Temperance Hall

Temperance Hall Australian queer dance/performance/art. Boon Wurrung Country. Contemporary dance performance made in collaboration with significant artistic partners.

Scrutinizing behaviour, sexuality, culture with currency.

On Monday we welcomed Marcus McKenzie to our Front Studio Residency. Marcus will be working in our dedicated private stu...
06/01/2026

On Monday we welcomed Marcus McKenzie to our Front Studio Residency. Marcus will be working in our dedicated private studio space at the front of the building across January and February.

Welcome Marcus!

2026 FRONT STUDIO RESIDENCY
Piloted in 2025, Temperance Hall's Front Studio Residency offers six independent artists an artist stipend and two months of exclusive, unrestricted access to the Front Studio at Temperance Hall. At the conclusion of their residencies, artists present a public showing of their work in development with producing, marketing and documentation support.

Our 2026 Front Studio Residency is made possible with the support of the Neilson Foundation, the City of Port Phillip, and private donors.

MARCUS MCKENZIE
Marcus McKenzie’s work uses the relationship between audience and performer as a site for weird sensory encounters, often incorporating schisms in language, parafictional wor(l)d-building, meme-adjacent media and questionable dancing. His works take place in theatres, galleries, supermarkets, nightclubs and churches.

Australia: Rising. Mona. Mona Foma. Dark M**o. Arts Centre Melbourne. Liveworks. The Substation. Kaldor. Miscellania. Soft Centre, Le Fag. Lucid Danceclub. Soft Centre. Aphids. Pony Cam. Pony Express. Deep Soulful Sweats. Gertrude Contemporary. Kings ARI. Blindside. Wheeler Centre. Art Gallery of NSW. NGV. RMIT Gallery. Malthouse. Belvoir. Terrapin. Cantos. House of Vnholy. Un Projects. Aesthetic Calculations. Joel Stern. Shian Law. Georgia Banks. Mike Hewson. Zoë Bastin. Geoffrey Watson. Tamara Saulwick.

Internationally, Marcus has worked with Michael Portnoy (NY) for Steirischerherbst (AT); Tim Crouch for Unicorn Theatre (UK); and has recently toured Japan and Singapore with Terrapin and performed in Ireland with Pan Pan. Other international engagements include Xavier Le Roy, Hermann Nitsch and Lynsey Peisinger.

Welcome back.We hope you have had a gentle and restorative break. We have. Our doors are open, and we look forward to we...
06/01/2026

Welcome back.

We hope you have had a gentle and restorative break. We have. Our doors are open, and we look forward to welcoming you into 2026.

In 2025, we framed our labours at the Hall as a ‘Reassembly’, adopting an intentionally straightforward model that invests in the necessary labour of art making as our #1 priority. We anticipate 2026 will be Temperance Hall's year of momentum, where we continue to strengthen our new model, and invite you to share in it.

On Friday 30th January, we invite you to our first public event of the year, and final outcome of our 2025 Front Studio Resident cohort. Fleur Conlon presents In The Other Room, a work-in-progress solo dance showing that has emerged during her time in residence across November and December, 2025. As always, these showings are free to attend, and all donations are received with much gratitude.

In The Other Room

In The Other Room is a work-in-progress, a solo dance that emerged from the Front Studio Residency. The work moves through shifts of attention, where sensation, fragments of thought, and voice interrupt or redirect the body. Passing through physical, internal, and perceptual rooms.

Fleur Conlon is an Australian dancer, performing artist and choreographer. Her knowledge of contemporary dance was shaped by her participation in the creative processes with a range of freelance choreographers and her years living in Europe and Australia. Her choreographic interests centre on developing and sustaining a dance practice through sensorial and visceral improvisation practices.

CREATED AND PERFORMED BY Fleur Conlon
SOUND BY Robert Downie
DATE & TIME Friday 30th January, 7 pm
TICKETS Free, please register to attend: https://events.humanitix.com/in-the-other-room-fleur-conlon

Image courtesy of the artist, Fleur Conlon

18/12/2025

We are pleased to announce our Front Studio residents for 2026:

Marcus McKenzie
Oliver Savariego
Amaara Raheem
Daniel R Marks
Iris Elgar
Michelle Heaven

Each artist will be provided with their own key to the building, 2 x months of exclusive access to our Front Studio, a stipend, and photographic documentation of a public outcome; the form of which will be determined in dialogue with Temperance Hall staff.

