Arts Centre Melbourne Presents BEYOND THE STAGE: ART IN SECRET SPACES, Now thru 4 August

Visitors can uncover a range of hidden art installations, music, performance and poetry in unexpected and secret locations this Winter. Including special performances in the intimate rehearsal rooms and an aural tour of the buildings, Arts Centre Melbourne's seldom used rooms, foyers, passageways and galleries will come alive from today 27 July - Sunday 18 August.

Melbourne-based digital artists and identical twins Gabriella Mangano and Silvana Mangano will showcase Arts Centre Melbourne's hidden engine rooms and back stage tunnels in their installation Hidden Spaces, Ready Stages. Combining performance, video, sound and light, the installation reveals the labyrinth of secret tunnels and automated mechanisms deep below Arts Centre Melbourne's stages and puts a spotlight on the mechanics that create the magic on stage. Hidden Spaces, Ready Stages will be presented in the riverfront venue, Riverhouse (next to Trocadero at Hamer Hall) and will run from Saturday 27 July - Sunday 4 August.

X marks the spot in 5 x 5 x 5, an interactive aural tour of Arts Centre Melbourne. Five new musical compositions by five emerging composers have been created for five different sites in Arts Centre Melbourne. Starting at Hamer Hall Concierge, visitors can collect an mp3 player and navigate their way through crowded foyers, secret passage ways and Hamer Hall's Upper Terrace, which overlooks Melbourne's city skyline. 5 x 5 x 5 will launch as part of Melbourne Open House onSaturday 27 and Sunday 28 July and run until Sunday 18 August.

Melbourne-based poet Katie Larsen will be live-tweeting short poems in Poetry by LED from Monday 5 - Sunday 11 August. Larsen will be Arts Centre Melbourne's poet in residence for a week and use the real-life situations presented by the architecture, people and works presented as triggers for short poems. The poems will be displayed on the scrolling text LED screens throughout the building, which are traditionally used to signal commencing shows and venue names. Larsen's poems can also be viewed on Twitter by following @tinylittlepoems or #PoetrybyLED.

Melbourne artist Saskia Moore has researched near-death experiences and that, alongside the 'white light', the near-dying also hear sounds similar to classical music. Moore has collaborated with acclaimed UK classical ensemble Apartment House to create Dead Symphony, a musical performance and immersive light show, which will be performed in-the-round from August 7 - 10 in the Playhouse Rehearsal Room.

Inspired by Hansel and Gretel, Swiss company Trickster-p reimagines the fairy tale in their walk-through, contemporary haunted house .h.g. from Thursday 8 - Sunday 11 August in the State Theatre Rehearsal Room. Armed with a set of earphones, an iPod and a torch, the audience - one by one - will walk into the very heart of the story, guided through a series of rooms and passageways, each a bone-chilling world of its own.

Photo Credit: Pia Johnson