Past the Tracks is a colourful and deeply shifting autobiographical paintings that fuses dance, motion, track and audiovisual storytelling.
At its centre is Kamilaroi/Mandandanji guy Michael Leslie — a dancer, choreographer and cultural pressure whose lifestyles tale is as expansive as his inventive legacy. Over 45 fast moving mins, what unfolds isn’t merely a efficiency, however a lived historical past, rendered with generosity, humour and unflinching reality
Visually layered, carried through heat
The display opens with Leslie coming into the degree, intently adopted through Ursula Yovich, whose presence in an instant grounds the paintings in heat and familiarity. Yovich narrates and sings right through, her voice wearing the target audience throughout many years and landscapes.
Ursula Yovich’s credit come with rock musical Barbara and the Camp Canine, the 2019 movie Most sensible Finish Wedding ceremony and 2025 sequence Most sensible Finish Bub.
Daniel Boud
She doesn’t simply accompany Leslie; she converses with him, teasing out reminiscences and making a dynamic interaction that feels each intimate and relatable. Their rapport units the tone for a manufacturing this is as a lot about relationships — to circle of relatives and group — as it’s about person fulfillment.
Visually, the paintings is deceptively easy but richly layered. Mason Browne’s set design includes a corrugated iron sheet and a clean wall that turns into a dwelling archive.
Projected photographs of circle of relatives, group and pivotal historic moments ripple around the wall, situating Leslie’s non-public adventure throughout the broader tale of Aboriginal resilience and creativity.
A unmarried chair anchors the gap, whilst a tightly assembled band with musical collaborators Calvin Welch and percussionist Robbie Alexander force the display’s pulse. Their sound is lively, percussive and sometimes rock‑star-ish, underscoring the momentum of Leslie’s lifestyles.
The display is a fast moving efficiency filled with with heat and humour.
Daniel Boud
Tough reminders
Raised in Moree, Leslie describes himself as a challenge child who was once introduced up at the improper facet of the tracks. At 9, he witnessed the coming of the 1965 Freedom Riders, a bunch of college scholars protesting the discrimination of Aboriginal folks.
Quickly after, an opportunity look in a tv business modified his lifestyles’s trajectory.
Past the Tracks recounts those early studies with readability and irony, specifically when Leslie displays on Moree as a “racist town” and notes that “Laws may change, but attitudes don’t”. Those traces land with weight, reminding the target audience that development is steadily painfully gradual.
Regardless of the heaviness of a few topics, Leslie’s efficiency radiates pleasure. Now nearing 70, he strikes with the agility, precision and playfulness of somebody part his age.
He glides, spins and frolics around the degree, embodying the sheer excitement of motion. Observing him dance appears like witnessing an entire life distilled into movement.
Leslie strikes with the agility and precision of somebody part his age.
Daniel Boud
A titan of the humanities
The display additionally celebrates Leslie’s outstanding contributions to the acting arts. Over greater than 40 years, he has considerably influenced the advance of Indigenous efficiency in Australia.
He was once one of the most founding participants (as a scholar) of acting arts organisation NAISDA when it was once established in 1976.
Within the Eighties, he gained a Churchill Fellowship to review and teach on the Alvin Ailey American Dance Centre in New York.
Upon his go back, he was once the unique choreographer for the musical Bran Nue Dae. He additionally helped determine the Black Swan Theatre Corporate in Western Australia and the Aboriginal Centre for Appearing Arts (ACPA), co-founded the Broome-based dance theatre corporate Marrugeku, and based the Michael Leslie Basis for the Arts.
His have an effect on on arts coverage, coaching pathways, and cultural illustration is profound.
Past the Tracks sits very easily along landmark autobiographical works reminiscent of Leah Purcell’s Field the Pony, David Web page’s Web page 8 and Noel Tovey’s Little Black Bastard.
As this yr’s NAIDOC Week celebrates “50 Years of Deadly”, this display reminds us that lately’s artists stand at the shoulders of giants — and Leslie is undeniably one of the most deadliest.
Past the Tracks is appearing at Melbourne’s Carriageworks till July 11.
