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.”

“I didn’t have the capacity to devise big works… what was coming out of my body last year was writing and poetry,” they explained. “Those writings became the scaffolding for Réquiem, informing its imagery and emotional architecture.”

The result is a performance that merges the mundane with remembrance.

Familiar rituals, such as pouring milk, brushing dust, or opening a window, transform into acts of honour and memory.

Eidelson explores what they call “death’s endless imperium,” a space where ancient deities from different faiths coexist: Hades, Olam Haba, Svarga, Diyu.

Explaining that all the realms become one, Eidelson said, “memory is the shadow jurisdiction where the dead reside.”

That interplay between the ordinary and the mythic runs through all of Eidelson’s work. Previous pieces, including Air Hunger and Axolotls at Topia, established the performer as a creator of surreal, emotionally charged performances.

But Réquiem, Eidelson explained, is heavier, more grounded in lived experience.

Described by Eidelson as “an abstracted visual iteration of what’s inside my body – memories, scenes, stories, heritage, grief, birth, death,” Réquiem unfolds as both intimate and epic: a ritual of rebirth performed through movement, voice, and the shared act of remembering.

Visually, the piece is striking. Installation designers Nisassa Bacci and Stoz create a world that feels both womb-like and cosmic, while costume designer Charlie Lee and bio-prop artist Spiraro weave garments that evoke transformation and ancestry. On stage, Eidelson will perform alongside Allen Laverty and a chorus of singers, Heather Michaels, Clover Blue, and Anne Atcheson, whose live a cappella vocals form the work’s emotional spine. Composer Sam Harding and sound artist Noah Riseley will build a haunting soundscape influenced by Eastern European and Jewish musical traditions.

That cultural thread is deeply woven into Réquiem.

Eidelson draws from both their mother’s Irish-Celtic and father’s Polish-Jewish heritage, allowing the myths, songs, and spiritual textures of both to meet.

“I’ve always been interested in my performance practice as this continual kind of birth and rebirth of my body,” they told Demure Mag. The work draws from their mother’s Irish-Celtic and their father’s Polish-Jewish lineages.

For Eidelson, the goal isn’t to deliver a message but to create a shared emotional space.

“I don’t want people to take away something specific. I want them to feel with me — the playfulness, the sadness, the nostalgia.”

In essence, Réquiem presents grief as a landscape. A place to move, sing, and dance alongside those who have died, holding their memory close.

Requiem is playing as part of Melbourne Fringe, from October 14-17. For tickets, visit melbournefringe.com.au/whats-on/events/requiem