POLYTOXIC is an Australian collective led by two feminist performance-makers at the top of their game: Lisa Fa’alafi & Leah Shelton. Lisa is the renowned Co-Creator of smash-hit Hot Brown Honey, which has played to over 50,000 people across five countries, garnering numerous 5-star reviews, a Helpmann, two Green Rooms and UK’s Total Theatre Award for Innovation. Leah's triptych of solo works interrogating gender and identity have received critical acclaim, with tours to the major Australian Festivals, throughout France and to SOHO Theatre London.
Together as Polytoxic, Lisa and Leah create hyper-visual, pop-inspired performance work built upon foundations of diversity, collaboration and intersectionality.
Since 2000, Polytoxic’s work has been presented in traditional huts, indie theatre seasons, dusty big-tops and major festivals including PS122’s COIL Festival New York, Harbourfront Centre Canada, WanSmolbag Vanuatu, Sydney Opera House, Darwin Festival, Brisbane Festival, Perth Fringe World, Bleach Festival, Enlighten, ArtsHouse Melbourne.
Key works include explosive large-scale circus work DEMOLITION, outdoor aerial wall-projection work SNAPSHOT (Brisbane Festival commissions), end-of-days feminist cabaret APOCALIPSTICK, live-art karaoke party experience THE BACKUP SERVICE, mongrel tiki-circus show THE RAT TRAP (co-presented with Queensland Theatre Company), and rose-tinted travelogue TEUILA POSTCARDS.
The company has also mounted several large-scale outdoor installations. Their stunning watertop projection work TRADE WINDS premiered at Harbourfront Centre, 2012 and has since played to audiences of up to 1500 people at a time in outdoor festivals around the world. PRIVACY SETTINGS saw the company collaborate with design gurus Craig & Karl in a commission for Festival 2018 as part of the Gold Coast Commonwealth Games. In 2019, Polytoxic Co-Directed the immersive DALI AFTER DARK, a site-specific theatrical extravaganza set amongst the original works of Salvador Dali in a takeover of Perth’s Metro City nightclub.
