Too Close To The Sun
Zoology
25–27 February, 8pm
Hacket Hall, WA Museum Boola Bardip
The idea for Zoology came from a series of slides that Talya found in a New York City antique shop on the Lower East Side. They were in Ektachrome colours, taken of wild animals at the Bronx Zoo in the 1980s. These slides sparked in Talya the memory that as a young girl she would tell the adults who asked her that she wanted to be a ballerina and a gorilla when she grew up.
At first, the work developed in the form of a performance lecture; it felt non-linear and dream-like, a combination of the personal, zoo stories, political stories of Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan and New York City. But then animals started emerging and insisting on being part of the narrative, and wordless movement became essential to the work.
This show has insisted on movement and on transformation. It has asked for Talya to move in entirely new ways, to inhabit the body, to reclaim her childhood self, to connect with and heal from trauma, and to listen deeply to the natural world and all that we are losing. It has brought an entire spectrum of colour with it: white light that contains purity and mystery and a wholeness that can fragment into a beauty of multitudes, into the entire invisible rainbow.
Too Close to the Sun is an interdisciplinary performance company whose works unfold like living poems—blurring the boundaries between text, ritual and dream—and invite audiences into spaces of intensity and reflection.
Their most recent production, At the End of the Land, premiered at PICA in 2023, establishing the company as a distinctive voice in Western Australia. With Zoology, they continue to expand the boundaries of contemporary performance, drawing audiences into immersive worlds where the poetic meets the political and the personal extends into the mythic.
Their works have been created through: The Banff Centre & The National Arts Centre (Canada), Bundanon (NSW), Terrapin Theatre (Hobart), PICA (Perth), Malthouse Theatre, CultureLAB (Melbourne), Performance Space (Sydney), Adhocracy (Adelaide), Metro Arts (Brisbane) and have toured to Arts House (Melbourne), Brisbane Festival, Brisbane Powerhouse, Performance Space (Sydney), PICA (Perth), Vitalstatistix (Adelaide), Summerworks, Theatre La Chapelle and Uno Festival (Canada).
Creative Team
Talya Rubin – Writer / Performer / Visual & Original Concept
Nick James – Director/ Co-Devisor
Laura Heffernan – Costume & Props Designer & Set Realisation
Giorgos Poulios – Music and Sound Designer
Katie Sfetkidis – Lighting Designer
Natalie Allen – Movement Consultant
Emma Valente – Dramaturg
Samuel James – Slide & Projection Maker
Erin Coates – Props Maker
Nicole Marrington – Costume Design Early Development
Sally Richardson – Executive Producer
Jodi Donovan – Associate Producer
Will Gammel – Production Manager
Jasmyn Day – Stage Manager
Lea Simic & Nadia Priolo – Children’s Chaperones
Tommy Jackson, Zack Law, Hope Lim, Olivia Vidler – Young Performers
TALYA RUBIN
Writer / Performer / Visual and Original Concept
Originally from Montreal, Canada, Talya is a Boorloo (Perth)-based poet and performance maker. She has toured and performed original solo performance works, Of the Causes of Wonderful Things, The Bluebird Mechanicals and At the End of the Land to critical acclaim across Australia, including at PICA, Performance Space, Arts House, Brisbane Festival, Brisbane Powerhouse, Metro Arts and Vitalstatistix. Her performance work was chosen as part of the Collaborations Project at The National Arts Centre (Canada). Her work has been developed through awarded residencies at Arts House CultureLAB, Fremantle Arts Centre, KISS Club/ pvi collective/PICA, Spare Parts, Hill End and the Bathurst Regional Art Gallery, The Contemporary Australian Puppetry Residency at Terrapin Theatre, Adhocracy Lab Vitalstatistix, HotHouse Theatre, Live Dreams at Performance Space, The Banff Centre and Bundanon. As a poet, she won a national poetry award in Canada and has had two books published, Leaving the Island and Iceland is Melting and So Are You.
