2023 National Tour

In 2023, we look forward to performing for audiences around Australia, presenting work in 14 locations across five states and territories.

Our 2023 National Tour will feature our new triple-bill Ascent, co-commissioned by the Canberra Theatre Centre, along with Rafael Bonachela’s critically acclaimed ab [intra] fresh from a successful Sydney and France season in 2022, as well as a double bill of Bonachela’s Impermanence and Antony Hamilton’s Forever & Ever.

See below if we’re coming to a location near you and stay tuned for when tickets go on sale!

Download our National Tour Programs

Forever & Ever

Forever & Ever returns and “lays siege to the senses with a mighty display of shock and awe.” (The Australian). Set to a sonically stimulating score by ‘The Presets’ Julian Hamilton, Forever & Ever fuses together a killer mix of dance, techno, high fashion and vivid lighting to hypnotic effect. Exploring ideas of order, chaos, popular culture and human behaviour, this boundary-pushing work is a bold and thrilling theatrical experience.

Choreographer: Antony Hamilton
Composer: Julian Hamilton
Costume Design: Paula Levis
Lighting Designer: Ben Cisterne

Rafael Bonachela’s I Am-ness calls for the convergence of the moving body and creative mind, charting a world in flux where simplicity dominates, and expectations are subverted.

In this world premiere, Bonachela revisits the powerful and emotive work of the Latvian composer Pēteris Vasks, previously celebrated in the critically acclaimed ab [intra].

Vasks’ Lonely Angel sets a resolute yet hushed melancholy on strings, creating an ode to our shared sense of being, and canvassing the nature of existence with euphoric tenderness. I Am-ness is an exacting search for the stuff of life.

Choreographer: Rafael Bonachela
Music: “Lonely angel”, meditation for violin and strings by Pēteris Vasks
Lighting Designer: Damien Cooper
Costume Designer: Rafael Bonachela

Fiction is our new reality, and we devour it frenetically. Old structures are rupturing and the void is being filled by billions of personal stories. This piece poses many questions: the body’s meaning and its capacity to transform; the relationship with technology, and the connection with nature.

The Shell, A Ghost, The Host & The Lyrebird is the journey of some bodies towards the unknown, as mutant creatures in an oneiric valley. A place where the dancers abandon binarisms and old forms to embrace a transition process from what we were and are to what we will be. Bodies are penetrated by a constantly transforming place, decentralising the human, shifting our focus to still have a chance to survive. Hybridising bodies, containers of information, like shells, adapting to life in continuous transition; as lyrebirds, learning from the natural and the artificial world to survive; as hosts of a finite world, in an attempt to decode the old and understand where those ghosts will go or if we will succumb as well.

Choreographer: Marina Mascarell
Composer: Nick Wales
Costume & Set Designers: Lauren Brincat and Leah Giblin
Lighting Designer: Damien Cooper

Exploring our primal instincts, our impulses and our visceral responses, ab [intra] is a journey through the intensity of human existence that will command your attention.

The music fuses lush cello with ambient electronica and the exquisite dancers occupy a visually arresting ethereal world.

This is a ferociously physical and emotional piece which will stay with you long after you leave the theatre.

Choreography: Rafael Bonachela
Music: Original score by Nick Wales featuring Klātbūtne (Presence) by Pēteris Vasks
Lighting design: Damien Cooper
Set and Costume design: David Fleischer

Impermanence

A visceral and thrilling exploration of the juxtaposition of beauty and devastation, this full-length work features a new score full of emotional power from Grammy Award-winning composer Bryce Dessner.

Best known as a founder of American rock band The National and for his film scores for The Revenant and The Two Popes, Dessner was initially inspired by the tragedy of the Australian bush fires and the Notre-Dame fire in Paris. Sydney Dance Company’s “awe-inspiring” (In Daily) ensemble is joined live on stage by the Australian String Quartet. This is epic, driven performance that packs an emotional punch.

