Inspired by a 1925 etiquette manual prescribing the rules of the dance floor, Don’ts For Dancers transports audiences into an imagined dance hall where the cut of your dress, the way you move and who you choose to dance with can determine your social fate. Developed through international residencies in France and Ireland by performer-creators Nerida Matthaei and Nicole Canham, the work brings together contemporary dance, live music and physical theatre to collide old-world etiquette with contemporary attitudes to love, attraction and connection.

A wallflower, a belle of the ball, an overbearing chaperone and the male object of everyone’s desire navigate a world of flirtation, rivalry, longing and disappointment, where the dance floor becomes a battleground and the rules are made to be tested. Elegant waltzes sit alongside the impossibility of finding love in nightclubs, the pitfalls of looking for connection online and the unexpected consequences of taking your anger out on the dance floor—and your partner.

Part time capsule, part social commentary and part gloriously unruly dance-theatre experiment, Don’ts For Dancers asks what happens when we follow the rules, break them or discover that the rules were ridiculous all along. Playful, furious, provocative and deeply human, the work toured to Canberra, Brisbane and Cairns, delighting audiences with its mix of dance, music, theatre and interaction. Described as “charming, totally engaging and damn good fun” and “an imaginative, entertaining and good-humoured new dance work”, Don’ts For Dancers was a great night of multidisciplinary performance—full of style, attitude, surprises and pure dance magic.