Performing

Creating and performing contemporary dance works and bringing them to audiences across Australia and the globe enables connections to the world around us. It allows for reflection on the experiences shared by all people. The creativity and power of the works resonates with, and impacts, audiences in theatres from regional towns to capital cities.

After having to cancel performances in 2020, we finally premiered Rafael Bonachela’s Impermanence, working alongside artistic collaborators Bryce Dessner and the Australian String Quartet, and then touring across Australia while this was still possible.

Bonachela’s collaboration with composer Bryce Dessner in the creation of Impermanence was initially inspired by a consideration of life’s ephemeral nature when the two spent time together in Paris in 2019, shortly after the Notre Dame fire. They reflected on how easily things fall apart; from structures we imagine to be eternal, and human relationships, to the fragility and impermanence of human life, and the planet. The Covid pandemic only added depth to these reflections and encouraged them to extend both Dressner’s score and Bonachela’s choreography to create a full-length work that not only responded to the initial stimulus, but also included the shattering change to the fabric of our lives that had affected us all. Having worked with the incredible Australian String Quartet for a number of years, this was the first time we co-commissioned a score. Alongside creative collaborators Aleisa Jelbart (Costume Designer), Damien Cooper (Lighting Designer) and David Fleischer (Stage Designer), and of course our extraordinary dancers, it was enormously rewarding to perform Impermanence with them in Sydney and on the National Tour. Although the tour was sadly cut short due to lockdowns, the work’s correlation with contemporary themes resonated with the audiences we reached in Warrnambool, Frankston, Mildura, and Bendigo in Victoria; Newcastle, Tamworth, Port Macquarie and Nowra in NSW; and Canberra in the ACT. Across 26 Performances, Impermanence was seen by over 15,000 people in Australia. Alongside National Tour we delivered sneak peeks and Q&A's to enhance and enrich the live performance experience.

Although we could not perform internationally, remaining in Australia allowed us to participate in Australian festivals, and connect to our global audience through a new digital work Years.

In March we performed Impermanence at the Adelaide Festival to a total audience of over 3,500. It was an enormous privilege to deliver three performances with the Australian String Quartet there, since Adelaide is the quartet’s home. In April we performed Bonachela’s Cinco outdoors at the Four Winds Festival at Bermagui in regional NSW. Initially premiered in 2019, Cinco uses Ginastera’s String Quartet No.2 Op.26, composed in five parts, and performed by five dancers. Set to esteemed Australian musician Stephen Emmerson’s reimagining of Bach’s 'Goldberg Variations' as a dialogue for two pianos, Years is a film that meditates on the layers of legacy that shape our past and future. Choreographed by Rafael Bonachela, featuring solos from our dancers, and conceived as an online, filmed work when theatres were closed, it delves deep into the essence of movement and musicality. Widely admired for its beauty, invention and architecture, Bach’s 'Goldberg Variations' is universally recognised as a landmark in Western music; a spiritual, intellectual, and powerful masterpiece. In partnership with renowned collaborators Bianca Spender (costume) and Clemens Habicht (director), Years saw Bonachela reflect on echoes of the past to find clarity at the heart of a turbulent world. With key support from Artistic Director's Commissioning Partner, the Naomi Milgrom Foundation, Associate Partner, Kawai, and a group of highly engaged donors, the work connected with audiences from across the globe and was premiered as part of the Brighton Digital Film Festival, in partnership with the UK/AU Season, with introduction by Rafael Bonachela and Dame Darcey Bussell DBE, Sydney Dance Company’s International Patron.

The year culminated with our two seasons of commissioned works: New Breed and PPY Revealed, both performed at Carriageworks. Together these two programs support the investment of Sydney Dance Company in producing the next generation of Australia’s contemporary dancers and enabling emerging Australian choreographers to realise a full production of their work.

The eighth edition of our New Breed season saw the presentation of works by four emerging Australian choreographers at Carriageworks and thanks to our New Breed Principal Partner, The Balnaves Foundation, the season was extended to 15 performances and reached an audience of over 3,300. The four choreographers of New Breed 2021, Jasmin Sheppard Lilian Steiner, Jacopo Grabar and Rhiannon Newton brought their diverse backgrounds, experience and inspiration to explore thought-provoking, challenging and stimulating themes for their works. New Breed 2021 also saw two new scores composed, one of which was the result of our partnership with the Sydney Conservatorium of Music’s Composing Women program. PPY21 Revealed, the graduation performance for both cohorts of the Pre-Professional Year, was powered by four new works and one remount of excerpts from Rafael Bonachela’s repertoire. The creation and preparation for the 49 young dancers included everything contemporary: disparate worlds colliding and slowly becoming entwined through the creative process, rehearsal, workshopping, constant re-thinking and re-articulating. For the young dancers in rehearsals, each day is about finding new points of discovery in their dancing and scores, and new levels of intensity in Bonachela’s repertoire. Falling into holes of improvisation and crawling out of them, discovering small pockets to burrow into and emerge from, changed and transformed. The students ask: what do these works mean to us? How do these dances carry importance and significance? By performing them, how do we represent respect shown publicly? Gradually revealed, their performances mark the end of one journey for each of them, leading onto fresh and new beginnings.

“New Breed has once again provided a much needed choreographic platform for exploration and opportunity. Taking on diverse subject matter, the works are thought-provoking yet entertaining, and full of risk.” Fjord Review (New Breed, 2021)