Choreographer: Rafael Bonachela
Composer: Bryce Dessner
Music Performed By: Australian String Quartet
Music Features: Another World by Anohni
Lighting Designer: Damien Cooper
Stage Designer: David Fleischer
Costume Designer: Aleisa Jelbart

The Sydney and Australian national performances of Impermanence are presented in association with the Australian String Quartet. Bryce Dessner’s music composition Impermanence is commissioned by the Australian String Quartet and Sydney Dance Company. This commission has been assisted by the Australian Government through the Australia Council for the Arts, its arts funding and advisory body.

2022

★★★★★ “As the curtain fell on ab [intra]’s opening performance… the audience greeted [it] with a prolonged and noisy standing ovation……lush, complex and equally virtuosic…everywhere you look in this piece there is something and someone intriguing.” – Limelight

★★★★½ “The return of the Sydney Dance Company classic is a must-see. It is the most interesting piece [Rafael Bonachela] has choreographed for the company… their technical quality is excellent… complex… intriguing… absorbing.” – The Sydney Morning Herald

“dazzling, virtuosic and unforgettable… mesmerising choreography” – – Australian Stage Online

★★★★“… the bodies vibrate like so many sensitive chords in this choreography full of energy, sensations and expressive virtuosity.” – Theatre Online (France)

“Breathtaking ensembles, oscillating between perfect synchronization and an explosion of primary instincts, punctuate this delicious whirlwind with perfectly mastered play of lights, in which it is impossible not to be caught up in.” – Arts in the City (France)

“…the spectacle of these very high-level dancers… is breathtakingly poetic and beautiful. The figures are sometimes acrobatic, the breaths are short and the skin sparkles with sweat, but what happens on stage is nevertheless, for a little over an hour, of an almost incomprehensible fluidity and softness. And the public, fascinated, applauds standing. Run there!” – Le Point (France)

“Feelings unfold in great sweetness in this performance which seems both an ode to nature and to the best of mankind… this remarkable work by the Australian company, served by magnificent performers… reaffirms its universal dimension. The life-giving energy of beauty.” – La Croix (France)

2018

★★★★ “Bold… impressive athleticism and energy… has to be seen to be believed.” – The Sydney Morning Herald

“Sydney Dance Company delivers intensity to startle and delight” – The Australian

★★★★ “This is contemporary dance at its most evocative and beautiful… moments of sheer wonderment and unexpected emotional catharsis.” – Time Out

★★★★½ “A dazzling, electrifying, heartfelt work. Highly recommended.” – Limelight

“Bonachela says in the program that he wanted ab [intra] ‘to capture the energy and drive I feel each time I walk into the studio’. He and his Company have succeeded brilliantly.” – The Daily Telegraph

“You were amazing. And the male/female energy created through the choreography and the performers had real integrity, I felt human emotion, passion and potential was honoured in what I saw and experienced. Thank you all!” – Subscriber

“ab [intra] is breath-taking. Human sculpture, using the very best materials available. And the music is an equal partner in the experience.” – Subscriber

★★★★ “Dance moves for the end of the world… Choreographer Rafael Bonachela sets his excellent dancers on a whirling, bounding trajectory that sustains them in duets, trios and interestingly constructed ensembles…” The Sydney Morning Herald

“…it is arguably the single best piece created by and for an Australian dance company for many years” Adelaide Advertiser

★★★★ 1/2 “A hypnotically beautiful work, stunningly performed by the Company’s 17 dancers to music that is visceral and moving” Limelight

★★★★★ “The music alone is worth hearing live in concert and Bonachela’s choreography adds a whole other dimension to these collaborative contemplations of humanity for our times.” ClassikON

“Extraordinary… Form and function meet seamlessly in every aspect — Bonachela’s huge, fast, juicy movement, Damien Cooper’s luscious lighting, David Fleischer’s imposing stage design and Aleisa Jelbart’s nature-­inspired costumes, all in the tight embrace of Dessner’s score.” The Australian

