Crossroads

Haneul Jung oscillates between the definition of the Korean word, man-il meaning “ten thousand days” and “what if.”[1] “Man-il,” the first of four solo works presented at the confluence of two rivers is where “두물머리 Dumulmeori (where two rivers meet)” begins. Situated in the phenomenal, what better place for a conversation between Australian choreographers Michelle Heaven and Alisdair Macindoe and Korean artists Chosul Kim and Jung. Billed as four artists, two countries, one show, conceived and curated by Brendan O'Connell, on the opening night in Sylvia Staehli Theatre at Dancehouse, time compresses and extends, and as it does, there is much to ponder. Presented as part of Melbourne Fringe, at Jung’s “crossroads” wavering between “lengthening and recoiling,” between the possibilities of “a shelter and an escape,[2] space is teased out to contract like an accordion.

Performance

“두물머리 Dumulmeori (where two rivers meet)” by Alisdair Macindoe, Chosul Kim, Haneul Jung, Michelle Heaven

Place

Sylvia Staehli Theatre, Dancehouse, Melbourne, Australia, October 7, 2025

Words

Gracia Haby

Haneul Jung in “Man-il.” Photograph by Eun Jung Lee

Jung is connected to a central cord on the back wall. The cord disappears between the black curtains and in doing so it makes a pouch- or womb-like shelter of the theatre space. Drawing a distinction between inside and outside, visible and hidden, by not being able to see where the end of the cord leads, I think about the space beyond the walls of the actual theatre. Outside the theatre, together with the soundscape of composer Jiho Jang, I can hear the thread of traffic on the parade, affirming, to me, that in this moment, the cocoon is protection. But this cord is elastic, and this pause is temporary. As Jung, lying on his back, pulls further and further away, the inevitable snap! With the cord untethered from its anchor, but still connected to Jung’s body at the navel, it is a rope to coil around his neck, before unspooling to safety; a harp string to pluck, with his arm extended and bent at the elbow; a ball of wool in which his raised foot becomes a cat’s paw toying and inquisitive; an extension of the body, and a source of independence.

Alisdair Macindoe in “A Figure of Speech.” Photograph by Eun Jung Lee

All of which flows, as rivers do, into “A Figure of Speech” by Macindoe. Macindoe, as choreographer, performer, sound designer, coder, and one-man band, stretches out his palms as if upon them tiny sensors rest. He makes movements suggestive of a bodily vessel having consumed a museum didactic. He constantly jolts his torso at a 90-degree angle. He demonstrates what human thought might look like. Moving quickly from one sensation to the next, these movements are, of course, instructions. With the black curtains now parted, projected on the wall, they are a series of timed, poetic prompts, written in both English and Korean. Reminiscent of his earlier work, “Plagiary”, a “dance performance experiment that employed Artificial Intelligence as a speaking choreographer and playwright,”[3] presented as part of Melbourne’s Now or Never, and Sydney’s Unwrapped festivals in 2024, Macindoe lifts his rib cage as high as he can, as if something is pushing from underneath. He proceeds to feel his way through a greenhouse, as if constantly hitting obstructions, his face wincing as a knee appears to clip the edge of a potting table. Comprised of several parts, all of which move quickly, I have to make a choice to read the words or the body or swing between the two; there is no pause. This perhaps is what it means to be human. I fail to scan it all, but I can compose what I assemble in my mind’s eye in a way to derive meaning that relates to me. Computer language[4] places the emphasis on a familiar, unfamiliar spot, and renders me off-kilter.

Michelle Heaven in “The Value.” Photograph by Eun Jung Lee

Off-kilter being a perfect place to enter Heaven’s “The Value” and the art of painting fog. Heaven is interested in “how we see, what we see, and how we interpret it.”[5] In a wig and outfit, designed by Jenni Langford, straight from the 1980s, Heaven wields a series of explanatory props in her lecture and renders them weightless. They linger in the air, even though forms like a portable projector screen are incapable of doing so unaided. Through a lightness of touch like Clarice Beckett’s atmospheric paintings of misty rain, with their simultaneous intimacy of scale and distance, and the economy of Heaven’s movements, the scene blurs together in the present moment. Where Beckett gives you the unnoticed or unexamined, Heaven follows suit, as she slowly rolls up the projector screen. She picks up the tripod legs on which the projector screen had been fastened to and all but spins it like a parasol, transforming the weighted and the cumbersome with ease.

Chosul Kim in “Diver.” Photograph by Eun Jung Lee

The night concludes with Kim’s “Diver,” to a composition by Jiho Jang. Kim, with her right arm folded behind her back, fans her hand out like a feathered wing. With her left arm tucked in close to her body, her other hand is the accompanying wing. Both hands flap and wave, part duck bill and tail, part left and right, part familiar and ambiguous. Springing from an encounter “watching ducks swimming in a pond” and as one duck “slipped beneath the water” watching the ripples on the surface and noting how this felt within her own body, Kim is simultaneously above and below the water, as the two images overlap: “the duck exploring underwater, and [Kim] looking into the depths of [her] own heart.”[6] The rolled forward silhouette of Kim follows a curved line to the pond, a central light puddled on the floor. But things not always being what they seem, perhaps I am already underwater with a diving duck, drawn to a light source that could represent a food source. Foraging for molluscs, I thought I saw a starfish in the centre of the light, but perhaps my eyes deceive me. As the circle of light expands, the Alice in Wonderland effect takes hold: did I alter my scale to enter this world or did something else occur? Exploring the substrate surface with short lateral arcs, locomotion is beautiful and different underwater.

One constant runs between all four works: no state is fixed. Transitions might be quick or languid, literal or metaphorical, playful or solemn, from within or external, such is the ebb and flow.

Gracia. Haby

Using an armoury of play and poetry as a lure, Gracia Haby is an artist besotted with paper. Her limited edition artists’ books, and other works hard to pin down, are often made collaboratively with fellow artist, Louise Jennison. Their work is in the collections of the National Gallery of Australia and state libraries throughout Australia to the Tate (UK). Gracia Haby is known to collage with words as well as paper.

footnotes

Haneul Jung,“Man-il” synopsis, Dancehouse, https://www.dancehouse.com.au/whats-on/dumulmeori/, accessed October 7, 2025.
“Man-il” synopsis, Dancehouse, 2025.
“Plagiary,” Alisdair Macindoe, https://www.alisdairmacindoe.com/plagiary, accessed October 8, 2025.
“I was interested in trying to … describe the choreographic creative process in computer language, as a way to expand my own practice. I was basically building sentence generators … based on [language] maps that I laid out. So for example, one of the things I did was try and generate a body part selector and describe, as a choreographer, how I would want to pick a series of body parts choreographically.” Alisdair Macindoe quoted by Hannah Reich, “New Australian dance work hands over the choreographic reins to artificial intelligence” https://www.abc.net.au/news/2024-08-30/australian-dance-choregraphy-ai-artificial-intelligence-plagiary/104281730, accessed October 8, 2025.
Michelle Heaven, “The Value” synopsis, Dancehouse, 2025.
Chosul Kim, “Diver” synopsis, Dancehouse, 2025.

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