To a large extent it was a privilege to share a dance space, next to the moonshine bar in wharf 2/3, with deaf performers and a dj, and many deaf participants. One began to sense the reality of being in a world without sound. 

Internationally the barrier that silence created to dancing with music has been broken. There are Deaf Dance Festivals, something director Anna Seymour has brought to australia. The music has a powerful beat, and the three dancers used vibrations from the floor and in their bodies and the air, to conduct popular routines. In themselves the routine were not unlike movements you can find at music festivals or clubs. 

In this Sydney Festival format the audience is led throughout the show. It is more an event, or happening, or class, or club, than a show. The set next to the Moonshine Bar has large wall fans, crafted lights, the bridge and theharbour outside, as well as a large inflated sculpture which the dancer integrates into their movement, inviting the audience to listen to vibrations in the skin of inflated shapes. It is all a bit intoxicating.

It is also very homely, and easy to join. The program speaks of ‘hedonism, escapism and dance ritual’ – one need not go quite so far while enjoying what was on offer. There is potential for a longer program – this one lasts about 45 minutes after an introduction in the external area, and it is not all moved. At the core of the program is a simple, robust yet generally unexplored joyful exercise in guided dance, something that could be adopted for non deaf occasions. 

“It’s also a playful interrogation of who can belong and coexist in the dance realm – shaking up assumptions that Deaf people cannot claim these spaces.” This is indeed true, and in its way a nice revelation. 

The show could well have been performed at Parramatta or elsewhere as well as inner Sydney. 

A Sydney Festival event, SPIN is playing the Moonshine Bar (The Thirsty Mile) Pier 2/3, 15 Hickson Road, Walsh Bay Arts Precinct, Dawes Point until the 22nd January 2024.