Counterfeit is a brand new collaboration between Naarm/Melbourne choreographer and dance technologist Alisdair Macindoe and Dance Makers Collective's Future Makers.

Counterfeit is an ambitious, site-responsive dance experiment expanding on the provocative choreographic universe established by Alisdair Macindoe’s acclaimed work, Plagiary. In this new work, seventeen performers from local dance company Dance Makers Collective’s Future Makers respond in real-time to the directives of an AI “choreographer”, directives that audiences can themselves peek into by scanning the dancers via a QR code printed on their futuristic workwear.

Counterfeit transforms Bankstown Arts Centre into a living experiment in creative authorship and collective invention. Audiences are invited into the machine driving the dancers, calling into question who is in charge—people or computers? Counterfeit invites you to witness, question, and participate in a dance performance living within the uniquely thrilling intersection of art and AI.

Credits

LEAD ARTIST | Alisdair Macindoe

PRODUCER | Dance Makers Collective

FUTURE MAKERS | Alexandra Lusty, Anastasia Lonsdale, Arabella Kiefer, Christie King, Elka Holden-Price, Evie Morwood, Frances Orlina, Hannah Brookes, Hannah Mansfield, Kate Clerkin, Layla Meadows, Mairi Armour, Meg Connolly, Olivia West, Sienna Klarica, Vincent Garcia & Vourneen NiCainin

TECHNICIAN | William Phillips

About Alisdair Macindoe

Alisdair Macindoe is an independent multidisciplinary choreographer living on unceded stolen Woi Wurrung country (Melbourne, Australia). With an interest in extending the boundaries of choreographic practice, Alisdair’s work spans dance, sound, electronics, coding and text. Recent works have seen him explore automated dance and Artificial Intelligence; new technology for music expression; trans-humanism; waste and climate change; and identity in the age of narcissism.

Alisdair’s independent and collaborative work has been commissioned and presented widely, including Plagiary (2024, Now or Never Festival @ Fairfax Theatre, Arts Centre Melbourne & Unwrapped @ The Studio, Sydney Opera House), DULL BOY (2024, Part of Three, Australasian Dance Collective, Ohm Festival @ Brisbane Powerhouse); PROGRESS REPORT (2023 & 2021, with co-director Alison Currie for Vitalstatistix & Frame Biennial @ The Substation ); FORGERY (2021, Australasian Dance Collective & Brisbane Festival @ QPAC); SYSTEM ERROR (2021, co-created with Chamber Made & Tamara Saulwick for Arts House); REFERENCE MATERIAL (2021, Darebin Speakeasy); NONCOMPETE (2018, The Substation); MEETING (2015, with co-creator Antony Hamilton, commissioned by Arts House, presented across 35 international seasons) and BROMANCE (2010, Next Wave, Arts House & Performance Space).

Alisdair has received 6 Greenroom awards; an Australian Helpmann Award; a New York Performing Arts Award ‘Bessie’; and a PRISM award. He was the 2019 Resident Director for Lucy Guerin Inc; the 2019 Ausdance Peggy Van Praagh Fellow; the 2020 Dancenorth NO-SHOW resident; a 2020-21 Sidney Myer Foundation Creative Fellow; and a recipient of the 2022 Chloe Munro Mid-Career Fellowship.

About Plagiary

Plagiary is a dance performance experiment where Artificial Intelligence acts as both speaking choreographer and playwright, generating an entirely new show before your eyes in collaboration with live, improvising contemporary dancers. Constructed by multi award-winning dance technologist and choreographer Alisdair Macindoe, who has been exploring AI-driven dance instruction since 2018, the work interrogates authorship, imitation, and the evolving relationship between technology and human creativity.

“A must-see for anyone interested in the intersection of technology and the arts. [Plagiary is] a clever and thought-provoking exploration of how AI can expand the boundaries of creative expression while also highlighting the irreplaceable nature of human artistry.” — Brendan Daynes, Dance Life Australia, Review of Plagiary, Now or Never Festival, Arts Centre Melbourne, 2024

About Bankstown Arts Centre

Bankstown Arts Centre (BAC) is a vibrant multi-arts organisation that champions experimental arts practices that are contemporary, diverse and accessible. With a transdisciplinary approach, we develop and present multi-platform art experiences across visual and performing arts, supporting collaborations across and beyond Western Sydney.

About Dance Makers Collective

“DMC is a generous and essential dance company with new energy and great momentum.” - Wesley Enoch AM

Dance Makers Collective (DMC), based on Dharug Nura in Seven Hills, is the largest collective-led dance company in Australia (with 11 Co-Directors) and the only Four Year Funded dance company in NSW. With a mission to build dance communities, DMC unites people by working with and between dance theatre, contemporary dance, and social dance. DMC moves people, destigmatising dance and inspiring people to embrace it for what it is: intrinsic, transformative and deeply relatable.

Since 2012, DMC has produced no less than 83 dance works performed in theatres, halls, galleries, parks, on street corners, balconies, YouTube and Instagram.

DMC employs 100+ artists annually, mostly dance makers, also musicians, composers, visual artists and designers, to develop, present and tour work with/for audiences, and/or provide skills development and training to emerging and professional artists.

DMC artists have worked/work with almost all funded dance companies in Australia, such as Australian Dance Theatre, Sydney Dance Company, Marrugeku, Bangarra, GUTS Dance, Tasdance, Chunky Move, Restless Dance Theatre, and hundreds of independent artists.

About Future Makers

Launched in 2019, Future Makers is Dance Makers Collective’s Emerging Dance Company for creative emerging dance artists aged 18+years. Future Makers provides a platform for aspiring emerging dancers and choreographers to work with professional artists in an inclusive and challenging environment, where they can develop their skills and work collectively towards public presentation outcomes.

Since launching, Future Makers have performed All In at Sydney Festival 2025, MOVE FM at Sydney Fringe Festival in 2024 & 2025, in a triple bill titled Echoes at Riverside Theatres 2024 (choreographers Rhiannon Newton, Ella Watson-Heath and Eliza Cooper), and Resurgence at Blacktown Arts Centre 2022 (choreographies by Kristina Chan, Jasmin Sheppard and the Future Makers), So Far Sonar by Patricia Wood at Granville Centre Gallery 2022, In Situ at Parramatta Park, Sydney Festival 2021, Dance Makers Collective’s The Rivoli in Sydney Festival 2020, and in multidisciplinary artist Nadia Odlum’s site specific performance Correspondence at the Art Gallery of New South Wales 2020.

Future Makers engage in an annual program which includes a 10-week training program of weekly masterclasses with exciting Australian choreographers, a co-devised season of works with a presentation outcome at Sydney Fringe Festival and a professional production annually. Future Makers members also engage in opportunities with DMC such as internships and training to deliver DMC’s public programs, as well as bespoke opportunities and benefits that arise throughout the year.

Dance Makers Collective is assisted by the Australian Government through Creative Australia, its principal arts investment and advisory body, and is supported by the NSW Government through Create NSW.

Contact the host of Counterfeit

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