Sydney WorldPride: Triptych 2023

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This event is intended for mature audiences only. To enter the ballot you must be over 18.

Phoenix Central Park and Phillip Adams BalletLab in association with Sydney WorldPride present Triptych. Conceived by Phillip Adams, Australian maverick of contemporary dance, Triptych is a divine intervention of queer crucifixions inspired by Francis Bacon's triptych paintings. Bacon's use of life and death, beauty and violence, civilisation and barbarism are where Adams draws parallels, as the work comes to symbolise more than the historic and religious event itself. Triptych celebrates the cultural kitsch of Christian spirituality and transforms its heteronormative iconography with a queer veneer.

Adams creates choreographic abstractions of Bacon's crucifixions: dancers enact duets of physical detachment and violent tremors that evoke the spectacle of horror - a distinguishing feature of Bacon's oeuvre. Amidst a sphincter-sex-sling installation, performers portray Bacon's theatrical and surreal imaginariums of the crucifixion in a Disney-esque, porn-like ballet parody of penetrations.

Adams' collaborators on Triptych are some of Australia's most influential contemporary artists: visual artists Paul Yore and Devon Ackerman; fashion designer Toni Maticevski; composers David Chisholm and Duane Morrison; architect and artist Matthew Bird; and video artist James Wright. These artists break with convention, make queer art and design with intelligence, and experiment with the sort of risk that gives way to unshakeable originality.

Over 25 years, Adams' body of work has insisted on and argued for the visibility of queer aesthetics in Australian contemporary dance, performance and art. Triptych honours queer elders, histories and communities by exploring queer expression throughout art history as a reliable signifier of the ever-changing avant-garde.