ABILITOPIA + WHITE NOISE - Auckland Premiere Season

ABILITOPIA is a dance + theatre + technology piece that explores the evolving interplay between Arts + AI. Humanity + Technology. A fully AI-enabled robot performs alongside diverse dancers in this ground-breaking performance that pushes the boundaries of disability-led perspective. WHITE NOISE emerges from crip creator Alisha McLennan Marler’s lived experience as a mother with disability. The work is an ongoing dance of communication. Hearing and being heard, being seen and unseen, and the agency to craft our own narrative. The Tuarā Wairua series of works by Touch Compass explore disability and art from multiple perspectives.

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ABILITOPIA dancers Duncan and Julie perform while "BFF" (AI robot) watches from a distance. A example of arts and AI meeting to create performance.

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Venue

Te Pou Theatre

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ABILITOPIA + WHITE NOISE

A Double-bill of crip creative brilliance!


ABILITOPIA is a 45-minute piece that generates philosophical questions about how AI can create new possibilities for participation and how it shapes our agency and identity. The show is directed by Dr Suzanne Cowan, with development sessions devised with dancers Duncan Armstrong, Raven Afoa-Purcell, and Julie
van Renen
. The elements of sound, light and technology are crafted by collaborators Kristian Larsen (Sound design), Adam Ben-Dror (robot design), and Rachel Marlow (AV and lighting design).

WHITE NOISE is a 40min work turns the tables of perception onto the audience. Inviting them to reflect on the preconceptions that Alisha is so often confronted with as she moves through the world. The lens of motherhood brings the reciprocal and constant interplay of parent and child into the feedback loop. Intimate experiences of parenthood intermingle with unapologetic social rebellion. The work is both personal and utterly communal, drawing us to consider our own place in the conversation.

Striking images sit alongside virtuosic movement material in this choreographic collaboration between Alisha and choreographer Jessie McCall. Live sound manipulation playfully weaves through the work, alongside a boundary pushing score by Drew McMillan. Immersive digital design elements from Brad Gledhill animate the performance space, bringing Alisha’s internal world to life. WHITE NOISE is poignant, provocative, sensual, and not afraid to make noise.

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