WHITE NOISE - TOUCH COMPASS

WHITE NOISE turns the gaze back on the audience. Emerging from creator Alisha McLennan Marler’s lived experience as a mother with disability, the work is an intimate yet defiant exploration of communication. 

If Abilitopia opens the evening with playfulness and imaginative freedom, White Noise brings the night crashing back into the body; into the weight of lived experience, into the strain of being seen and unseen, and into the relentless labour of communicating in a world that often refuses to listen. The shift in tone is immediate and unmistakable. Where the first work delights in experimentation, the second demands attention with a quiet ferocity, drawing the audience into a space that is intimate, uncomfortable, and profoundly human. Created and performed by Alisha McLennan Marler, the solo performance unfolds as a raw excavation of what it means to navigate motherhood, disability, and identity under the constant pressure of misinterpretation.

The stage is stripped back, dominated by a wheelchair, a microphone, and a soundscape and fractured set of mirrors that Alisha manipulates live. These elements become extensions of her body; tools, obstacles, amplifiers, and sometimes adversaries. Early in the performance, she begins to explore the microphone not as a device for speech but as a tactile instrument. She drags it across the metal of her chair, presses it against wheels and footrests, and uses it to summon a palette of sounds that range from grating irritation to rhythmic monotony to moments of unexpected calm. Each sound feels like a fragment of an internal world made audible, a translation of sensations that words alone cannot hold. The repetition of looped audio becomes a central motif, capturing the exhausting cycle of trying to be heard, of repeating oneself, of pushing against the static that so often surrounds disabled voices.

As the loops accumulate, the atmosphere thickens. Layered, pulsing, sometimes overwhelming, the sound design mirrors the emotional terrain of the work. Frustration builds, not theatrically but viscerally, as the audience is drawn into the relentless effort required simply to communicate. Yet the loops also shift, later in the piece, into something gentler: echoes of connection, of being understood without needing to fight for clarity. These moments of warmth are fleeting but deeply felt, reminders that communication is not only a struggle but also a site of profound intimacy.

One of the most striking aspects of White Noise is Alisha’s determination to move beyond the confines of her wheelchair. Much of the performance is spent out of it, her body working with fierce precision and vulnerability as she navigates the stage. This choice is not framed as triumph or inspiration; instead, it becomes a reclamation of agency, a refusal to let the chair dictate the boundaries of her expression. Her movement is sometimes fluid, sometimes strained, and it carries a complexity that resists easy interpretation. It is not a performance of overcoming but of existing fully, with all the contradictions and tensions that entails.

Motherhood threads through the work as both anchor and amplifier. Alisha’s gestures, breath, and vocalisations evoke tenderness and exhaustion in equal measure. The piece acknowledges the universal challenges of caregiving while also illuminating the additional layers of negotiation required when disability shapes how one is perceived and how one must navigate the world. There is a palpable sense of love woven through the performance, but it is love sharpened by the realities of being misheard, underestimated, or dismissed. The personal becomes political not through narrative, but through the sheer clarity of lived experience made visible.

Visually, the performance is stark yet striking. Digital design and lighting carve the space into shifting emotional landscapes, while reflective surfaces distort and refract Alisha’s image, echoing the theme of visibility and misrecognition. The aerial sequence, performed with a white silk hammock, introduces a moment of suspended tension, a literal elevation that complicates the grounded physicality of the rest of the work. It is both beautiful and unsettling, a reminder of the precariousness of balancing strength, vulnerability, and expectation.

The emotional impact of White Noise is undeniable. For some, it will be confronting; an unfiltered look at the daily negotiations that many disabled people must navigate, often unseen. For others, it will be a revelation, a powerful articulation of resilience, agency, and the right to define one’s own narrative. Throughout the performance, the audience is held in a state of heightened awareness, compelled to witness rather than simply observe. The effect is cumulative and, for many, overwhelming. It is no surprise that viewers were moved to tears; the work does not merely present emotion, it transfers it.

What makes White Noise so potent is its refusal to soften its edges. It does not offer easy catharsis or tidy conclusions. Instead, it leaves the audience with questions about communication, about identity, about the structures that shape whose voices are amplified and whose are drowned out by static. It is a piece that lingers long after the lights fade, not because it shocks, but because it tells the truth with clarity and artistry.

As the second half of the double bill, White Noise stands in deliberate contrast to the playful experimentation of Abilitopia. Together, the two works form a compelling dialogue: one celebrating the boundlessness of imagination, the other grounding us in the lived realities that imagination alone cannot erase. Where the first half invites us to dream, the second insists we reckon with the world as it is. And in that tension, Touch Compass delivers an evening of dance-theatre that is not only artistically rich but emotionally and politically resonant.

White Noise was the second part of a disability-led double bill performed at the Te Pou Theatre from 26-28 Februiary 2026. White Noise ran for later latter half of a 1hr 35-minute performance after a 20-minute interval.

Check out future performances at the Te Pou Theatre here

Find out more about Touch Compass here

ABILITOPIA - TOUCH COMPASS

ABILITOPIA is a 45-minute black-box dance-theatre work that stages a live encounter between humans, artificial intelligence, and art. 

