Bleed Out: the wild edge of collaboration
Still shot from the 2025 performance of Bleed Out as part of Lōemis Festival
At its heart, Bleed Out is a meeting of formidable creative forces. Created and directed by Miranda Manasiadis, the work brings together two of Aotearoa’s most compelling contemporary dancers, Georgia Beechey and Luke Hanna, alongside the evocative music of acclaimed composer David Long and lighting design by Grace O’Brien.
Following a striking first outing at Lōemis Festival in 2025, the work returns in a new iteration at Hannah Playhouse; a fitting space for a piece that lives somewhere between performance, experiment, and ritual.
Drawing on the primal archetypes of hunter and huntress, Bleed Out explores the complicated tensions between protection and destruction. The fragile line between what we cherish and what we consume. It is a dance work that sits inside the body as much as it unfolds on stage, built not from rigid narrative but from instinct, responsiveness, and trust between collaborators. We had the pleasure of peeling back the layers of Bleed Out with Miranda.
Finding the work inside the body
The creative process behind Bleed Out began not with a finished concept, but with the dancers themselves, says Miranda.
“I had been working on something with Georgia. We didn't know it had good bones yet,” she says. “We had been working on movement material without a structure or any kind of narrative.”
That openness is intentional. Over time, Miranda’s approach to directing has shifted away from creating a structure for performers and towards drawing meaning from the intelligence of the body.
“I feel like I've gone from… having an idea that I wanted to execute, to stepping right back and seeing what the dancers' bodies offer. There’s the dancer, and then there’s the movement they offer, and then out of that — if I'm vigilant and careful and nuanced and sensitive — we’ll find the story.”
What emerges is something closer to a conversation than a choreography. The dancers become co-authors of the work, responding to tasks, instincts and each other in real time. The narrative slowly reveals itself through the accumulation of gesture, emotion, and tension.
A world built through collaboration
The collaboration between Georgia and Luke sits at the centre of Bleed Out. Their contrasting physical and emotional qualities shape the world of the piece.
“Georgia has this beautiful fluid movement,” Miranda explains. “And there’s an incredible determination in Luke’s spirit. Those two things together make for a really interesting texture… actually more than texture, a whole cosmos.”
From this physical dialogue emerged the thematic backbone of the work: a reflection on our complicated relationship with what we should protect.
“What was behind that was this idea that what we should protect, we destroy,” Miranda says. “That could be in a relationship, or our relationship to the environment — anything we should be careful of.”
Within the performance, Georgia’s character embodies a force that cannot be defeated, while Luke’s character grapples with the consequences of that power. The symbolism is deliberately open, inviting audiences to interpret the dynamic in their own way.
“People might read it as a couple on an intimate level, which I'm absolutely happy with,” Miranda says. “But it’s also about that larger idea, of being careless with the things we love.”
Music, atmosphere and the unexpected
The sonic world of Bleed Out emerged through an organic collaboration with composer David Long; a creative partnership that evolved through experimentation, instinct and a shared curiosity about where the work might lead.
Miranda describes their working relationship as an immediate creative alignment. “We clicked on this project together. We collaborate very well, so I feel like there’ll probably be many more,” she says.
Rather than treating music as something that dictates movement, the process unfolded as a dialogue between sound, body and space. In rehearsals, ideas were tested and reshaped constantly, with both artists searching for textures that could deepen the emotional world of the piece.
That willingness to push beyond the expected led to some unexpected moments. Miranda recalls hearing the abrasive whine of a concrete cutter outside during rehearsals and immediately recognising something in its rawness. “That sounds perfect,” she laughed, while David joked, “Yeah, that’s the concrete cutter, that’s not me, but I’ll take it.”
For Miranda, the role of music in dance is less about narrative cues and more about building an atmosphere that audiences can step inside. The soundscape becomes part of the environment the dancers inhabit, where light, movement and music exist together rather than competing for attention.
“I want it to seem seamless and atmospheric rather than telling us exactly what’s happening,” she says. “It’s more like this world that we enter into — the light, the sound and the movement together.”
The right ingredients
Philosophically, Miranda says the success of a work like Bleed Out doesn’t come from a single brilliant idea, but from assembling the right people in the room.
“My supervisor said something recently that really stuck with me,” she recalls. “She said, ‘Just make sure you’re putting in ingredients that you like.’”
That philosophy has subconsciously shaped the way this production has come together, through respect, curiosity and a shared commitment to the work.
“I thought, actually that is cool, right? There has to be quality things that go in to make the whole.”
The result is an environment where collaboration can flourish naturally rather than being forced.
“When they are the right ingredients, things just land,” she says. “When the right things come together, the audience feels it. The performers feel it.”
That mutual respect between collaborators has been central to the rehearsal room for Bleed Out. Miranda describes feeling “deeply grateful” to Georgia and Luke for their curiosity and commitment.
“They keep asking questions, and every question is legitimate and important,” she says. “They’re on the inside of the work, and that richness of conversation is what makes it better.”
A creative life between two cultures
Miranda’s creative intention is also shaped by her deep connection to Greece, where she has worked regularly for many years and where her family heritage lies.
The artistic environment that exists there leaves a lasting impression on how she thinks about creativity and cultural life. Theatre and performance are deeply embedded in everyday culture, not positioned as something exclusive or rare, but as an essential part of shared identity and public life.
“There are hundreds of theatres,” she says. “It’s so ingrained in them as culture. People see it as their heritage — you need to see shows. And everyone goes.”
Athens in particular, she describes as a city alive with artistic expression. Street art, graffiti and pop-up installations appear across the urban landscape, often created spontaneously by artists who simply decide to make something and place it in the world.
“It’s buzzing,” she says. “People will just find a wall and paint a mural in the night. They’re not waiting for permission, they just share their art.”
That sense of art existing everywhere — not confined to institutions but woven into the fabric of daily life — has influenced the way Miranda approaches making work in Aotearoa, and feeds directly into her enthusiasm to keep creating in Wellington. Making work that exists simply because it can, and it should.
This approach, gleaned from the richness of her connection to Greece, invites audiences into a shared experience that wholesomely contributes to the living cultural fabric of Aotearoa.
The Hannah as a laboratory for performance
Presenting Bleed Out at The Hannah is more than simply staging a performance, says Miranda. It is an opportunity to develop the work in a space designed for artistic risk. She describes the venue as a rare and valuable environment within the arts ecosystem.
“Eleanor has really been a kaitiaki, making it a welcoming space of experimentation — a lab,” she says.
That ethos allows audiences to encounter works in development, witnessing moments that may evolve further or remain singular.
“For an audience, you're seeing something in that interim space. It may go on, it may not. But you've seen something in a beautiful space that you're emotionally connected to.”
For Miranda, the communal experience of performance remains one of the most powerful aspects of the arts.
“People don’t just come together to make these things — they come together to emote at the same time. That’s healing.”
As audiences gather inside the theatre, sharing a collective emotional landscape, Bleed Out becomes something larger than choreography: a shared ritual of intensity, vulnerability and connection.
And in that space, between dancer and director, sound and light, stage and audience, the work finds its pulse.
Come to see Bleed Out, March 19–21 at The Hannah! Find out more.