In the Thin Place: Lucy Eidelson’s liminal world in Réquiem
Lucy Eidelson (she/they) @_l_u_i_
FRINGE FEST - 14th - 17th October 2025
Image Credits: James Morris
In their newest work Réquiem, Melbourne-based dancer, writer and theatre-maker Lucy “Lui” Eidelson invites audiences into the thin place — a liminal space where birth and death, memory and mythology converge. Blending dance, live vocals, physical theatre and original composition, Réquiem is a surreal and tender meditation on ancestry, grief, and transformation.
“I see the whole work as an abstracted visual iteration of what’s inside my body - memories, scenes, stories, heritage, grief, birth, death,” Eidelson explains. What unfolds is both intimate and epic: a ritual of rebirth, performed through movement, voice, and the shared act of remembering.
For Lucy Eidelson - or Lui, as they’re known beyond the stage - creative practice is inseparable from embodiment. “Being in a creative process and creating strange worlds that I can step into and explore with others is one of my favourite things to do and what makes me feel most alive,” she says. As a dancer, writer, and theatre-maker, Eidelson’s work often dwells in the liminal spaces between illness and vitality, the personal and the ancestral, the mundane and the monumental. With Réquiem premiering at Melbourne Fringe from 14–17 October, those worlds expand once again.
Described by Eidelson as an “abstracted visual iteration of what's inside my body,” Réquiem draws on live a cappella vocals, large-scale installation design, and movement to evoke the surreal tenderness of loss.
“When you lose someone, you’re often left with really ordinary memories - sitting in the garden, drinking tea. But these moments become impossibly heavy - you’re eating breakfast together, and they’re dying. It’s absurd and tender at the same time,” she reflects. In Réquiem, Eidelson sought to capture that impossible duality, imbuing everyday imagery with mythic resonance.
Visually, the production is striking - a continuation of a solo installation Eidelson first created in 2022, where she envisioned herself “hanging in a womb sac” and birthing their own body.
“I saw this image really starkly on the tram,” they recall. “I wanted to hang in a womb sac and birth myself.”
That visceral image has since grown into a full-scale performance, shaped by collaborators including installation designers Nisassa Bacci and Stoz, whose detailed world-building transforms the stage into a living memoryscape. Costume designer Charlie Lee, bio prop artist Spiraro, and Heather Lee’s ensemble garments further layer the visual language of birth, lineage and transformation.
At the core of Réquiem lies an exploration of heritage - the ways in which ancestry lives through the body. “I’ve always been interested in my performance practice as this continual kind of birth and rebirth of my body,” they say. The work draws from both their mother’s Irish-Celtic and their father’s Polish-Jewish lineages, merging mythological echoes from both traditions.
Though Eidelson conceived the initial concept years earlier, Réquiem took shape through personal experience. Over the past two years, she cared for her terminally ill father - a dancer himself - an experience that deepened the work’s meditations on life cycles.
“It wasn’t until caring for my dad that I was influenced to develop Réquiem into a work that journeys the cycles of birth and death,” she reflects. In this way, Réquiem serves as both creative offering and act of homage - “honouring my dad’s love of the artform and his spiritual connection to it.”
In the years since we last spoke to Eidelson since her 2022 performance work Air Hunger, their practice has evolved alongside their lived experience. “When I created Air Hunger I was re-entering the world after years of chronic illness,” she recalls.
Image by Sonny Witton
“After that, I expected momentum - but when my dad was suddenly diagnosed, I went inward again, into the domestic sphere, but this time as a carer.”
In that stillness, their creative output shifted form. “I didn’t have the capacity to devise big works… what was coming out of my body last year was writing and poetry,” she explains. Those writings became the scaffolding for Réquiem, informing its imagery and emotional architecture. “Developing my writing practice gave me a really great framework for developing my performance practice.”
Music and voice form the beating heart of Réquiem. “The voice is such an integral part of birth,” Eidelson says. “And music and song played such a huge role for my family in connecting and supporting each other through caring for Dad.”
Composer Sam Harding crafted the live singing elements - haunting Eastern European-influenced compositions performed by Heather Michaels, Clover Blue, and Anne Atcheson. “The work is asking a lot of them - singing a cappella, holding pitch and rhythm, embodying movement. I’m in complete awe of them.”
The soundscape, created by Noah Riseley, continues a collaboration first forged during Air Hunger, blending nostalgia and playfulness with emotional depth. “Noah’s soundscapes are always really thoughtful and textured,” Eidelson says. Working alongside choreographer Lily Harding, with whom they share a long creative history, the process has been one of continual dialogue between movement and music - “sometimes the movement leads, sometimes the music does.”
Eidelson describes Réquiem as both culmination and threshold. “Every work I do opens something new for me,” they reflect. “They’re all leading and connected, laying the groundwork for each other.” As she looks toward future projects, Eidelson hints at new directions — more cross-disciplinary play, perhaps a touch of clowning, and an enduring fascination with the body as a vessel for emotional metamorphosis. “I think there’s always going to be elements of the dreamlike physicality of movement,” she says - a poetic promise from an artist who continues to dance in the liminal.
Tickets for the show are available here.
Created and Directed by: Lucy Eidelson
Vocal Performers and ensemble: Heather Michaels, Clover Blue, Anne Atcheson
Choreographed by: Lucy Eidelson and Lily Harding
Produced by: Vicki Nguyen & Lily Harding
Dramaturgy by: Bridie Noonan
Vocal composition and vocal director: Sam Harding
Soundscape composition: Noah Riseley
Set design and installation: Nissassa Bacci, Stoz
Marketing Lead: Zarzokimi Moss
Costumes: Charlie Lee
Bio costume: Spiraro
Vocal Ensemble costumes: Heather Lee
Lighting design and operation: Frankie Clarke