We received 68 applications from this years EOI call out, with the number of excellent applications far exceeding the number of places available. Our assessment panel was comprised of Temperance Hall Director, William McBride, Temperance Hall Executive Producer, Anna McDermott, and Temperance Hall artist Board Members, Brett Chenowyth, Brooke Stamp, and Priya Namana.

The Front Studio Residency cohort represents a dynamic range of practices and approaches to the expanded fields of dance and performance, where the body is central. These artists exemplify the rigour, boldness, risk, q***rness, and obsessive dedication to body-based practice that Temperance Hall is known for.

We very much look forward to seeing how each artists' practice evolves during their time at Temperance Hall, and inviting you to gather every two months as they share their findings, ongoing inquiries and artistic research outcomes.

Much gratitude to generous seed funding from private supporters of Temperance Hall, as well as support the City of Port Phillip and the Neilson Family Foundation for enabling this opportunity to continue into the future.

Find out more about the artists via the link in bio.

12/12/2025

In 2025, we framed our labours at Temperance Hall as a ‘Reassembly’, and it has been a huge year.

Tonight we are hosting our final public event for the year, with a showing from current Apartment Studio residents, Myriam Van Imschoot and Marcus Bergner, before shutting up the shop from December 18–January 5.

With the end of year fast approaching, and with the sector collectively navigating the slings and arrows of December Funding Outcomes Killing Season, it’s time for a look back on what has been a huge year for Temperance Hall.

With support from private donors, the Neilson Foundation, the City of Port Phillip, and Creative Australia, in 2025 we were able to stand up two major residency programs focused on supporting independent artists working in experimental dance and performance.

The new model was intentionally straightforward, inverting the presentation house model, to invest in the necessary labour of art making as priority #1. The work that gets shared – at whatever stage it is at – becomes the public program.

Thank you to everyone who has supported Temperance Hall through this year of reassembly. To the donors who have quite literally kept our doors open, to those who joined the Winter Working Bee, to everyone who has attended the work, and to everyone who has continued to champion our role in the wider arts community. Thank you to an incredibly hard working volunteer Board and a dream team of producer-artist colleagues across the year.

We’ll be back next year, looking to consolidate and strengthen this model further, and we look forward to sharing updates with you then. But for now, a break.

Much love from Will and Anna

///

Images by Jeff Busby, Gregory Lorenzutti and Sandra Parker

Today, we welcome international artists Marcus Bergner and Myriam Van Imschoot to Temperance Hall's Apartment Studio. My...
07/12/2025

Today, we welcome international artists Marcus Bergner and Myriam Van Imschoot to Temperance Hall's Apartment Studio. Myriam Van Imschoot is based in Belgium, working through the medium of voice in performance, film and installation. Marcus Bergner also based in Belgium, has exhibited and worked extensively in the fields of sound poetry and experimental film.

Initiated in 2025 Temperance Hall’s Apartment Studio offers artists a place to live, work and sleep, and includes a dedicated work space for studio practice alongside sleeping and living quarters.

Marcus Bergner and Myriam Van Imschoot will be presenting a showing, Patterns poems and some mechanical prose spoken, on Friday 12 December at Temperance Hall.

In the pandemic, the artists created a poem of rapidly spoken words, Urge, accelerating intensity and interlocking energies into a dazzling message in which the void coiled. Now they revisit this work to insert and annotate it with other registers and gifts, drunken on words, sliding frequencies, tinkering gaps and addictive worries, films and smuggled cargo.

Pattern poems and some mechanical prose spoken pairs live poetry with performance with an interested in how an audience can patter in.

CREATED AND PERFORMED BY Myriam Van Imschoot and Marcus Bergner
DATE & TIME Friday 12 December 7pm
LOCATION Temperance Hall, Main Hall, 199 Napier St South Melbourne
TICKETS by donation, please register to attend via link in bio

Images courtesy of the artists

CONSEQUENCE by Sandra Parker... an informal open rehearsal and work in progress showing this Saturday 6 December at Temp...
02/12/2025

CONSEQUENCE by Sandra Parker... an informal open rehearsal and work in progress showing this Saturday 6 December at Temperance Hall, followed by a Q&A facilitated by Jo Lloyd.

