Synopsis

Miracle

Miracle takes up contemporary concerns about religious radicalism and uses revolutionary evangelist groups from the 1960s and 70s to explore the dynamics of group behaviour, rapture and the desire to achieve an alternate, transcendent state of being through religion.  Artistic Director, Phillip Adams considered the manipulative power of Jim Jones of The People's Temple and Australia's own celebrated alternative cult/community, the Universal Brotherhood to create Miracle, in which the group experience of emotionally charged religious fervour and alienation from conventional life is played out as an experiential performance.

Miracle creates a vision of the world that is both brutal and sublime.  What transpires is an examination of the promises of a new beginning and the false hopes and religious stereotypes that these practices produce.  The work builds up to a choreographic crescendo, including dissonant playing of harmonicas, and an epiphany that culminates in a phenomena - of live levitation by two dancers - The Miracle.  Constantly confronting and emotionally charged, Miracle is an all-consuming experience not to be missed.

Miracle was made possible by two significant partnerships with the Museum of Old and New Art,  Hobart and the Experimental Media and Performing Arts Centre (EMPAC)  in Rensselaer, New York where BalletLab undertook a 4-week residency in December 2008.  The work has undergone four development periods in total, including 3 weeks in Melbourne as part of the Victorian Arts Centre's Full Tilt program.

Miracle was part of the 2009 State of Design Festival.  Miracle has been supported by Arts Victoria, Australia Council for the Arts, City of Melbourne, Moorilla Wines/MONA.

"What more can I say?  Beautiful bodies, mature performance, great group work, but in the end this work and BalletLab's in the recent era is much more than dance, so much more." - Martyn Coutts,

"It was a vast and brilliant work." - Guerilla Semiotics

"The most challenging and compelling contemporary dance currently around in our neck of the woods... Miracle is simultaneously riveting, bewildering, mesmerizing..." - ArtsHub