ABOUT

Borderline Arts Ensemble is a Wellington-based dance theatre company bringing together senior artists of exceptional craft to create elegant, intellectually rich performance works. At its heart is a commitment to collaboration across choreography, music, and theatre.

Led by choreographer Lucy Marinkovich, Borderline Arts Ensemble is a Wellington-based company working at the forefront of contemporary dance theatre. Since its establishment in 2015, Borderline has developed a distinctive body of work that brings together senior artists of exceptional craft to create performances of compositional rigour, psychological depth, and striking physical language.

The company’s works traverse theatre stages, galleries, festivals, shipping containers, and site-responsive environments across Aotearoa, and have toured internationally to Spain, Japan, Singapore, Malaysia, and Croatia. Borderline’s practice is defined by ambitious collaboration — particularly its ongoing creative partnership between Marinkovich and composer Lucien Johnson — producing work that integrates movement and original music with rare sophistication.

Lobsters (2017), which premiered at Circa Theatre, announced the company as a major force in contemporary performance, earning five Wellington Theatre Award nominations and winning Best Ensemble Performance, Best Sound Design, and the Campion Award for Most Outstanding Performance. In 2018, Marinkovich and Johnson were awarded the Harriet Friedlander New York Residency by The Arts Foundation Te Tumu Toi, recognising their significant contribution to Aotearoa’s cultural landscape.

Commissioned by the New Zealand Festival of the Arts, Strasbourg 1518 (2020) confirmed Borderline’s national stature, later headlining the Auckland Arts Festival and returning to Wellington’s Circa Theatre. The company’s latest work, The Night Has A Thousand Eyes (2025), described as “a quietly masterful show,” reunited Marinkovich and Michael Parmenter in a luminous duet set to Johnson’s sumptuous compositions.

Borderline Arts Ensemble continues to shape contemporary performance in Aotearoa through works of intelligence, precision, and enduring impact.

Borderline has been supported by the Wellington City Council's Creative Communities Scheme and the Public Art Fund, Footnote New Zealand Dance Company, Tarrant Dance Studios, the Todd Foundation, the Asia New Zealand Foundation, The Wallace Arts Trust and Creative New Zealand. 

ARTISTS

Lucy Marinkovich

Lucien Johnson

Michael Parmenter

Carmel McGlone

Marcus McShane

Martyn Roberts

Jeremy Brick

Jana Castillo

Katie Rudd

Oli Mathiesen

Sharvon Mortimer

Georgia Beechey

Oliver Carruthers

Luke Hanna

Marcus McShane

Sean MacDonald

Hannah Tasker-Poland

Emmanuel Reynaud

Alex Efimoff

Philip Merry

Michelle Perry-Madsen

Jocelyn Janon

Miranda Manasiadis

Zoe Higgins

Xin Ji

Melana Khabazi

Tess Hall

Josie Archer

Jeremy Beck

Anita Hunziker

Rose Philpott

Jahra 'Rager' Wasasala

Alisha Anderson

Mark Semple

Matthew Moore

Phyllis Xie

Shermaine Heng

Chee Shaw En

Wee Lin

Ada Chia

Vincent Chia

Denise Lim

Liu Wiing

Sabrina Sng