The development of CONSEQUENCE has been focusing on notions of loss, deterioration and disintegration. The showing will centre on choreographic strategies that locate the physical effects of accelerated growth, progress, and social alienation in the contemporary context, without giving in to hopelessness.

CHOREORGAPHY Sandra Parker
DANCERS Jazmyn Carter, Benjamin Hurley, Rachel Mackie, Oliver Savariego
DATE & TIME Saturday 6 December, 3pm
DURATION 30 minute showing, followed by a 30 minute Q&A facilitated by Jo Lloyd
LOCATION Temperance Hall, Main Hall, 199 Napier St South Melbourne
ACCESSIBILITY Wheelchair accessible
TICKETS Free, please register to attend via link in bio

This work-in-development has been supported by Temperance Hall, City of Port Phillip through the Cultural Development Fund, Creative Australia, The SUBSTATION and The Australian Ballet

Image courtesy of the artist

This December we welcome Belgium-based artists Myriam Van Imschoot and Marcus Bergner to Temperance Hall's Apartment Stu...
24/11/2025

This December we welcome Belgium-based artists Myriam Van Imschoot and Marcus Bergner to Temperance Hall's Apartment Studio. During their stay, they will host a public showing, Patterns poems and some mechanical prose spoken.

In the pandemic, artists Marcus Bergner and Myriam Van Imschoot created a poem of rapidly spoken words, Urge, accelerating intensity and interlocking energies into a dazzling message in which the void coiled. Now they revisit this work to insert and annotate it with other registers and gifts, drunken on words, sliding frequencies, tinkering gaps and addictive worries, films and smuggled cargo.

Pattern poems and some mechanical prose spoken pairs live poetry with performance with an interested in how an audience can patter in.

Myriam Van Imschoot is based in Belgium, working through the medium of voice in performance, film and installation. Marcus Bergner also based in Belgium, has exhibited and worked extensively in the fields of sound poetry and experimental film.

This event wishes to bring attention to and express opposition towards the looming cut-backs of reference librarians, services and staff at the State Library of Victoria.

CREATED & PERFORMED BY Myriam Van Imschoot and Marcus Bergner
DATE & TIME Friday 12 December, 7pm
LOCATION Temperance Hall, 199 Napier Street, South Melbourne
TICKETS By donation, please register to attend via the link in bio.

Myriam Van Imschoot and Marcus Bergner are Apartment Studio Residents at Temperance Hall.

In 2025, Temperance Hall's on-site self-catered live-in apartment was renovated and converted into the ‘Apartment Studio Residency’. This space offers artists a place to live, work and sleep, and includes a dedicated work space for studio practice alongside sleeping and living quarters, including a private kitchen, bathroom and courtyard.

Temperance Hall's Apartment Studio Residency provides opportunities for artists/collaborations to develop and share new artistic work/choreography/research/experiments with local audiences during their stay.

Image design Myriam Van Imschoot with score drawing Marcus Bergner and photo still Yanni Florence

Please join as at Temperance Hall for an informal open rehearsal and work-in-progress showing of CONSEQUENCE by Sandra P...
24/11/2025

Please join as at Temperance Hall for an informal open rehearsal and work-in-progress showing of CONSEQUENCE by Sandra Parker. The showing will be followed by a Q&A with the artist facilitated by Jo Lloyd.

For the development of this new work CONSEQUENCE, Sandra has been focusing on notions of loss, deterioration and disintegration. The showing will centre on choreographic strategies that locate the physical effects of accelerated growth, progress, and social alienation in the contemporary context, without giving in to hopelessness.

CHOREORGAPHY Sandra Parker

DANCERS Jazmyn Carter, Benjamin Hurley, Rachel Mackie, Oliver Savariego

DATE & TIME Saturday 6 December, 3pm

DURATION 30 minutes showing, followed by a 30 minute Q&A facilitated by Jo Lloyd

LOCATION Temperance Hall, Main Hall, 199 Napier St South Melbourne

ACCESSIBILITY Wheelchair accessible

TICKETS Free, please register to attend: https://events.humanitix.com/consequence-by-sandra-parker-open-rehearsal-and-work-in-progress-showing

This work-in-development has been supported by Temperance Hall, City of Port Phillip, Creative Australia, The SUBSTATION and The Australian Ballet.

