By Sahar Foladi
The long-standing Fusion Theatre has staged its first show, Submerged, since 2019 due to Covid-19.
The not-for-profit theatre run primarily by volunteers has been based in Walker Street Dandenong for the past 25 years providing vital service and support for the local community with and without disability.
Submerged had two ensembles each of 12 actors, inclusion artists and a director.
One ensemble performed on the morning of 26 October while the second one was in the evening at 7pm.
Fusion’s artistic director Jo Raphael has been with the theatre for more than 25 years, since when it was just a drama group based in Springvale.
Ms Raphael said the inclusive team came up with original performances through their inspirations and creative thoughts.
“We began devising this in late 2021, so nearly a whole year was spent in the process of devising the performance.
“It began with an exploration of colour and we were talking about the colour yellow and one of our members actually remembered the Beetles song Yellow Submarine.”
Over the months, the team had continued experiments with improvisation, characters, movement, music, lighting and sound under the direction of Cale Maclaren, assisted by Liliana Dalton.
Mr Maclaren, the morning ensemble director, has been with Fusion for almost eight years. He said he feels proud of the result from a year of tireless work.
“As a theatre maker you have to trust the process.
“And to see those ideas go through the process of being refined and then developed into a polished performance was inspiring and fulfilling.”
Liliana Dalton has been with Fusion Theatre since 2018 and as an inclusion artist and performer said “it was great to perform for the first time since 2019 as a group”.
“We had a great audience and a full house so that was really exciting.”
Both of the ensembles performed in front of a full house.
City of Greater Dandenong is selling the theatre’s home, Walker Street Gallery and Art Centre, which stages great art gallery exhibitions as well.
Fusion Theatre will be making a move to a new arts venue in the PEP building, which is in the process of being built just across the road from Walker Street.
“We are hoping for potentially more space for the audience because we’ve sold out our shows and there are only 60 seats in the auditorium here,” Ms Raphael said.
“We’re hoping we can have bigger audiences and also more wheelchair accessible and disability accessible space.”
The new home is just in its design stage. It will be about two years before Fusion Theatre makes the move.
