Review: Eclipse Ballroom, Courtyard Theatre

Eclipse Ballroom, written and directed by Tatjana Yike Yao, is an unusually ambitious offering on the fringe theatre circuit. Featuring six Chinese-origin performers, a live four-piece experimental band, and a staggering 24 credited creatives, it sets out to be a bold, genre-defying experience. Promising a fusion of physical theatre, holography, and immersive sound, the show wastes no time throwing its audience into a dizzying sensory world.

What follows is a chaotic, surreal, and frequently bewildering plunge into the liminal. It’s everything you might expect from fringe theatre at its most experimental: visually arresting, tonally erratic, emotionally elusive, and at times completely bonkers. Whether that’s exhilarating or alienating will depend on your appetite for risk and abstraction.

At the centre — loosely — is Augustina (also known as Seraphine, played by Peiyi Zhong), who lives with Raven (also Leah, played by Theresa Hongxuan). Their relationship hovers ambiguously between friendship and romance; a queer subtext is hinted at but never fully explored. Still, there’s potential. With aspects of the performance appearing to be improvised, there’s room for these dynamics to evolve as the run continues. Both actors demonstrate sensitivity and strong instincts, suggesting untapped depth.

By night, Raven/Leah becomes host to a ghost who transports her to the Eclipse Ballroom, a liminal spiritual realm populated by plastic-clad spectres, distorted figures, and fragments of the past. Augustina/Seraphine follows her into this strange, dreamlike dimension, where memory, time, and identity bend and collapse. The production touches on themes of grief, insomnia, and mental health; offering a space where disorientation becomes a kind of shared emotional language.

These themes are not always clearly communicated, but the attempt to render a psychological interior through sound, movement, and visual metaphor is compelling. The show resists traditional narrative in favour of mood and sensation. And once you stop searching for a plot, a different kind of clarity emerges.

One character advises: “Where there is a feeling, just feel it.” It’s an apt invitation. There’s a strange joy in surrendering to the experience: balloon blowing, clipboard carrying, plastic umbilical cords, roaring industrial noise that drowns dialogue, and some of the most confrontational fourth-wall-breaking you’ll ever encounter.

The cast commits wholeheartedly, even in the most absurd or fragmented moments. There is talent on display, even when the direction feels muddled and pacing loses momentum. A tighter hand could bring more cohesion, but there’s something admirable in the show’s willingness to dive headfirst into chaos. The live band, meanwhile, offers a solid grounding force amid the unpredictability, often the emotional and rhythmic spine of the piece.

What does it all add up to? That remains unclear. But one line lingers: “Indifference is the greatest contempt.” Whatever else it may be, Eclipse Ballroom is not indifferent. It is strange, messy, and deeply committed; an unfiltered burst of experimental expression that you’re unlikely to forget, even if you don’t entirely understand it.

Playwright & Director: Tatjana Yike Yao
Movement Director: Hui Chen
Voice Coach: Jun Yang 
Producers: Sunny Jie Liu & Sheyang Diao
Stage Management: Jingwen Lu & Sunny Jie Liu
Technical Manager: Joey Haiting Zhou
Music & Sound Art: Anqi Deng 
Head of Sound & Sound Design: Katia Qi Shi
Sound Designer & Live Music Mixing: Jiaye Wang
Sound Designer: Mingyu Ding
Head of Scenography: Joey Haiting Zhou
Assistant Scenographer: Yifan Kang
Visual Artist: Iris Jingyi Zeng
Interactive Digital Artist: Zhengyang Li
Wearable Design: Yifei Deng
Costume Designer & Maker: Jiaxin Fang
Makeup Artist: Jiaxin Fang
Makeup Assistants: Yifan Kang & Iris Jingyi
Lighting Designer: Zidi Wu
Lighting Operator: Summer Yahan Xue
Documentary Directors: Yini Wang & Yike Yao

Eclipse Ballroom has completed its performance at The Courtyard Theatre,
but returns at The Cockpit Theatre Tuesday 19 August & Wednesday 20 August