SDC

The premier dance company in Australia, a nation with one of the liveliest dance cultures in the world.
CLIVE BARNES, NEW YORK POST, 1997

It’s a privilege to watch magnificent dancers at the peak of their powers.
OLIVIA STEWART, COURIER MAIL, 2003

Not for nothing is the Sydney Dance Company regarded as the best that Australia has to offer in regard to tanztheater.
AACHENER ZEITUNG, COLOGNE GERMANY, 2002

One has come to expect superb production value from Sydney Dance Company.
ALLAN ULRICH, SAN FRANCISCO EXAMINER, 2000

Graeme Murphy

Murphy proves that he is not only a pre-eminently ingenious choreographer, but also, in general terms, a genius of the theatre.
ROGER COVELL, THE SYDNEY MORNING HERALD, 1999

Above all, Mr Murphy knows how to make things happen on stage.
ANNA KISSELGOFF, THE NEW YORK TIMES, 1997

New York has long known the company as Australia’s leading dance troupe and recognised Murphy as its most brilliant and accomplished choreographer.
CLIVE BARNES, NEW YORK POST, 2000

Graeme Murphy has unequivocally won the right to be ranked as a modern genius of the art of dance and theatre.
DANCE EUROPE, 2000

Making all that, and more, cohere into a supremely entertaining evening are Murphy’s eighteen splendid dancers… That generous, immensely creative exchange seems to me to be at the centre of Murphy’s art and achievement.
DEBORAH JONES, THE AUSTRALIAN, 2000

Murphy is one of the few great creative artists produced by the Australian theatre – and one of the century’s finest choreographers [Australian or otherwise].
NEIL JILLETT, THE AGE, 1999

our most prolific and successful choreographer, Graeme Murphy.
JULIE HUFFER, SUN-HERALD 1999

without doubt the greatest choreographer Australia has produced and among the half dozen best in the world.
SONIA HUMPHREY, THE AUSTRALIAN, 1999

Graeme Murphy is Sydney personified… he’s given the city a dance identity, even an artistic identity.
VALERIE LAWSON, THE AUSTRALIAN FINANCIAL REVIEW, 2000

So radical and free and liberating and thrilling as to redefine the nature of dance.
BRIAN HOAD, THE BULLETIN, 1996

This high level performance made it clear that Australia’s artistic portrayals are among the highest expressions of world avant-garde.
VERTIGO MAGAZINE, MEXICO, 2001

Underland

Truly excellent multimedia dance theatre is all too rare in Australia, so when the lights came up on the triptych of screens that forms the backdrop to Stephen Petronio’s Underland and a thread of white smoke began to snake its way across them, chills rand down my spine. The rest of this dark, abstract, wide-ranging work did not disappoint… between the music, the spoken and sung word, the magnificent screen work by Sydney video artist Mike Daly, and Sydney Dance Company’s superb dancing, Underland is a dark feast, a melancholy celebration of all we are and might be.
JACQUELINE PASCOE, DANCE AUSTRALIA, 2003

weapons-grade movement
DEBORAH JONES, THE AUSTRALIAN, 2003

[Underland] is an intriguing dance piece with compelling dance and constantly changing moods – or rather, an overall mood of thoughtful solemnity that lifts, deepens, swirls and edges its way into a range of subtle variations… Its intensity and emotional depth take hold in a partnership of dance, music and visuals… Everyone who can should see it. Perhaps more than once.
JILL SYKES, THE SYDNEY MORNING HERALD, 2003

inventive movement structure that seamlessly captures both wild abandon and formalism.
JULIE HUFFER, SUN-HERALD, 2003

the most marvellous thing is to see how the dancers have responded to Petronio.
DIANA SIMMONDS, SUNDAY TELEGRAPH, 2003

Petronio’s skill as a choreographer manifested in a profusion of solos, combinations and formations, an impressive variety of modalities and infinite variations… Petronio’s originality shines through those dancers most suited to his more frenetic range; Bradley Chatfield and Chylie Cooper’s duets and solos dazzle and Katie Ripley’s ‘Prelude to Weep’ is another high point.
ERIN BRANNIGAN, REALTIME, 2003

[Bradley Chatfield] dances… with such thrilling corporeality and spine-bending, time-bending ease.
CHRIS BOYD, THE AUSTRALIAN FINANCIAL REVIEW, 2003

It’s a privilege to watch magnificent dancers at the peak of their powers.
OLIVIA STEWART, COURIER MAIL, BRISBANE, 2003

9.5/10: Non-narrative and non-linear, Underland lies somewhere beyond the realm of language: it gets under your skin, seeps into your pores. Essentially, it is Stephen Petronio’s emotive response to Nick Cave’s music and the great sum of any clever parts. When those parts – movement, sound, film and design – combine at the right time in space, it’s like atoms colliding to create an explosive, fleeting force.
JULIE HUFFER, SUN-HERALD, 2003

It is technically demanding, but the dancers rise to the challenge… with an aggressively gritty panache.
HILARY CRAMPTON, THE AGE, MELBOURNE, 2003

[Nick Cave’s] music is the key to Underland. Wildly and yearningly romantic while heading to hell in a handbasket, it niggles and jangles but also gets to the heart of the matter. Cave’s gift is to be able to bypass sentimentality on his way to richer, darker emotional states.
DEBORAH JONES, THE AUSTRALIAN, 2003