See 50 Iconic Objects of Australian Performance – From Kylie’s Hotpants to Nick Cave’s Notebook

The story is almost as legendary as the hotpants themselves: photographer Katerina Jebb spotted a glint of gold fabric for 50 pence while shopping at a West London flea market. The night before Kylie Minogue filmed the music video for Spinning Around, the pop star’s stylist William Baker borrowed them at the last minute, creating one of the most famous images of 20th-century pop.

This month, the hotpants will be on display with 49 other treasured items to celebrate five decades of the Australian Performing Arts Collection at Encore! 50 Years. 50 Objects. One Collection. This includes Nick Cave’s notebook during his formative years in 1980s Berlin, costumes worn by Olivia Newton-John and Hugh Jackman, a drum kit from Midnight Oil’s Rob Hirst, a vest worn by Archie Roach, and an exquisite Baz Luhrmann set piece.

Curators Ian Jackson and Margaret Marshall carefully selected each object from the Australian Museum of Performing Arts’ collection of around 875,000 items, spanning 170 years of the Australian stage. Each object on display was chosen because it has an intriguing story attached.

“As we were choosing, we were always asking: what can this object tell us? The best objects are rich with multiple stories,” Jackson says.

For example, those golden hotpants don’t end with Kylie. Included in the exhibition is a story from former Arts Access Victoria CEO Caroline Bowditch, who describes dancing in her wheelchair to the song at nightclubs, revelling in its sentiment: “I’m spinning around, get out of my way.”

“These objects aren’t just part of amazing performances, but also go on to have a kind of life of their own. There is meaning that people put in them, whether audiences or creatives behind the scenes, as well as the performers,” Jackson says.

Little-known objects from deeper in Australia’s history are also on display, across circus, dance, music, opera and theatre. One is a sumptuous, jewel-encrusted silk cloak worn by Australian opera star Dame Nellie Melba when she performed for the Russian Tsar and Tsarina in 1891.

The story goes that while on the train to St Petersburg, customs officials checking luggage tossed her cloak in the snow, nearly trampling it. She raced outside, rescuing it from the officials without speaking a word of Russian. After her performance, the Tsarina took the cloak in her hands and remarked on its beauty.

“We have a rich history of performance in Australia,” Marshall says. “We’re aiming to give people a good introduction to the Australian Performing Arts Collection, as well as rarely seen and unexpected items for those who’ve known us for years. It’s a bit of a smorgasbord of this phenomenal collection.” 

The oldest object on display is a poster for a performance by Irish-born Lola Montez, a risqué dancer who toured the Australian goldfields in the 1850s. She was renowned for her “spider dance”, where she’d pretend to be bitten by a spider, scandalously lifting her skirts and writhing on stage. Gold miners in Ballarat apparently showered the stage with gold nuggets in appreciation.

“The Lola Montez object is part of one of the exhibition’s themes, called Disruption. This theme is about performers who’ve broken the mould, broken boundaries,” Marshall says. Other themes in which the objects are arranged include Finding A Voice (about performances reflecting identity) and Relics of Fame (more intimate mementos).

“I hope this exhibition reminds people about what they value in performing arts, and about the way performing arts can connect people,” Jackson says. “A great performance has a legacy that lasts beyond the final curtain, it can live on in people’s memories and in collections like ours.” 

Encore! is showing at the Australian Museum of Performing Arts in Hamer Hall from September 16, 2026 to May 9, 2027.

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