NICK JAMES
Director/Co-Devisor
Nick, a co-founder of Too Close to the Sun, is a writer, singer, and film and theatre director born in Chile from Australian parents. Nick directed and co‐devised the company’s previous works: Of the Causes of Wonderful Things, The Bluebird Mechanicals and At The End of the Land. He has participated in numerous curated residencies with Too Close to the Sun, including: The Banff Centre, The Rex Cramphorn Studio (Sydney University), Metro Arts, HotHouse Theatre and PWM Montreal. His first short film was screened at 20 Australian and international festivals, and he has just completed two new short films. Nick is currently working on several short and feature film projects in development and production in 2026 and runs the production company, Clearwater Films.
GIORGOS POULIOS
Music and Sound Designer
Based in Athens, Greece, Giorgos has written music for dozens of theatrical and dance theatre performances for artists such as Euripides Laskaridis, Dimitris Papaioannou, Christos Papadopoulos, Roula Pateraki, Katerina Evangelatos and Dimitris Karantzas. His musical oeuvre has been presented in concerts, theatres and festivals around the globe since 2004. Inspired by his collaborations in both theatre and dance, this self-taught composer and musician recently showcased his concert-performance trespassing during this year’s Athens and Epidaurus Festival.
KATIE SFETKIDIS
Lighting Designer
With a lighting design practice encompassing theatre, dance, live art and large scale participatory artworks, Katie is based in Melbourbe. As a lighting designer, she has won multiple Green Room Awards and worked broadly across the sector with companies including; Joel Bray Dance, Ilbijerri Theatre, Melbourne Theatre Company, Malthouse Theatre, Belvoir, State Theatre South Australia, Aphids, Luke George and A Daylight Connection. Katie has toured extensively, both nationally and internationally, to festivals in Europe, the UK and India. She lectures at the Victorian College of the Arts, Collarts and actively mentors emerging women lighting designers.
LAURA HEFFERNAN
Costume and Props Designer/ Set Realisation
Laurais a multidisciplinary artist and theatre designer based in Borloo (Perth), Western Australia. Laura studied at the School of Contemporary Arts, ECU WAAPA, where she graduated with a BA in Design for Performance in 2009. Since then, Laura has gone on to design and design assist for companies such as WA’s Black Swan State Theatre Company, The Last Great Hunt, PICA, Deckchair, Too Close to The Sun and WAYTCo. She has created site-specific artworks for business and events around Perth, such as the City of Perth, Perth Fashion Festival, Beaufort Street Festival, Pigeonhole and The Art Gallery of WA, and has just completed a residency at Cool Change Contemporary. She works across installation, painting, drawing, sculpture and production design.
NATALIE ALLEN
Movement Consultant
Natalie graduated from WAAPA in 2008 and has worked with an array of leading Australian dance companies and choreographers, including Leigh Warren and Dancers, Sydney Dance Company (Rafael Bonachela and guest artists Adam Linder, Emanuel Gat, Jacopo Godani, Larrisa McGowan and Alexander Ekman), Australian Dance Theatre (Garry Stewart’s G and Birdbrain), Expressions Dance Company (Natalie Weir’s The Red Shoes and Daniel Jaber’s Nought and Shades), Alexander Whitley and Gwyn Emberton in the United Kingdom, and William Forysthe’s One Flat Thing Re-produced. In 2013, she received a Green Room Award for Best Female Dancer in Sydney Dance Company’s 2 One Another. In 2017 she was nominated for an Australian Dance Award for Outstanding Performance by a Female Dancer for her performance in Ohad Naharin’s Decadance, 2016 at Move Me Festival, Perth. Natalie’s new solo work, Julia (in collaboration with Sally Richardson) premiered at the State Theatre Centre WA in October 2021.
