Award-winning choreographer Harrison Ritchie-Jones returns to Arts House with the world premiere of R.A.I.N, a new contemporary dance work that takes a familiar mindfulness framework and lets fiction and shifting realities take over.
R.A.I.N takes its name from the meditation framework Recognise, Allow, Investigate and Nurture, a practice designed to help people move through difficult emotions and cultivate self compassion.
Ritchie-Jones and long-time collaborator Michaela Tancheff use the framework as a provocation rather than instruction, a structure to push their movement partnering practice to its limit and see where it steers them once it starts to break.
R.A.I.N follows a reflective state as it’s hijacked by fictional histories (or perhaps futures), giving way to uncertainty, invention and new possibilities. Ritchie-Jones describes it as a layered world where different realities continually collide.
“Michaela and I have been expanding what we’ve built together, testing what happens when we push past what we know and find the point where it starts to break apart and reveal something entirely new,” said Ritchie-Jones.
Set within the confines of a black box theatre, R.A.I.N strips away the props, tricks and theatrical devices Ritchie-Jones is known for, creating a performance that is raw, exposed and reflective.
Built around improvisation and shifting performance structures,R.A.I.N leaves room for the work to shift slightly from night to night. Moving between hypnotic precision, deadpan absurdity and sudden slapstick betrayal, the work turns repetition into something strange, funny and unexpectedly suspenseful.
Following their acclaimed 2024 collaboration on CUDDLE at Arts House, Ritchie-Jones reunites with Tancheff to continue a creative partnership that pushes physical collaboration to its limits.
Harrison Ritchie-Jones is an award-winning choreographer and dancer. His work is recognised for its eclectic, unconventional approach to contemporary dance, blending technical precision with surreal storytelling. He has received multiple Green Room Awards and the 2025 Melbourne Fringe Director’s Choice Award.
September 16 – 20
artshouse.com.au
Image: Darren Gill
