period. Lane, a choreographer of Javanese and European descent, is known for visually striking works that interrogate cultural memory and contemporary mythologies, projecting them into surreal and shifting futures.
Phantasm
- Where: Chunky Move Studios, 111 Sturt Street, Southbank
- When: Friday 8 August – Saturday 16 August
- Performers: Nikki Tarling, Rachel Coulson, Ashley McClellan, Georgia Rudd
- Tickets here
- Choreographer: Melanie Lane
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The performance features four dancers whose bodies shift between seen and unseen worlds, channelling a transformative dance language where the spiritual and corporeal entwine. Lane’s practice spans visual art, theatre, music and film, with previous works presented across Europe, Asia, the United States and Australia.
Lane’s impressive accolades include the 2018 Keir Choreographic Award and Germany’s 2017 Leipziger Bewegungskunstpreis. She has received nominations for Green Room and Helpmann Awards, including the Shirley McKechnie Award for Choreography, and was awarded the 2023 Creative Australia Fellowship for Dance and 2024 Sidney Myer Creative Fellowship.
In 2024, Lane launched Corps Conspirators, a Creative Victoria-supported initiative exploring collaborative choreographic practices and multi-art form experimentation. Notable projects under this initiative include Pulau for AsiaTOPA 2025, Arkadia for Rising 2024, Dream Swamp for Melbourne Fringe 2024 and Mountain for 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 deeply felt rather than simply imagined.
For more information, head here.
