Artistic Director, Phillip Adams considered the manipulative power of Jim Jones of The People's Temple and Australia's own celebrated alternative cult/community, the Universal Brotherhood to create Miracle, in which the group experience of emotionally charged religious fervour and alienation from conventional life is played out as an experiential performance.
Miracle creates a vision of the world that is both brutal and sublime. What transpires is an examination of the promises of a new beginning and the false hopes and religious stereotypes that these practices produce. The work builds up to a choreographic crescendo, including dissonant playing of harmonicas, and an epiphany that culminates in a phenomenon - live levitation by two dancers - The Miracle. Constantly confronting and emotionally charged, Miracle is an all-consuming experience not to be missed.
WORLD PREMIERE
State of Design Festival 2009
Arts House Meat Market, Melbourne
15 – 19 July 2009
US PREMIERE
EMPAC Filament Festival 2010
EMPAC, New York, USA
1 – 2 October 2010
MONA FOMA 2011
Princess Wharf I, Hobart
21 - 23 January 2011
"What more can I say? Beautiful bodies, mature performance, great group work, but in the end this work and BalletLab's in the recent era is much more than dance, so much more." - Martyn Coutts
"It was a vast and brilliant work." - Guerilla Semiotics
"The most challenging and compelling contemporary dance currently around in our neck of the woods... Miracle is simultaneously riveting, bewildering, mesmerizing..." - ArtsHub
Choreography and direction: Phillip Adams
Music and sound composition: David Chisholm and Myles Mumford
Dancers: Luke George, Kyle Kremerskothern, Clair Peters and Brooke Stamp
Costumes: Toni Maticevski
Lighting: Bluebottle & Jenny Hector