Holding Absence

Holding Absence is a unique community experience exploring memory, grief, and connection through gentle movement, sound, and storytelling.

Extending upon Carmen Yih and Jiawen (Wendy) Feng's duo work - Texture of Absence, which premiered in Geelong 2025, Holding Absence expands the work in scale, looking at how loss affects us over time and across different generations in a series of open development sessions.

Together the cast explores the different types of loss we all face, the loss of people we love, parts of our identity, or even places and the environment. They will also look at the feelings that come after loss, like sadness, confusion, and sometimes even beauty.

Come and join in on a series of guided workshops working towards a public showing of Holding Absence at The Open House in Geelong Arts Centre.

Holding Absence is a quiet, moving tribute to the strength of community and the memories we carry together.

Join the Work!

These Community Development Workshops will integrate gentle movement and storytelling with influences from tai-chi, contemporary improvisation and devised theatre.

Welcoming all abilities, experience levels and ages.

Carmen Yih Bio

Carmen Yih (she/her) is an emerging Chinese diasporic artist graduating from the Victorian College of the Arts' Bachelor of Fine Arts (Dance). Carmen’s practice skates along the boundaries of hybrid dance-theatre, telling urgent stories that draw on forgotten histories and marginalised voices. In her theatrical work, Carmen uses movement scores and structures influenced by non-Western narrative world-building, immersive theatre, and street and club dance forms.

Carmen’s major works include: M_N (2024) at Bowery Theatre, tackling toxic masculinity’s impact on youth mental health through street dance-theatre, Texture of Absence (2025) at Platform Arts Geelong - a quiet ode to the complex experience of ageing and loss, and ‘to disappoint a god.’ (2025) at Melbourne Fringe (in-development).

She has been selected for Stephanie Lake’s ESCALATOR, as one of five up-and-coming choreographic voices and will develop I.E.T (Idol for the End of Times) for the program. Carmen is the recipient of the Abbotsford Convent Maggie Maguire Residency 2025-26. Beyond her major projects, she has created and presented various site-specific, video and community-based works including ‘REGENESIS’ (Club Alt, Bluestone Church Arts Space), ‘Home’ (Union House Theatre), ‘SWARM’ (Science Gallery Melbourne), ‘Empty Your Plate’ (Bunjil Place, Sharp Short Dance, Blackbird Protostars), and Holding Absence (Geelong Arts Centre - in-development).

Carmen is the founder of Space Generate - an interdisciplinary freestyle jam session facilitating storytelling through art, bringing together musicians, dancers, and writers in a mixed-medium conversation. Interested in street and club dance forms, she also practices the 1970s LA gay club dance form of Punking/Whacking and the 2000s South Central street dance form of Krump.

Jiawen (Wendy) Feng Bio

Hello, nice to meet you.

I am Jiawen (Wendy) Feng , originally from Shanghai, China; a movement artist based in Naarm (Melbourne).

In 2012, I left my homeland and arrived in Melbourne. The city’s witnessed my growth and transformations as a queer diasporic artist, shaping my exploration of cultural intersection and identity expression.

I am a graduate of the Bachelor of Fine Arts (Dance) and a current Master of Dance student at the Victorian College of the Arts (VCA). My movement practice blends improvisation, release-based techniques, Chinese classical dance(a form derived and created from Taichi, Wushu and Chinese opera), and some grooves.

My artistic journey began as an introspective exploration of the dialogue between my inner self and the outer world. Over time, my work has expanded to include themes of community, culture, and connection.

Lately, I have been working on Texture of Absence with Carmen Yih, which will premiere in July 2025 at PLATFORM ARTS. This project integrates live interactive technology to explore the physical manifestation of absence, focusing on how we, as diaspora artists, cope with loss—particularly the loss of cultural identity.

I am also developing my project One & Only? 和合而生, inspired by the Classic of Mountains and Seas and Chinese classical culture. This contemporary dance and interactive installation work will have a test performance at PLATFORM ARTS in November 2025. Through this development, I hope to engage a broader audience in cross-cultural dialogue, share my heritage, and discover new ways of connection.

Through my artistic practice, I strive to weave my identity into my creations, challenging traditional ways in which art communicates with audiences and exploring new possibilities.