We scoured the extensive OzAsia 2018 program and these are the five shows you don't want to miss.

There is a lot to see at this year’s OzAsia. Each returning year, the festival continues to build on its achievements and has become one of largest and most diverse arts festivals in Adelaide (they don’t call us the Festival State for nothing).

Because your time is precious and there is only so much theatre, dance, music, performance, and (for the first time this year) literature you can see in the festival’s 18 days, CityMag has selected a few choice shows we suggest you put in your calendar.

Andropolaroid 1.1

— Space Theatre, November 9 & 10

Originally from Japan, choreographer and dancer Yui Kawaguchi emigrated to Berlin in 2005, and during the process of dislocation that followed the ideas for Andropolaroid 1.1 began to form. Yui first performed the work under the title Andropolaroid in 2010, winning a range of awards for the visceral portrayal of the specific feeling of being outside of your culture, and constantly redefining yourself in the light of a newly adopted place. More than seven years later, she’s re-mounting the show. While it continues to be defined by Yui’s athletic cross-genre dance style and the visually stunning onstage neon forest designed by Fabian Bleisch, Andropolaroid 1.1 extends the conversation of its antecedent, beginning to explore what happens when the unfamiliar slowly begins to feel like home.

While I Was Waiting

— Dunstan Playhouse, October 30 & 31

The Syrian Civil War appears before much of the world as sporadic sound bites and images, united only by the high-volume horror they depict. But even with these missives, the conflict that has been ongoing in the country since the 2011 anti-government uprising often feels remote.

While I Was Waiting brings the war back to the human realm with a gut punch. A theatre work from writer Mohammad Al Attar and director Omar Abusaada, it centres around the hospital room of Taim – who is in a coma after being viciously beaten at a checkpoint stopping in Damascus. By his bedside, stories of alarming mundanity play out as relationships are tested, secrets revealed, and personalities clash – throwing into sharp light the utter ordinariness of the people forced to live in a world of extraordinary violence.

Ryoji Ikeda’s data.tron (3K version)

— Artspace Gallery, October 24 – November 11

Through his audio-visual installation, artist Ryoji Ikeda immerses the viewer in the unknow-able, infinite world of data.

The visuals are dictated by pure mathematics equations performed on data sets from around the world, and are accompanied by sound compositions by Ryoji. In some ways, the work is an expression of information – the same as an infographic or graph – but in its vastness and mind-boggling complexity it is equally a representation of our own shallow understanding of the world and what it contains.

Say No More

— Meeting Hall, Adelaide Town Hall, November 7-10

Under the guise of a highly unusual wedding reception to which the audience is invited, 26 women from Malaysia, Australia, and Indonesia explore the public myths and truths, as well as the self-deceptions that come with identifying as female. Incorporating elements of visual art, live performance, film, and music, Say No More is created and performed by artists with and without disability and speaks to the universality of the less privileged gender’s experiences.

Jaipur Literature Festival

— Dunstan Playhouse, November 9-11

Heralded as the “greatest literature show on earth”, the Jaipur Literature Festival has a strong reputation to live up to. But, in its inaugural year presenting an Adelaide roadshow alongside other travelling event outposts bound for cities like New York and London, it seems likely to make the grade. Featuring writers like the multi-award winning and best-selling Balli Kaur Jaswal and founders Namita Gokhale and William Dalrymple, this festival within a festival is bringing some of South East Asia’s best authors to postcode 5000.