Image courtesy of the artist, Sandra Parker

Thank you to all who joined us for the Australian premiere of Tremble by Liz Rosenfeld – a three hour immersive performa...
18/11/2025

Thank you to all who joined us for the Australian premiere of Tremble by Liz Rosenfeld – a three hour immersive performance held in our Main Space on Friday October 24th as part of our TEMPER program.

Joining Liz were local and international artists and performers Amaara Raheem, Jennie Andro, Ellen Davies, Taichi Ishii, Tim Darbyshire and Leah Marojević. It was a great pleasure to host Liz in our Apartment Studio and share their practice with our community across October.

Our 2025 TEMPER program invited 3 choreographic artists/collaborations to develop and show new choreographic work at Temperance Hall, while in residence on-site in the Apartment Studio.

Bringing experimental, radical art/work/ideas/experiences/research/perspectives/practices/dances from farther afield to share with local audiences at Temperance Hall.

#1 Martin Hansen (Melbourne/Berlin): August
#2 Liz Rosenfeld (Berlin/London): October
#3 Juliet Widyasari Burnett (Gold Coast) and Ishvara Devati (Jakarta): November

TEMPER is supported by Creative Australia, the Australian Government's principal arts investment and advisory body.

After a busy few months at the hall, its a delight to take a moment to look back at what has been – including at this d...
17/11/2025

After a busy few months at the hall, its a delight to take a moment to look back at what has been – including at this documentation of Gabriella Imrichova's showing on Sunday 2nd of November.

For this public outcome, Gabriella shared what had emerged for them during their time on residence at Temperance Hall's Front Studio. Big thank you to Gabriella for sharing their practice at the hall, and to all who attended earlier this month.

Piloted in 2025, our Front Studio Residency Program offers 6 artists exclusive access to our Front Studio for a period of 2 months, culminating in a public outcome supported by an artist fee, technical support and professional documentation.

Grabriella Imrichova was our 5th artist in residence for 2025. The Front Studio Residency has been supported by the Neilson Foundation, the City of Port Phillip, the Palais Theatre Community Fund, private donors and the Australian Government through Creative Australia, its principal arts investment and advisory body.

Images by Jeff Busby

The Drama!CYVASA 2.0 night #2, with post-show Q+A facilitated by Brooke Stamp.Created and performed by Juliet Widyasari...
14/11/2025

The Drama!

CYVASA 2.0 night #2, with post-show Q+A facilitated by Brooke Stamp.

Created and performed by Juliet Widyasari Burnett and Ishvara Devati, in residence at Temperance Hall as our third and final TEMPER program for 2025.

Final show Saturday.

Link in bio.

Images by Jeff Busby.

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This project has been supported by Performance Space and Critical Path's Experimental Choreographic Residency; the Australian Government through @.australia, its principal arts investment and advisory body; and Temperance Hall.

CYVASA 2.0 opens tonight, Friday and Saturday, 7:30pm.Created and performed by Juliet Widyasari Burnett and Ishvara Deva...
13/11/2025

CYVASA 2.0 opens tonight, Friday and Saturday, 7:30pm.

Created and performed by Juliet Widyasari Burnett and Ishvara Devati, visiting Temperance Hall as our third and final TEMPER program for 2025.

📣📣 Brooke Stamp will host a post-show discussion with the artists following Friday's show.

Come for the exquisite movement, stay for the whole-body sonic submission to the sounds of Indonesian feminist noise duo Metatesis.

Link in bio.

Jeff Busby's beautiful shots from last night's dress run.

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This project has been supported by Performance Space and Critical Path's Experimental Choreographic Residency; the Australian Government through Creative Australia, its principal arts investment and advisory body; and Temperance Hall.

Address

199 Napier Street
South Melbourne, VIC
3205

Opening Hours

Monday 9am - 5pm
Tuesday 9am - 5pm
Wednesday 9am - 5pm
Thursday 9am - 5pm
Friday 9am - 5pm

Website

https://linktr.ee/temperance.hall

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