THE GIFT OF REPETITION: RERUN Xtended
Choreographer and performer: Ashleigh Veitch
Air Space Projects, Marrickville, Saturday 13th September 2025
Review by Phaedra Brown
Ashleigh Veitch’s RERUN Xtended is durational study of repetition and the staying power of both body and mind.
The two-hour long work was performed at the Marrickville Airspace Projects in their Deep Space room. This is a small concrete room with a low ceiling, no windows, and a fluorescent light. It’s deep in the gallery, the perfect sensory deprivation tank to cut us off from the outside world. Here in this space Ashleigh ask us to “rebel against hustle culture,” and truly focus our mind and body, as she does the same.
RERUN Xtended is designed so that audiences can come and go as they please. I sat and watched the first hour and found this exploration of repetition and duration rich with detail and full of ever evolving and engrossing movement.
------------------
Entering the gallery space, black tape frames the otherwise blank walls and floor. This creates a geometric grid of overlapping shapes, reminiscent of a city map, or the lines on a basketball court. Ashleigh is in the centre of the room.
Facing away from us, caught in a gentle rock, she begins shifting her weight from one foot to the other. The first thing I became aware of was how much I was able to notice within this holding pattern: the minute movement of stabilising muscles in Ashleigh’s legs; her breath and gaze; the cold air in the concrete space. The anticipation created from this ongoing rock gave me the time and space to search for clues as to what was about to happen.
One foot slides just a small distance along the concrete, then slowly returns to its original position. Then the other foot slides. This motion repeats, gradually increasing in size, while Ashleigh remains on the spot. With the textural scraping sound of sneaker on concrete we can hear the work of each repetition. The performance is also underscored by a low rumbling tone, designed by Ashleigh herself, that was constant throughout.
In the vacuum of the room it was easy to get hypnotised by Ashleigh’s movement. So much so that outwardly all of a sudden, but actually over the course of several minutes, she had shifted the slide of her feet into walking on the spot—thus beginning the cycle of action that made up the bulk of the work. Foot slides back, weight shifts, the knee pulls through in front of the body, torso ripples upright, foot floats down, toe of sneaker hits the floor, foot relinquishes into the floor … and begin again. A simple walk is so rigorous that it draws us into its detail. With each step the angle of Ashleigh’s body changes slightly so that she is moving in a slow circle.
Small things seem so significant. One foot unexpectedly hovers. It takes a moment to register what has changed. We glimpse an alternate pattern. Just one cycle in which Ashleigh reverses her step before returning to the same forward stepping pattern. About a third of the way through the first hour, this was a smart variation as it broke our trance state and offered the audience a treat that refreshed our brain for the repetitions to come.
Having completed close to a half circle and facing most of the way towards the audience by now, Ashleigh’s hands begin to tense at her sides. As legs continue their walking loop, arms begin to raise, finally reaching for the ceiling. Ash is looking to the low roof that is close to her head and even closer to her fingertips—again the small gallery space forces us to zone in on the specifics of her movement.
RERUN Xtended is certainly a game of concentration. There is a play between the repetitive actions that continue as if caught in a slipstream, and the assertiveness required to begin a new action—to move against the momentum of an existing loop. Ashleigh’s poise in controlling the ebbs and flows of this interchange is impressive.
As her arms rise her torso gently rotates, creating a second loop in opposition to the legs that are still stepping on the spot. The upper and lower body split into their own repetitive actions. This made me consider what other loops were working within Ashleigh’s body: blood and air circulating, synapses firing, and one can only assume the brain drifting in and out of sharp attention.
By now Ashleigh’s arms and gaze have seamlessly lowered and she is turning the corner away from the audience again. Remnants of multiple loops remain, and the body still twists atop the stepping legs for a while. As Ashleigh turns to face the wall, completing her circle, she has returned to the gentle rock. The cycle is about to begin again, marking the half-way point in the two-hour performance.
In a work without dynamic shifts and changes such as this, Ashleigh’s choreography remained enticing. It contained peaks and troughs, moments where we could be intently invested or could let our thoughts wander, and it was incredibly detailed. While we were able to move away from the performance, I was hesitant to miss the slight changes that occurred, or risk losing the overall impact of her repetitions. With RERUN Xtended Ashleigh Veitch has created a world in which the minute shifts are the most riveting and the most important. She wants audiences to “test our attention” by focussing in on the minutiae of a repeated movement. This is a gift in today’s world of distraction and constant stimulation. To slow down, to hone in, and to attend to one task taking the time it takes, has become a rare luxury and this piece, RERUN Xtended, gives us the time and space to do just that.
RERUN Xtended
Air Space Projects, Marrickville NSW, 5-21 September 2025
Choreographer, performer & sound designer: Ashleigh Veitch
Phaedra Brown is an independent dancer, choreographer, and producer. Her current practice draws on a collage of elements from movement, choreography and writing.