EMMA VALENTE
Dramaturg
Emma is a director, dramaturg and lighting designer. She is the Co-Artistic Director of THE RABBLE. Emma’s works have been performed at Dublin Fringe Festival, Arts House, St Martins, Wuzhen Festival, Melbourne International Arts Festival, Dark MOFO, Brisbane Festival, Malthouse Theatre, Belvoir, MTC, The Substation, Theatre Works, CarriageWorks and La Mama. Emma has been the dramaturg for artists, including Joel Bray, Nicola Gunn, Wang Chong, Liv Satchell, Eryn Jean Norvill, Emma McManus, Rae Perks, Alison Croggon, Angus Cerini, Zoey Dawson, Bridget Mackey, Daniel Schlusser, Andrea James, Elise Hearst and Meg Wilson. Emma’s essay on ‘Dramaturgy and Silence’ was published by the centre for Dramaturgy and Curation.
SAMUEL JAMES
Slide and Video Maker
Sam has been a projection designer for contemporary performance companies and independent dancers since 1995. As a video artist he has been involved in over 200 performance works, including Nun’s Night Out (winner Best Dance Film, Australian Dance Awards 2006), The Piper (My Darling Patricia, Sydney Festival – winner Best Children’s Theatre Sydney Theatre Awards 2014), GUDIRR GUDIRR (Marrugeku, 2014), and My Radio Heart (NORPA and Urban Theatre Projects, 2014). In 2010 his large-scale exhibition Amygdala – Fear Conditioning was curated by Blair French at Artspace, Sydney and his multi-channel installation Nightshifters was curated by Bec Dean at Performance Space that same year.
ERIN COATES
Props Maker
Erin is a visual artist working across drawing, sculpture and film. Her practice examines our relationship with the natural world, physical thresholds and the essence of transformed bodies—both human and non-human. Erin has held key solo exhibitions at the Art Gallery of Western Australia (2021) and Perth Institute of Contemporary Arts (2014). She has participated in major biennales and exhibitions, including Biennale of Sydney (2022), Adelaide Biennale at the Art (2020), Art Biennale,São Paulo (2019), Hiroshima Museum of Contemporary Art (2018) and Museum of Contemporary Art, Sydney (2017). She was the recipient of the John Stringer Prize in 2017.
The Perth Institute of Contemporary Arts (PICA) is a non-profit, multi-arts organisation located in the heart of the Perth Cultural Centre on Whadjuk Noongar boodja in Western Australia. Since 1989, it has operated as a development and presenting organisation, delivering curated programs of exhibitions, contemporary dance, experimental theatre, new music and live art by both Australian and international artists.
Thank you
KISSClub with Perth Institute of Contemporary Arts (PICA) and pvi collective, Performance Space, Adhocracy at Vitalstatistix, Bundanon, Malthouse and the Rex Cramphorn Studio as part of the Performance Studies Department at the University of Sydney. The final development was at Kalamunda Performing Arts Centre (KPAC). The work was made possible thanks to the generous support of the WA Government and the Department of Creative Industries, Tourism and Sport.
Hannah Mathews has been instrumental in the making and presentation of Zoology and we are deeply grateful to her for all of her support, vision and belief, and to all the PICA staff.
Branwen Smith at KPAC has also been a wonderful supporter of the work and we would like to thank her and all of the KPAC team for their kindness and generosity.
Thanks to the WA Museum Boola Bardip and their staff for presenting Zoology in Hackett Hall.
Special thanks to: Victoria Barkoff, Amelia Burke, Barbara Campbell, Will Dickie, Natalie Di Risio, Kim Walsh and the team from Barking Gecko, Nikki Heywood, Ariane Katscherian, Euripides Laskaridis, Jude Philp and Anthony Gill from the Chau Chak Wing Museum at the University of Sydney, George Papanicolaou, David Richardson, Chris Williams and the pvi collective team, and Thom Van Dooren.
Thanks to Leon Ross and Paul van Nimwegen for composing the Fantasy Island inspired theme.
And a deep thank you to our entire creative and production team as they have all been extraordinary—a bunch of legends.
