Please ... Continue? - Adelaide Fringe 2026

Please … Continue?

Dom Polski Centre

Please… Continue? by Remy Rochester and Angus Onley is a playful, surreal dance-theatre duet that explores the shifting choreography of human connection. Balancing pedestrian familiarity with moments of abstract physical invention, the work invites audiences into a world where relationships flicker between attraction, resistance and possibility.

The piece begins with a simple arrangement: two chairs and a table. The dancers enter from behind us, dressed in blazers that subtly frame the environment as an office, waiting room, or another of the anonymous shared spaces that structure our everyday lives. These minimal elements immediately establish a recognisable social landscape. Yet what unfolds within it quickly becomes stranger and far more fluid. Simply lit and danced against a pulsing score this is a terrific fringe piece.

Rochester and Onley use their jackets as playful extensions of the choreography, shuffling them impatiently, shrugging them on and off, and deploying them as physical punctuation for the emotional rhythms between the two characters. Their interactions begin with small gestures of awkwardness: glances diverted, movements interrupted, each performer attempting to take a seat at the table while subtly blocking the other. The energy between them is palpable. Through precise dancerly gestures and micro-interactions, the performers begin to blur the audience’s sense of what kind of relationship we are witnessing.

Is it attraction? Competition? Repulsion? Or some combination of all three?

The choreography thrives inside this ambiguity. Gestures move from avoidance to connection, hesitation to magnetism, with each new exchange complicating the emotional terrain. Rochester and Onley’s duet skilfully navigate the awkwardness, chemistry, resistance and possibility that shape human relationships, allowing the audience to witness a spectrum of connection that feels both recognisable and surreal.

Technically, the pair are beautifully matched. The choreography demands both precision and responsiveness, particularly in the intricate partnering that emerges as the duet develops. Rochester and Onley shift each other’s weight, spiral through lifts, and swing across the stage with a sense of daring momentum and definite skill. At times they tumble and roll across the floor while maintaining an intimate connection, coiling around each other without sacrificing the speed or clarity of the movement. What’s not to love?

What begins as tentative social choreography gradually builds toward something more emotionally charged, with the performers caught between their impulse to retreat and a growing desire to move closer.

Rochester brings undeniable charisma to the stage. Their presence radiates energy and a clear creative vision. Yet the strength of Please… Continue? lies equally in the dynamic partnership between Rochester and Onley. Their physical dialogue feels attentive and responsive, each performer listening closely to the other’s body as they negotiate the unfolding dance.

Please… Continue? ultimately embraces the fragile uncertainty at the centre of human relationships. Through playful theatricality and sophisticated choreography, Rochester and Onley offer a heartfelt homage to not knowing - and to the beautifully absurd ways we continue reaching for one another anyway.

Review by Kate Gaul