House Of Sand Brings Award-Winning Hybrid Performance To Dunedin Fringe

Arriving directly from Adelaide Fringe, fearless performer Eliza Sanders, brings Manage Your Expectation, a revolutionary fusion of contemporary dance, cine-theatre, and quirky comedy, to Dunedin Fringe Festival on 18 & 19 March.

Director Charley Allanah says “This is Eliza's most sophisticated and nuanced piece of choreography and image-making. It's the most accessible piece of dance-led theatre we've made."

Manage Your Expectations holds a lens up to live performance, through an ingenious combination of comedic storytelling, eye-popping live-feed cinematography, and profound movement. One-part performance lecture (think Hannah Gadsby’s Nannette) and one-part evocative moving images on stage and screen (think the works of Pina Bausch or Romeo Castellucci).

The simplicity of the setup - one solo performer, a camera, a screen, and you, the audience - masks a thrilling complexity that strikes awe and deep personal resonance with the audience. Eliza's storytelling addresses universal concepts of human relationships: Partners, Children, Ancestors, Self and Death.

Manage Your Expectations debuted at the New Zealand Fringe Festival in 2024 where the House of Sand team won big, taking home the awards for Outstanding Solo Performance and Tour-Ready San Diego Fringe as well as six other award nominations including Best in Fringe and Most Innovative Work. The show went on to wow audiences at Whangārei Fringe with solo performer Eliza receiving the award for Best Performer.

"It's about finding joy and humour in complexity, and in our endless inability to really understand ourselves and each other" says Charley.

Eliza arrives on a red-eye flight from Adelaide on the morning of the first performance. “It'll be a huge couple of weeks for me, touring the show both nationally and internationally but I'm up for the challenge! I'm excited to share my work with new audiences.”

Manage Your Expectations
DUNEDIN FRINGE FESTIVAL
WHEN: 6pm, 18 & 19 March, 2025
WHERE: Te Whare o Rukutia, 20 Princes Street, Dunedin
PRICE: $26 (General Admission), $23 (Concession), $20.80 (Group 6+)
TO BOOK: https://www.dunedinfringe.nz/events/manage-your-expectations

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