THE SHEPHERDS
The Shepherds
In just over an hour, contemporary dance powerhouses Carly Sheppard and Alisdair Macindoe collapse a parallel Australian universe into a potent, unsettling ritual. The Shepherds subverts the innocence of our pastoral myths, moving fluidly between absurd fiction and quiet devastation. This is not just a dance performance, it is a haunting, beautiful ceremony confronting the realities of an inheritance built on stolen land.
““★★★★★ - The Shepherds is the best dance work I’ve seen in this year’s Rising Festival.””
Created, choreographed & written by
Carly Sheppard
(Tagalaka, Chinese, Welsh, Hungarian, Slovakian descendent settler, raised on the unceded lands of the Kulin Nations)
Alisdair Macindoe
(born on lutruwita, the unceded land of the muwinina people, descendent of Clan Murray & Clan Buchanan, Scotland)
Dramaturg, Voice Over Artist & Co-Writer
Emily Tomlins
Visual Designer (Staging & Costumes)
Jonathan Oxlade
Lighting Designer
Katie Sfetkidis
Lighting Assistant
Nick Moloney
Composer & Sound Designer
Lawrence English
documentation and performance photography
Tiffany Garvie
premier season operator
Brendan Jellie
Performed by
Carly Sheppard
Alisdair Macindoe
Karlia Cook
(Ma'ohi- Norf'k, Māori (Ngapuhi)
Tyrel Dulvarie
(Yirrganydji, Dugulbara, Kalkadoon and Umpila peoples)
Production Manager
Emma Holgate
(proud Mandabarra woman, born & raised on Ngarigo Country)
Producers
Stella Webster
Jason Cross
Insite Arts
Set / Props Builder
Tamara Rewse
Things of Foam and Wood
Costume Supervisor
Chloe Greaves
Assistant Designer & Development Performer
Geoffrey Watson
video documentation & edit
Takeshi Kondo
““It’s an excellently insidious introduction that feels like something out of a sci-fi video game, complete with an ominous blanket of sound and desert-planet set design.””
““As the co-creators of this show, which started as a conversation on a Sidney Myer fellows’ retreat, Sheppard and Macindoe give the audience a lot to chew on. The show is packed wall-to-wall with narratively rich vignettes that explore colonial dynamics, the destruction of ecosystems, and suppression of First Nations peoples.””
Enter an unstable world that is both uncomfortably familiar and entirely detached from our reality. In The Shepherds, acclaimed creators Carly Sheppard and Alisdair Macindoe construct a parallel Australian universe, using surreal fiction to interrogate the very fabric of our national identity.
This highly physical performance condenses the profound gravity of an epic drama into a single, potent hour of unsettling ritual. As the show unfolds, the romanticised folklore of the classic Australian pastoral myth is systematically dismantled.
What begins with an air of absurd, dark comedy gradually shifts into a space of quiet devastation and deep spiritual reckoning.
Brought to life by a fiercely precise ensemble, The Shepherds functions less like a traditional narrative and more like an immersive, contemporary ceremony. It stands as a hypnotic and fearless exploration of cultural inheritance, memory, and survival, forcing us to look directly at the foundations of a society built on stolen land. Equal parts beautiful and haunting, this is a boundary-pushing theatrical universe that lingers long after the final moment.
““Such brilliant use of images, I’m going to be thinking about it for so long. This is haunting Australian gothic dance at its best, and I’m obsessed, and it needs to tour, and you need to see it, and I just, ahh, I’m obsessed!””
The Shepherds was commissioned and funded through the Sidney Myer Creative Fellowship Alumni Commissioning program. The project is supported by the Australian Government’s Major Festivals Initiative, managed by Creative Australia, its arts funding and advisory body, in association with the Confederation of Australian International Arts Festivals Inc, RISING, and Sydney Festival; and the City of Melbourne through Arts House.
The development of this project was assisted through venue support from The University of Melbourne Arts & Culture (UMAC); Merri-bek Council Coburg Courthouse Residency; and The Australian Ballet.
