While most theatre outfits hold auditions, the directors of Branch Nebula visit skate parks to find performers instead.
The groundbreaking company brings street skills to the theatre, with shows featuring BMX riders, parkourists, breakdancers and skateboarders.
"To have the pace and height they get, to put that in a theatre, it's just an amazing sensory experience," said the company's Lee Wilson.
As part of the Sydney Festival, Branch Nebula's latest production Air Time will be staged at the Seymour Centre on a complex series of purpose-built ramps.
The gravity-defying manoeuvres are set to music, with dancers Cloé Fournier and Feras Shaheen, skateboarders Austin Gray and Nakula Boag, BMX rider Xavier Gilbee and parkourist Alejandro Scarone climbing, sliding and flipping over the ramps.
Branch Nebula is also working with a pro roller skater, Larrakia woman Tia Pitman, for the first time.
Recruiting performers with street skills isn't easy, according to Wilson, who has been talent-spotting at BMX competitions, break dance battles and skate parks since the company's first production, Paradise City, in 2004.
Often he encounters scepticism and resistance from teenagers who simply don't expect to be invited to perform in a show.
The challenge for Wilson is to convince the talented teens that he just wants them to use their skills and be authentic.
"We're not asking them to act or be a character or wear a silly costume," he said.
"We really want them to be themselves - the authenticity of their subculture is what we're sharing with the audience."
It helps that these days he and company co-founder Mirabelle Wouters can also turn to social media to unearth fresh talent, and that over time Branch Nebula has developed a core group of street performers.
The rapport and trust they have built have been essential in developing spectacularly risky stunts and performing them safely.
"We start off very carefully and very controlled, and we do things over and over and over again until they become comfortable," Wilson said.
Choreographed to an electro soundtrack by Phil Downing, Lee explains that while Air Time is more like a concert than narrative theatre, it's also much more than just a series of tricks.
Ramps are wired with microphones so the audience can hear the performers moving and landing, and some of the ramps trigger beats on impact.
The performers also introduce a series of everyday objects to the stage, such as car tyres, planks or conduit tubes, building obstacles for themselves and reconfiguring them in unpredictable ways.
Different street skills, such as BMX and dance, also interact with each other - and this, too, is dangerous.
"The vulnerability of a body and then the speed of someone on wheels creates a really interesting and risky dynamic," said Wilson.
It all attracts audiences outside the usual crowd of theatregoers, and Branch Nebula is also known for its outdoor shows, and even stealth performances staged in skate parks.
Air Time is on January 7-11 at the Seymour Centre for the 2025 Sydney Festival.
