Rituals and remembrance

When Melbourne-based performer and theatre-maker Lucy “Lui” Eidelson speaks about their new work Réquiem, their words hover between the spiritual and the bodily.

“When you lose someone you love, you’re often left with the most ordinary memories,” Eidelson said. “Eating breakfast, drinking tea – ordinary moments become impossibly heavy. The reality is, you’re eating breakfast, and your father is dying. It’s absurd, and tender, at the same time. I wanted to capture that impossible duality.”

Premiering at the Melbourne Fringe Festival from October 14–17, Réquiem invites audiences into what Eidelson calls “the thin place”, the blurred line between birth and death, memory and mythology. It’s part ritual, part dreamscape, and entirely personal.

The work was born from profound loss. Following the death of their father in 2024, himself a dancer, Eidelson found their creative practice shifting inward.

Following years of chronic illness, Eidelson expected momentum. But, as they told Demure Magazine, when their dad was diagnosed, they went inward again, “into the domestic sphere, but this time as a carer.”