Uploaded June 2025 | Updated September 2026, 1 day ago
Shortwave is a short film program from Sydney Opera House that invites artists to explore their relationship with the screen.
Nhang Trầm Hương is a cinematic movement piece suspended in a cloud of incense smoke.
In an abstract choreography of body and film, Dinh considers her relationship to incense, identity, and family. Incense smoke is fleeting; always moving, unfurling, expanding. As it curls and wafts through space it acts as a conduit between past, present, and future, connecting us to our ancestors, our body, and the present moment. It is in this temporal space that Dinh pushes at the edges of her identity amongst the expanse of her ancestors, meditating on the notion of interbeing.
Nhang Trầm Hương is a desire to embody, surrender, and embrace the idea that “A cloud never dies” (Thich Nhat Hanh)
Trà Mi Dinh is an award-winning choreographer and dancer working across Naarm/Melbourne and Gadigal/Sydney. Her choreographic work is built upon an unrelenting fascination with time; harnessing the dancing body to magnify and disrupt linearity and expectation. Trà Mi is invested in movement that is virtuosic, precise, absurd, embodied, surprising, energetic, and rhythmic.
In 2022, Trà Mi won the Keir Choreographic Award, for her duet The ___. Her choreographic works include HOLDING (2021), The ___ (Commission for the Keir Choreographic Award 2022), And, again (2022), (UP)HOLDING (2023), Not the Piece (2023), Somewhere between ten and fourteen (Commission by Sydney Dance Company, 2023). Her choreographic practice has been supported through residencies with Bundanon, Australian Dance Theatre, Critical Path, Lucy Guerin Inc, DirtyFeet, Tasdance, Sydney Fringe, Ausdance NSW. Currently, Trà Mi is an Artist in Residence at The Substation.
Trà Mi has danced for Lucy Guerin Inc in multiple major works; Make Your Own World (2019), The Clock: Timepiece (2019), Pendulum (2021/22/23), Flux Job (2021), and NEWRETRO (2023). Recently she stepped into Guerin’s iconic duet work Split (2017) performing at Seoul International Dance Festival (2023). In 2023 she joined the cast of Stephanie Lake’s Manifesto (2021), performing in recent shows in Melbourne, Auckland, Madrid, and Châlons-en-Champagne. Trà Mi has danced for many celebrated artists and companies including Chunky Move, Joel Bray Dance, Michelle Heaven, Victoria Chiu, Dance Makers Collective and more. Trà Mi graduated with a Bachelor of Fine Arts (Dance) from Victorian College of the Arts in 2014.
Concept, Choreography, Performance: Trà Mi Dinh
Director: Trà Mi Dinh
Director of Photography: Cobie Orger
Editor: Trà Mi Dinh with Cobie Orger
Colour grade: Scott Heinrich
Sound Composition: Tilman Robinson
Lighting: Alex Nguyen
Costume Design: Geoffrey Watson
Location: Mission to Seafarers - Norla Dome
__
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Shortwave is a short film program from Sydney Opera House that invites artists to explore their relationship with the screen.
Nhang Trầm Hương is a cinematic movement piece suspended in a cloud of incense smoke.
In an abstract choreography of body and film, Dinh considers her relationship to incense, identity, and family. Incense smoke is fleeting; always moving, unfurling, expanding. As it curls and wafts through space it acts as a conduit between past, present, and future, connecting us to our ancestors, our body, and the present moment. It is in this temporal space that Dinh pushes at the edges of her identity amongst the expanse of her ancestors, meditating on the notion of interbeing.
Nhang Trầm Hương is a desire to embody, surrender, and embrace the idea that “A cloud never dies” (Thich Nhat Hanh)
Trà Mi Dinh is an award-winning choreographer and dancer working across Naarm/Melbourne and Gadigal/Sydney. Her choreographic work is built upon an unrelenting fascination with time; harnessing the dancing body to magnify and disrupt linearity and expectation. Trà Mi is invested in movement that is virtuosic, precise, absurd, embodied, surprising, energetic, and rhythmic.
In 2022, Trà Mi won the Keir Choreographic Award, for her duet The ___. Her choreographic works include HOLDING (2021), The ___ (Commission for the Keir Choreographic Award 2022), And, again (2022), (UP)HOLDING (2023), Not the Piece (2023), Somewhere between ten and fourteen (Commission by Sydney Dance Company, 2023). Her choreographic practice has been supported through residencies with Bundanon, Australian Dance Theatre, Critical Path, Lucy Guerin Inc, DirtyFeet, Tasdance, Sydney Fringe, Ausdance NSW. Currently, Trà Mi is an Artist in Residence at The Substation.
Trà Mi has danced for Lucy Guerin Inc in multiple major works; Make Your Own World (2019), The Clock: Timepiece (2019), Pendulum (2021/22/23), Flux Job (2021), and NEWRETRO (2023). Recently she stepped into Guerin’s iconic duet work Split (2017) performing at Seoul International Dance Festival (2023). In 2023 she joined the cast of Stephanie Lake’s Manifesto (2021), performing in recent shows in Melbourne, Auckland, Madrid, and Châlons-en-Champagne. Trà Mi has danced for many celebrated artists and companies including Chunky Move, Joel Bray Dance, Michelle Heaven, Victoria Chiu, Dance Makers Collective and more. Trà Mi graduated with a Bachelor of Fine Arts (Dance) from Victorian College of the Arts in 2014.
Concept, Choreography, Performance: Trà Mi Dinh
Director: Trà Mi Dinh
Director of Photography: Cobie Orger
Editor: Trà Mi Dinh with Cobie Orger
Colour grade: Scott Heinrich
Sound Composition: Tilman Robinson
Lighting: Alex Nguyen
Costume Design: Geoffrey Watson
Location: Mission to Seafarers - Norla Dome
__
SUBSCRIBE to Sydney Opera House: https://soh.online/Subscribe
Our doors are always open! Go behind-the-scenes at one of the busiest performing art centres in the world – and a World Heritage-listed architectural masterpiece.
What are you waiting for? Step inside and find your Sydney Opera House. Subscribe now and discover more of what you love – exclusive backstage content, interviews, performances, live streams, sneak previews and more.
WATCH MORE
For more content under the sails, get access to a selection of world-class performing and digital arts on Stream.
Sign up for free stream.sydneyoperahouse.com
FIND US ON SOCIALS
Facebook: facebook.com/sydneyoperahouse
Instagram: instagram.com/sydneyoperahouse
Twitter: twitter.com/sydoperahouse
WHAT'S ON
Discover what's on at Sydney Opera House:
bit.ly/SOHWhatsOn
