For FRAME: a biennial of dance, Temperance Hall and Phillip Adams BalletLab present Triptych, a divine intervention of queer crucifixions inspired by Francis Bacon’s triptych paintings (1944–1986).Choreographer Phillip Adams draws parallels with Bacon’s use of life and death, beauty and violence, civilisation and barbarism.

Triptych is a subversive response to Bacon’s crucifixions, through choreography, film, and installation. The material and formal elements of the work draw from Bacon’s modernist depictions of psychosexual domestic bodies that can be read as masculinist, queer, libidinal, violent, performative, grotesque or ambiguous. Dancers enact duets of maniacal visceral tremoring that evoke the spectacle of horror – a distinguishing feature of Bacon’s oeuvre. Amidst a sphincter-sex-sling installation, performers portray Bacon’s theatrical and surreal imaginariums of the crucifixion in a Disney-esque, ballet parody of penetrations.

Amplifying homosexuality and the queer acts within contemporary dance, Triptych explores queer expression throughout art history as a reliable signifier of the ever-changing avant