Caroline Meaden and William McBride Immacolata

Residency Showing Friday 21 August, 6pm

The clothes of my partner and I steadily pile up onto a chair in the corner of my room. Half-worn, semi-structured and rumpled, they obscure any semblance of formal clarity. I sit and look at it, and impulsively draw shapes - crossing over one another, around again, looping back, no end point, no rest for the pencil. I painstakingly colour in all the little misshapen teardrops, circles and triangles that I can identify, dropping in water to wash the colour around. Thus delineated, they assemble into grotesque and ungainly tumors - born out of the chair itself.

Immacolata is a hypnotic dance work that draws audiences into an intimate, perceptual ‘vortex’, gathering quiet intensity through a refined movement language, unfolding within a scenographic frame. Emerging from a period of personal upheaval, the work has moved beyond autobiography to engage the body as a complex psychological and performative site. Rather than dictating meaning, Immacolata invites audiences into reflective encounters -.with purgatory, haunting and dreamscape.

"Immacolata has a beautiful sense of interiority, shaped by light, objects, and movement. It felt like a field of forces pulling me in—like a spool of thread, tightening and unravelling all at once. The work holds a compelling tension between precision and openness, with a clarity of movement and memory that lingers.” - Amaara Raheem.

“None of what I am experiencing is logical and I am attracted to that.” - Phillip Adams

Caroline Meaden and William McBride are Melbourne-based dance and performance artists working across choreography, performance, dramaturgy, and curatorial practice. They have collaborated for over a decade as co-directors of Alice Will Caroline (with Alice Dixon), and as choreographers and performers, sustaining individual and collaborative practices. Caroline is a dance artist and speech pathologist; William is an Alexander Technique teacher and Director of Temperance Hall, an experimental performance space where he provides dramaturgical guidance and developmental support for artists in residence.

Their work investigates the formal intelligence of dance as a time-based, relational artform. They approach choreography as a process of constructing and undoing rules: building systems that frame movement while allowing unconscious transmission, dissonance, and instability to surface. Rather than foregrounding overt thematic content, they derive structure from the dancing itself, attending to rhythm, proportion, fatigue, repetition, and breakdown.

Their work has been presented in festivals including Dance Massive, Next Wave, MEL&NYC Festival, Festival of Live Art, Melbourne Fringe and the Keir Choreographic Award. They have also been nominated for multiple awards, winning a Green Room Award for their work, Doors Shut, and three Melbourne Fringe Awards. With Alice Will Caroline, they were 2024 Co-Directors in Residence at Lucy Guerin Inc, and received a Chloe Munro Fellowship. Will and Caroline have collaborated and worked with notable artists including Phillip Adams Balletlab, Sandra Parker, Shelley Lasica, Monica Bill Barnes, Marina Abramovic, One Step at a Time Like This, Triage Live Art Collective, Walter Dundervill, Reckless Sleepers, Aphids and Opera Australia.

Choreographer, performer, visual design Caroline Meaden
Dramaturg, performer, visual design William McBride
Sound Designer Duane Morrison

Development support for this work has been provided by Lucy Guerin Inc through a Moving Forward Residency and by Chunky Move through a Minimax Residency.