Dark, subtle and surprising, While You Sleep weaves string quartet, piano, electronics, film and animation in a surreal counterpoint of music, movement and image where nothing is as it seems. 

In this aural and visual excursion into the musical fugue and psychological ‘fugue state’ performers spin across the stage on wheeled chairs as they interact with immersive visuals. Hand-drawn animation, live action, video and stop-motion play out as pianist Jacob Abela, violinists Isabel Hede and Zachary Johnston, violist Phoebe Green and cellist David Moran perform 50 minutes of memorised music, bereft of stands and sheet music, while in choreographed motion.

The work expands upon the elaborate complexity of the musical fugue – where a phrase is introduced by one instrument and then taken up by others – to deftly probe the uncertain landscapes between grief and identity, reality and illusion.

Exploring flight, memory and dissociation, While You Sleep is a mesmerising escape from the present.

“A work of dizzying complexity…recalls Georges Méliès and William Kentridge” – Dr. Thomas H. Ford

Purchase your tickets
13 July | 7:30pm – Preview
14 July | 7:30pm – Opening Night
15 July | 7:30pm
16 July | 7:30pm – Post Show Q&A