Pop-up clubs and performance art announced for Asia TOPA’s Nightlife program

Returning after a five-year hiatus, the Asia-Pacific Triennial of Performing Arts reflects the many ways people now experience culture, including those for whom performance art and club culture are inextricably linked.
Asia TOPA's newly announced Nightlife program is a dynamic blend of performance art and club culture. A person wearing a fringed cowboy hat, facemask and fringed and laced-up dress poses dramatically, arms raised, before a culturally diverse crowd of young adults.

Generational shifts and demographic changes mean that some younger audiences approach cultural experiences in a radically different way from traditional performances in concert halls and proscenium arch theatres.

Acknowledging this shift, the 2025 edition of Melbourne’s Asia-Pacific Triennial of Performing Arts (Asia TOPA) has introduced an entirely new programming stream, Nightlife, in which contemporary performance art is fused with live music and club culture.

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Richard Watts OAM is ArtsHub's National Performing Arts Editor; he also presents the weekly program SmartArts on Three Triple R FM. Richard is a life member of the Melbourne Queer Film Festival, a Melbourne Fringe Festival Living Legend, and was awarded the Sidney Myer Performing Arts Awards' Facilitator's Prize in 2020. In 2021 he received a Lifetime Achievement Award from the Green Room Awards Association. Most recently, Richard received a Medal of the Order of Australia (OAM) in June 2024. Follow him on Twitter: @richardthewatts