Precipice: Generator 2025

The first chance for general audience to experience the work of this cohort, WAAPA Second Year Bachelor of Performing Arts Performance Making Students performed Precipice: Generator 2025, amidst the beauty of WAAPA’s century old Edith Spiegeltent.

A fitting venue for this offbeat cirque-style show, the audience sat facing the entrance, with the performance space circling them. The piece examined the absurdity of life, sitting between despair and hope. 

Written and designed by the students themselves, the program tells us that “every image, word, costume, movement, character, song and sound was created by the company”. The exception is Hannah Portwine’s exciting and bold lighting, which adds much to the production.

Interconnected vignettes look at everyday life in a new way. Some segments are particularly striking, including the depiction of a train moving through the building, and Alice in Wonderland style creatures, created by groups of students moving through the space.

The costuming was particularly impressive, with clothing worn unconventionally - for example two shirts buttoned together to form a skirt, or clothing tied across the body.

This is a high energy, highly creative group, and if this were a little shorter, I think it would have been one of the more impressive shows of the year. Some of the sequences felt overlong and a little laboured, but overall, this was a work with much promise, with performers with great potential.

I look forward to witnessing this group develop over their final year at WAAPA.

Kimberley Shaw