The Narrative of Nothing

Murphy, Australia’s premier choreographer, returned to essentials for his contemporary one-act work The Narrative of Nothing. Murphy plays with the notion that audiences, when confronted by purely abstract works, map their own narrative on to what they see. The score, Brett Dean’s Fire Music, was written as a response to the Black Saturday bushfires that raged across Australia’s east coast in 2009. The costumes by Jennifer Irwin, Murphy’s long-time collaborator, are sewn with tiny mirrors that reflect the searing golden rays of Damien Cooper’s lighting design.