Closing Party | Dance of Dissent

Overview

Join them in the courtyard of the National Film and Sound Archive to close the 2026 Craft + Design Canberra Festival with an evening of dance, design and celebration under the Canberra sky.

Curated by acclaimed dance artist Liz Lea, Dance of Dissent brings the Festival theme to life through the most immediate medium of all: the human body. A series of solo performances by leading female dancers open the evening, each a distinct act of creative resistance through movement, costume, and presence. We are thrilled to present Yolanda Lowatta's acclaimed solo performance in partnership with Australian Dance Party.

The night closes with an ensemble work by the Chamaeleon Collective, Canberra's first inclusive dance company of dancers with disability.

Dance is the Festival's closing argument: bodies in motion, in space, and in community, dissenting against expectation, against exclusion, and against the limits of who is seen.