Abilitopia, the opening work in Touch Compass’ disability-led double bill, unfolds like a mischievous invitation into a world where imagination is allowed to run unchecked. Rather than building toward a narrative destination, the piece revels in the joy of exploration, treating the stage as a sandbox where bodies, machines, and ideas collide in unpredictable ways. What emerges is a performance that feels more like a series of creative experiments than a conventional dance-theatre work, and its charm lies in that looseness. Even when the pacing dips or a vignette stretches itself thin, the overall experience remains buoyant, playful, and full of inventive possibility.

The show announces its intentions from the moment the lights come up. Before any dancer steps forward, an AI-enabled robot trundles into the audience, its blinking camera eye sweeping across the room with unnerving enthusiasm. It snaps photos, projects them onto the back wall, and offers cheeky guesses about each person’s occupation or net worth. The effect is both funny and disarming, a reminder of how easily technology can slip from novelty to intrusion. It’s a clever opening gambit: the audience is implicated before the performance even begins, transformed into raw material for the machine’s imagination. That early jolt of being observed lingers throughout the work, colouring every subsequent interaction between human and robot.

Once the dancers join the robot onstage, the performance settles into a rhythm of short, self-contained scenes (around nine in total) that each explore a different facet of human-machine collaboration. The structure feels intentionally fragmentary, as though the artists are inviting us to watch them test the edges of what bodies and technology can do together. Some scenes are tightly crafted and visually striking, while others drift or repeat themselves without quite finding a centre. But the unevenness is part of the texture: this is a work that values curiosity over polish, and its willingness to try, fail, and try again gives it a refreshing sense of openness.

The performers, Duncan Armstrong, Raven Afoa‑Purcell, and Julie van Renen, move through these vignettes with a sense of discovery that keeps the piece alive. They stretch and reshape their bodies using props, intertwine their limbs in unexpected configurations, and experiment with how their movements can be captured, distorted, and reimagined through live cameras and AI-generated projections. Some of the most memorable moments come when the dancers’ silhouettes morph into digital creatures or abstract landscapes, as though the machine is dreaming in response to their gestures. These sequences highlight the show’s central fascination: creativity as something that emerges through interaction rather than isolation.

The robot itself becomes a fourth performer, not a gimmick or a silent prop but an active presence that shifts the dynamics onstage. At times it behaves like a playful companion, rolling alongside the dancers or responding to their movements with surprising sensitivity. At other moments it feels more like an authority figure, its unblinking gaze reminding us of the power structures embedded in technology. The dancers treat it with a mix of affection, curiosity, and resistance, and that ambiguity gives the work much of its emotional texture. The robot is never fully friend or foe; it is simply another intelligence in the room, shaping and being shaped by the humans around it.

Although the tone of Abilitopia is light and often humorous, the disability-led perspective underpinning the work adds a quiet depth. Rather than presenting AI as a futuristic marvel or a looming threat, the piece frames it as a force that reorganises participation and agency. The dancers’ interactions with the robot emphasise interdependence; creativity as something shared, negotiated, and co-authored. Armstrong’s performance is especially compelling, blending humour with precision and offering a grounded counterpoint to the robot’s mechanical logic. Afoa‑Purcell and van Renen bring contrasting movement qualities that keep the ensemble dynamic shifting, ensuring no single body or mode of expression dominates the space.

The show’s episodic structure allows it to move fluidly between moods. One moment the stage is filled with prop play and contemporary dance; the next, the performers slip into meditative sequences that resemble yoga or breathwork. Some scenes are deliberately obscure, inviting the audience to sit with ambiguity, while others offer moments of tranquillity or wonder. The variety keeps the piece lively, though it also means that not every vignette carries the same weight. A few sections feel stretched, repeating an idea without deepening it, and the pacing occasionally sags as a result. But even these weaker moments contribute to the overall collage-like feel of the work, acting as pauses between more vivid bursts of creativity.

What ultimately lingers after Abilitopia is not a story but a sensation: the sense that imagination, when given room to roam, can produce forms of beauty and strangeness that don’t need to be justified by narrative logic. The performance celebrates experimentation, embraces imperfection, and treats technology not as a threat but as a collaborator in the creative process. It’s a reminder that art can be a space where different kinds of bodies and intelligences meet on equal footing, and where play is a legitimate form of inquiry.

As the first half of the double bill, Abilitopia sets a tone of curiosity and openness for the evening ahead. It may not always be narratively deep, and it certainly has moments where the content feels thin, but its spirit is infectious. The work invites the audience to imagine without boundaries, to see creativity as something that thrives in the spaces between disciplines, and to embrace the joyful messiness of making art in a world where humans and machines are increasingly intertwined.

Abilitopia was the first part of a disability-led double bill performed at the Te Pou Theatre from 26-28 February 2026. Abilitopia ran for later former half of a 1hr 35-minute performance before a 20-minute interval.

Check out future performances at the Te Pou Theatre here

Find out more about Touch Compass here