Humans, Robots And Motherhood Collide In Touch Compass Double Bill

Touch Compass, Aotearoa’s leading disability-led arts organisation, presents ABILITOPIA + WHITE NOISE, a provocative double bill of contemporary dance-theatre across four performances from 26–28 February at Te Pou Theatre.

ABILITOPIA, directed by Dr Suzanne Cowan and featuring three dancers alongside a live AI-enabled robot, and WHITE NOISE, a solo work by Alisha McLennan Marler, challenge assumptions about ability and creativity. Together, they offer a daring, disruptive, and deeply human programme that moves audiences between technological spectacle and raw, intimate expression.

ABILITOPIA

World Premiere - Directed by Dr Suzanne Cowan

ABILITOPIA is a prototype of an alternative social world. The kinds of worlds AI is already helping to shape, seen through a disability perspective. This 40-minute black-box dance-theatre work stages a live encounter between humans, artificial intelligence, and art. A fully AI-enabled robot performs alongside dancers Duncan Armstrong, Raven Afoa-Purcell, and Julie van Renen, unsettling familiar boundaries between human and non-human creativity. Firmly crip-led, disability-led, ABILITOPIA treats AI not as a neutral tool but as a force that reorganises participation, identity, and power. Live sound, movement, and machine responsiveness expose creativity as something that emerges through interdependence rather than independence. Bold, accessible, and unsettling, ABILITOPIA asks audiences of all ages to imagine who gets to belong in the social worlds now being built, and who gets to decide their terms.

Dr Suzanne Cowan is an artist, choreographer and researcher, and has been an Associate Artist with Touch Compass since 1999 and a member of the Artistic Director leadership group since 2021. Her work explores disability and identity, informed by her PhD research in Dance Studies. Recent projects, including site-specific works and films - approach disability-led performance through a post-humanist lens.

WHITE NOISE

Aotearoa New Zealand Premiere - By Alisha McLennan Marler
(Previously premiered at the 2025 Undercover Artist Festival, Brisbane)

WHITE NOISE is a 40-minute solo work emerging from creator and performer Alisha McLennan Marler’s lived experience as a mother with disability. The work is an intimate yet defiant exploration of communication, examining what it means to be heard and unheard, seen and unseen, and the ongoing negotiation of narrative and agency. Through virtuosic movement, immersive digital design, live sound manipulation and aerial performance, White Noise collapses the boundary between the personal and the political. Motherhood becomes both lens and amplifier, folding tenderness, exhaustion, rebellion and love into a sensual, provocative and fiercely present performance.

Alisha McLennan Marler is the newest Artistic Director to join the Artistic Leadership group and Touch Compass’s Rangatahi Arts Development Co-Lead. A performer, tutor, and Certified DanceAbility teacher, her career spans aerial dance, education and performance. She has received multiple awards, recognising her contribution to the arts.

“White Noise illustrates why disability-led creation and performance are so important in bringing new perspectives to the stage - and illuminating audience perceptions.”
- Stage Whispers

“Alisha McLennan Marler has created a memorable work that communicates aspects of lived experience as a mother with disability.”
- Nothing Ever Happens in Brisbane

SEASON DETAILS

DATES: 26–28 February at 7.30pm and 27 February – Matinee performance at 11.30am

RUNTIME: 95–100 minute runtime with a 15–20 minute interval between works.

ACCESS: All shows are fully accessible, featuring live NZSL interpretation, Audio Description, touch tours and full wheelchair access.

BOOKINGS: https://www.tepoutheatre.nz/abilitopia-white-noise/

AUDIENCE ADVISORIES

ABILITOPIA includes frequent strobe and intense lighting, light smoke and haze. The work explores mature philosophical and identity-based themes.

WHITE NOISE features colour-changing lighting, light smoke and haze and reflective acrylic mirror panels that may create visual distortion. The soundscape used includes short periods of sharp or sudden sounds. Parental discretion is advised. A content timing guide is available on request.

ABOUT TOUCH COMPASS

Touch Compass is Aotearoa New Zealand’s leading professional disability-led arts organisation, producing high-quality, bold performances and accessible creative experiences that amplify disabled voices. At Touch Compass, access isn’t an add-on, it’s a foundation. Through artistic excellence and transformative engagement, the company is building a future where disability artistry thrives, and everyone has a place in the creative landscape.

CREATIVE TEAM

ABILITOPIA
Director: Suzanne Cowan
Lighting/AV: Rachel Marlow (Filament Eleven 11)
Robot creator: Adam Ben-Dror
Composer: Kristian Larsen
Producer: Rebekkah Schoonbeek-Berridge
Dancers: Duncan Armstrong, Raven Afoa-Purcell, Julie van Renen
Robot Controller: Fiona Saunders

WHITE NOISE
Artist Lead: Alisha McLennan Marler
Choreographic Collaborator: Jessie McCall
Lighting, AV and Set Designer: Bradley Gledhill (Filament Eleven 11)
Producer: Fiona Saunders
Composer: Andrew McMillan

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