Sydney Dance Company announces 2024 season

Sydney Dance Company, under the Artistic Direction of Rafael Bonachela, is thrilled to announce its 2024 Artistic Program, a year of dance that ignites the senses and showcases the Company’s breathtaking virtuosity and electrifying dynamism.

Sydney Dance Company’s 2024 Season, Feel the Pulse, embodies the essence of the Sydney Dance Company experience – transformative and powerful collaborations, bringing the very best of contemporary dance to the Australian stage, world-premieres that will engage, inspire and move audiences of all ages, and at the heart of it all, Sydney Dance Company’s powerhouse ensemble, showcasing their superb skill and formidable artistry.

Rafael Bonachela, Sydney Dance Company Artistic Director, says, “I am delighted to present our 2024 program. The year ahead is filled with new works, exciting collaborations, national and international touring, and it is always a great pleasure and privilege to share the performances of the extraordinary dancers of the company.

I am beyond excited to welcome the extraordinary Melanie Lane back to create a major brand-new work for the Company. Melanie is one of the most exciting and boundary-pushing choreographers working today, and it will be thrilling to discover what she has in store for Sydney Dance Company audiences in 2024. My work Impermanence returns to the stage alongside Melanie Lane’s work for Season Two, and I’m so happy to continue this collaboration with our dear friends, the Australian String Quartet. Season One features a new full-length work from me together with my exciting collaborators. This work, momenta, will also tour the country extensively – I can’t wait to choreograph it and share it with you all.”

In March and April, the Company will embark on a European, UK and USA tour, performing repertoire including Rafael Bonachela’s critically acclaimed Impermanence, the ferociously physical and heartfelt ab [intra] and the smash-hit triple-bill Ascent featuring works by Marina Mascarell, Antony Hamilton and Rafael Bonachela.

momenta is a new full-length work by celebrated choreographer Rafael Bonachela. It is a journey into the poetry and physics of human connection. This mesmerising piece presents a kaleidoscope of energies, capturing the essence of fleeting moments suspended between past and future, where individual trajectories collide and intertwine.

momenta brims with Bonachela’s distinct style, rich with rhythmical and spatial patterning and endlessly inventive partnering. The dancers of Sydney Dance Company transcend physical limitations; exploring the full range of their bodies with grace, power and vulnerability. Each moment resonates through the space, drawing the audience into a captivating world where raw expression meets refined technique.

Through the captivating interplay of Bonachela’s signature choreographic style, Wales’ evocative soundscapes and Gadsby and Cooper’s striking designs, momenta gathers the hurtling vectors of our lives into confluence and connection. For audiences and dancers alike, it is an invitation to rejoice in the beauty and fragility of our shared humanity.

Sydney Dance Company’s national tour will include performances of Ascent, the critically acclaimed triple bill by Rafael Bonachela, Marina Mascarell and Antony Hamilton and Rafael Bonachela’s brand-new full-length work, momenta.

Season Two celebrates the breadth of choreographic dynamism and diversity with two formidable works from renowned choreographic powerhouses, Melanie Lane and Rafael Bonachela.

Prolific Australian/Javanese choreographer Melanie Lane presents a world-premiere work, LOVE LOCK, featuring a score composed by UK electronic artist Chris Clark. Melanie Lane created the electrifying, critically acclaimed work WOOF for Sydney Dance Company’s New Breed program at Carriageworks in 2017, which also featured a hypnotic electronic score by Chris Clark. WOOF was presented as part of Sydney Dance Company’s 50th Anniversary mainstage season in 2019 and has since been toured nationally.

LOVE LOCK asks the question, what does folk dance look like in the 21st century? A dance that absorbs the complex fabric of our diverse cultures, of an accelerating world, of disappearing lands. LOVE LOCK is a re-imagined folk dance that draws upon these collective experiences, and celebrates the binding act of dance to move, warn and empower us.

Season Two features the reprise of Rafael Bonachela’s visceral and thrilling exploration of the juxtaposition of beauty and devastation, Impermanence. Co-commissioned with the Australian String Quartet, the critically acclaimed full-length work features an award-winning score full of emotional power from Grammy Award-winning composer Bryce Dessner of The National.

In 2024 Sydney Dance Company, Carriageworks and The Balnaves Foundation continue their commitment to the next generation of choreographers and present the eleventh edition of New Breed. Since its premiere season in 2014, 39 emerging Australian choreographers have created works for this program. Showcasing a rich diversity of choreographic ideas, the eleventh cohort of incredibly talented choreographers will create brand new works on members of Sydney Dance Company. 2024’s four choreographers will be announced mid-year.

Dive into the magical world of Club Origami, an immersive and interactive dance show inviting family audiences to create, imagine and explore whole new ways of thinking, playing and moving. Dance, fashion and live music meet the magic of origami to sweep us up on a spirited and inspiring adventure in a land made purely of paper and play.

Now in its third year, Sydney Dance Company and the Neilson Foundation are proud to be supporting INDance, an independent dance program held in the Neilson Studio at Sydney Dance Company. INDance provides a platform for independent choreographers and creatives to present their work, with the aim of building capacity, improving access and participation across the sector while reflecting the rich diversity of choreographic voices in contemporary Australia.

Silence & Rapture is a mesmerising collaboration with Sydney Dance Company and Australian Chamber Orchestra featuring countertenor Iestyn Davies and the music of Johann Sebastian Bach and Arvo Pärt. Australian Chamber Orchestra’s Richard Tognetti directs this mesmerising collaboration between the ACO and Sydney Dance Company that brings together music, movement and evocative lighting to create something truly extraordinary.

Click here to view Sydney Dance Company’s 2024 program.