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Elastic Hearts To the Music of Global Pop Sensation, Sia Arrives in Brisbane after Rave Reviews DIRECTED AND CHOREOGRAPHED BY GARRY STEWART

Queensland Ballet

Key Facts:

 In a bold new collaboration, Queensland Ballet presentss Elastic Hearts, which  reimagines the music of global music sensation, Sia through the visionary choreography of Garry Stewart. Set against a new lush orchestral arrangement of Sia’s original tracks by Grammy Award nominee, Elliott Wheeler, Elastic Hearts is accessible, joyful, and deeply moving. 

Performance Details

·  Dates: 30 April – 9 May, 2026.

Extra performances added on 30^th April, 7^th, 8^th + 9^th May.

660 mins , no interval 

·   Venue: Talbot Theatre, Thomas Dixon Centre, West End     

The creative team for Elastic Hearts includes:

Music – Sia

Choreography/Director & Staging Concepts – Garry Stewart

  Originating Artistic Producer – Leanne Benjamin    

·   Music Producer & Arranger – Elliott Wheeler

 Music Recording – Queensland Symphony

Orchestra, conducted by Nigel Gaynor         

Set & Costume Designer – Charles Davies

·   Lighting Designer – Alexander Berlage,

DDramaturg – Lou Cope 

Assistant to the Choreographer – Daniel Jaber 

                      

 

Brisbane, 28 April, 2026: Acclaimed by critics and audiences alike, Elastic Hearts will make its Brisbane debut at the Thomas Dixon Centre, West End from 30 April- 9 May, 2026 with four extra performances added due to strong audience demand.

 

Reviews were unanimous in their praise with The Australian declaring, “Elastic Hearts is ballet with a bang. Ballet with a beat.” Arts Hub described the work as “dazzling collision of ballet and pop, inventive, joyous and unabashedly fun. It marks a bold new chapter for Queensland Ballet.”

 

Created by celebrated Australian choreographer and former Artistic Director of Australian Dance Theatre, Garry Stewart, Elastic Hearts, reimagines the music of global music sensation, Sia, in a bold new contemporary ballet.

 

Featuring Sia’s original tracks set to a lush new orchestral arrangement by Grammy Award nominee, Elliott Wheeler, Elastic Hearts explores themes of connection and resilience through Stewart’s distinctive and high-energy choreographic style.

 

Stewart describes Elastic Hearts as a creative response to the music of Sia Furler, the celebrated Australian artist originally from Adeliade and now based in LA.

 

“The track, Elastic Heart, speaks to the strength and resilience of the human heart and human relationships, the interconnections we have to each other, and the necessity for finding community,” Stewart said.

 

“There is a line in Sia’s track that I love, ‘I may snap and I move fast’.  I believe this means there is an elasticity and pliability to our emotions and we need to bend and flex with the world around us, but we also need to cultivate resilience and not break.”

 

“Elastic Hearts is more than just a performance - it’s a sensory experience, a celebration of nature, music, and the strength of the human spirit,” Stewart explained.                                                                                     

 

Artistic Director of Queensland Ballet, Ivan Gil-Ortega, said that following the vast scale and spiritual intensity of Messa da Requiem, Elastic Hearts reveals another side of Queensland Ballet’s artistic range.

 

“Elastic Heats is opposite in every sense from the huge choral forces and operatic weight of Messa da Requiem. Powered by Sia’s soaring vocals and the richly layered orchestral arrangement performed by Queensland Symphony Orchestra, Elastic Hearts pulses with the kind of bold, contemporary energy I want audiences to experience at Queensland Ballet,” Gil-Ortega said.

 

Following the extraordinary response and rave reviews for Messa da Requiem, I am thrilled to bring audiences another powerful and unexpected work with Elastic Hearts,” Gil-Ortega added.

 

While Sia’s music provided the emotional foundation, Stewart’s long-standing artistic interest in nature shaped the visual and thematic design.

 

“The visual world for Elastic Hearts is inspired by nature and the essential idea of interconnection. I'm curious about the processes of life, death, decay, and regeneration. At the heart of Sia’s music lies a deep emotional honesty – to descend into pain, collapse and then to rise again with defiance and joy. These arcs of breaking and rebuilding echo the ecological cycles of nature itself,” Stewart said.

 

As a representation of nature, I have centred my work around Gaia, the Greek goddess of nature and the planet. Gaia serves as a guiding force, conjuring the work into existence and embodying the themes of connection and transformation.  At its core my work is joyful while also acknowledging the difficulty and heartbreak of life. Ultimately it is about the creativity found within resilience and overcoming, and I think the music of Sia is the perfect vehicle to convey that,” Stewart explained.

Composer, Elliott Wheeler, who has previously produced several of Sia’s tracks, said the opportunity to give one of her acclaimed songs a second life was irresistible.

 

“I’m a massive fan of Sia, and I believe that what so many people respond to in her songs, apart from the incredible lyrics and unnerving knack for melody, is her voice. It’s a force of nature,” he explained.

 

“Pop songs are concise, often built on just a few musical ideas. In the ballet world, those same ideas might need to stretch to eight minutes. I thought I would run out of material - but the opposite happened. You can take a small idea and build an entire landscape around it, letting the orchestra play to its strengths. It was liberating,” he said.

 

“The orchestral arrangement by Elliott captures the raw vulnerability in Sia’s tracks and lifts them with the sound of a full orchestra,” Stewart added.

# Ends #

FAST FACTS ABOUT ELASTIC HEARTS

 

• The seeds of Elastic Hearts were sown through an expected network of Adelaide connections. Sia grew up in Adelaide and Stewart spent two decades thee when he was the Artistic Director of Australian Dance Theatre.  While there, he became acquainted with one of Sia’s friends.
• Elliott Wheeler, who produced the music for Baz Luhrmann’s films Elvis and The Great Gatsby, said that every character in a movie has a theme tune — “even the shark in Jaws!”
• This is Elliott Wheeler’s first ballet score, and he described the process as refreshingly open—unlike film, where music serves someone else’s story, here he could fully express his own ideas.
• The recording of Wheelers score differed significantly from the typical process for ballet productions, according to conductor, Nigel Gaynor. Rather than capturing the full orchestra in a single session, the score was recorded in layers — commencing with lower strings and brass together, followed by other instrumental groups, all synced to a click track to ensure precision.
• Gaynor said it was “like assembling a jigsaw puzzle. Every player has headphones or earphones, and the tempo is locked in so we can layer each section perfectly. “
• Designer, Charles Davis, studied production design at NIDA and architecture at Monash University. While designing for Elastic Hearts, he is also busy with Queensland Opera’s production of Puccini’s, La bohème.
• Garry Stewart replaced Meryl Tankard at ADT when Tankard retired. He went to become the longest-serving Artistic Director – 22 years, with 19 stage productions and six film and video works to his name.

 

 

About us:

About Queensland Ballet

Queensland Ballet's mission is to contribute to Australia's cultural landscape by being an integral part of the national and international ballet ecology - striving for artistic excellence, pathways for emerging artists, and impact through our community outreach, education, and Dance Health programs. We aim to enrich lives and contribute to wellness across society through the magic of ballet.

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Editors Note

Interviews:  Claire Vince, Communications Manager, [email protected] / 0468 726 910

 Background information and photos see here