“A tear-jerker without being baroque, with a finger on the vein of our collective anxieties and dislocations, Impermanence is a triumph of collaboration and passion.”  The Arts Hub

“Moving and powerful, at-once capturing transience and fragility then strength and passion.”  Timeout

“Awareness of the impermanence of everything makes me feel that we must use every moment – that every moment counts – and that the transitory nature of life inspires a need for energy, urgency and radiance.” Rafael Bonachela

“The dancers, wow. They are incredible, so talented. I love the physicality of them, and Rafael’s work really suits my music. The new piece is very much for them – definitely the musical language is inspired by the company itself even to the point that I was seeing those dancers in my mind as I composed… a stunning, inexplicable alchemy happens with the melding of movement and sound. A third art form is born.” Bryce Dessner, The Australian

“There’s a certain sense of beauty about bringing something back, but also there’s this sense of regrowth and rebuilding on the experiences and perspectives of what we have all been through as people and as artists ourselves.” Liam Green, Company dancer

“Impermanence was pure magic – fleeting – a moment in time of delicacy, softness, stillness and breath” Alyssa Hanley, audience member. 

“We have been twice now. So good!” Selina Baxby, audience member. 

“Unbelievable performance! We loved every minute – such superb choreography and amazingly talented dancers.” Melanie Jane, audience member. 

“We have a world top dance company in our very own city. We feel nourished by your art and it breathes sunshine and joy into our life. We so appreciate your generosity in a very personal way. We don’t quite get that feeling from any other dance companies.” Michael P., Subscriber

★★★★★ “As the curtain fell on ab [intra]’s opening performance… the audience greeted [it] with a prolonged and noisy standing ovation……lush, complex and equally virtuosic…everywhere you look in this piece there is something and someone intriguing.” – Limelight

★★★★½ “The return of the Sydney Dance Company classic is a must-see. It is the most interesting piece [Rafael Bonachela] has choreographed for the company… their technical quality is excellent… complex… intriguing… absorbing.” – The Sydney Morning Herald

“dazzling, virtuosic and unforgettable… mesmerising choreography” – – Australian Stage Online

★★★★“… the bodies vibrate like so many sensitive chords in this choreography full of energy, sensations and expressive virtuosity.” – Theatre Online (France)

“Breathtaking ensembles, oscillating between perfect synchronization and an explosion of primary instincts, punctuate this delicious whirlwind with perfectly mastered play of lights, in which it is impossible not to be caught up in.” – Arts in the City (France)

“…the spectacle of these very high-level dancers… is breathtakingly poetic and beautiful. The figures are sometimes acrobatic, the breaths are short and the skin sparkles with sweat, but what happens on stage is nevertheless, for a little over an hour, of an almost incomprehensible fluidity and softness. And the public, fascinated, applauds standing. Run there!” – Le Point (France)

“Feelings unfold in great sweetness in this performance which seems both an ode to nature and to the best of mankind… this remarkable work by the Australian company, served by magnificent performers… reaffirms its universal dimension. The life-giving energy of beauty.” – La Croix (France)

2018

★★★★ “Bold… impressive athleticism and energy… has to be seen to be believed.” – The Sydney Morning Herald

“Sydney Dance Company delivers intensity to startle and delight” – The Australian

★★★★ “This is contemporary dance at its most evocative and beautiful… moments of sheer wonderment and unexpected emotional catharsis.” – Time Out

★★★★½ “A dazzling, electrifying, heartfelt work. Highly recommended.” – Limelight

“Bonachela says in the program that he wanted ab [intra] ‘to capture the energy and drive I feel each time I walk into the studio’. He and his Company have succeeded brilliantly.” – The Daily Telegraph

“You were amazing. And the male/female energy created through the choreography and the performers had real integrity, I felt human emotion, passion and potential was honoured in what I saw and experienced. Thank you all!” – Subscriber

“ab [intra] is breath-taking. Human sculpture, using the very best materials available. And the music is an equal partner in the experience.” – Subscriber