In years prior, Melbourne’s theatre foyers would be a sea of puffer jackets by June but it’s been concerningly warm. This frog is noticing the water getting hotter in the proverbial pot and choreographers Amber Haines and Kyle Page and Lucy Guerin are as well, if their works in the Australian Dance Biennale held during this year’s Rising Festival are anything to go by.

Haines and Page’s Red looks ahead to the moment humans run out of resources needed to live, in a dance cum endurance performance art production. Guerin’s The Forest, which delivers a collection of dances with a thematic throughline, looks backward to a time where western cultures positioned humans alongside, not on top of, nature. 

Sabine Crompton-Ward and Michael Smith in Dancenorth Australia’s Red. Photo © Tszar

A surprising similarity between the productions is how they borrow from BDSM kinks to explore humans’ relationship with nature. For The Forest this is a dalliance; one scene sees a dancer turned tree tied up like a maypole in red ribbons a la...