Burnout Ballet tells the story of a person who gets arrested for doing burnouts, and the next morning they establish an unexpected allegiance. It premiered at The Engine Room, Bendigo Venues and Events in December 2025.

Burnout Ballet is a movement theatre work that started from a local news story about late-night ‘burnout’ action on the streets of Bendigo. CreateA took this story and, with their typical inventiveness and irreverence, created a show that has a pool game, a bar brawl, a car chase and lots of dancing. Burnout Ballet brings street culture to a head on collision with dance culture. The result is crackling energy and a whole lot of fun. Sparks will fly!

Kate Stones – Director; John Willis – Producer; Tilda Picken – Associate Producer; Sach Motee – Music Composition; Lighting Design support James (JB) Bodin

Ensemble: Mici Boxell, Kyra Drummond, Sarah Goninon, Melissa Gordon-Cooke, Kelly Hartland, Yvette Keane, Acacia Lund, Kate Prendergast, Samuel Thompson, Carol San Giorgio, David Smith

This first video is a short documentary about Burnout Ballet as it was performed in December 2025. The second video is a film made by the ensemble with Leonie Van Eyk in 2023. It was used as a promotional video for the project, and also as a film expression of Burnout Ballet in its own right.

 

Directors note

Burnout Ballet began as a twinkle in my eye, way back in 2019, when I was lucky enough to see a performance by the Ambiguous Dance Company from South Korea, at the Castlemaine State Festival. ADC is “known for its undefinable style that blends genres like hip-hop and ballet, expressing raw human emotion through energetic, physical movement”.  I loved ADC’s punked up version of ballet. Their incredible performance made me think: why does ballet have to be associated with pain, poise, precision and discipline? Can’t we mess with it a bit? Why can’t CreateA do ballet? Years passed and we made beautiful, thoughtful shows like Phoneheads and Venous Return. However there remains an underlying rambunctious, revolutionary energy inherent in the CreateA Performance Ensemble that requires some air time too. One day, just for fun, I came to rehearsal with a short paragraph from the Addy, about a hapless local chap who had been arrested for doing a burnout. The ensemble took the idea and ran with it, working it through multiple improvisations, creating backstories, adding ideas that reflect their own interests, like a protest march outside a global burger chain, a car chase, and a fabulous finale that I won’t spoil for you. Throughout the development period, ensemble members have come and gone, but Burnout Ballet has remained a touch point in our collective imagination. It has a bit of ballet, and a whole lot of other stuff.