Recent

Melt

By Michael Shirrefs 30 Nov 2024
The big production for (it’s no) drama physical performance ensemble for 2024 is Melt—an impressionistic telling of the story of the Lady of the Swamp. This tale—an extant and unsolved true crime mystery—tells of the strange life and unexplained disappearance, in the 1950s, of South Gippsland woman Margaret Clement.

Front Foot | Back Beat

By Michael Shirrefs 20 Sep 2023
Front Foot | Back Beat is a public dance collaboration that brought together a diverse range of people to create a new dance work. The project is the third in a trilogy of dance initiatives, under the guidance of dancer and community artist Samara Cunningham, combining trained and untrained dancers,…

Wild Woods

By Michael Shirrefs 12 Aug 2023
Wild Woods is the major production for 2023 from the much acclaimed (it's no) drama physical performance ensemble. Staged at the Leongatha Memorial Hall, the South Gippsland group mesmerised the audience with a magical journey into a mystical space.

Dance Hall

By Michael Shirrefs 26 Mar 2023
Dance Hall is a dance lab experiment, drawing together five professionally trained dancers from South Gippsland in Victoria, each with different backgrounds and histories, to create a new work—a dance sketch—all in the space of six weeks.

Action Station

By Michael Shirrefs 22 May 2022
Action Station is the second in a series of community dance projects, which matched a group of professional artists with a diverse range of community members, of all ages and skill levels, to collectively create an original and distinctive dance work.

History In The Making

By Michael Shirrefs 25 Oct 2021
This is a PhD reflecting on narrative theories influencing my long-form radio journalism on recent instabilities and disunity in Europe. It also examines how and why long-form journalism equates with the telling of contemporary history.

Fill The Void

By Michael Shirrefs 22 Aug 2021
On a cool August night 2021, in the midst of rolling COVID-19 lockdowns, a magical thing happened. A small group of performers managed to stage a performance in a small, rural hall. Against a backdrop of pandemic fear and isolation, this was a strange and wonderful thing to occur.