INDance

Over two weekends from 17-26 August, INDance will feature four independent dance works created and performed by independent Australian artists.

Taking place in the new Neilson Studio at the Wharf, this is a unique opportunity to connect the independent dance sector with new audiences, supported by Sydney Dance Company and the Neilson Foundation.

This short curated program will explore diverse, abstract, and innovative concepts that push the boundaries of dance and reflect the contemporary Australian landscape.

Don’t miss this exciting program!

Single Tickets

Tickets to a single performance of INDance are just $49!

Packages

Save when you buy tickets to 2 or more performances!

You can choose performances across Week 1 (17-19 August) and/or Week 2 (24-26 August).

For example: With a 2 Show Package you could see Here Now on Friday 25 August and The Complication of Lyrebirds on Saturday 26 August.

The more performances you see, the more you’ll save per ticket!

precipice
Running Time: 52 minutes approximately
Age Recommendation: 12 years +
Warnings: No latecomers, theatrical haze, strobe lighting, loud music.

Cry Baby
Running Time: 50 minutes approximately
Age Recommendation: 12 years +
Warnings: No latecomers, theatrical haze, strobe lighting, adult themes, nudity, loud drumming.

HERE NOW (Double Bill)
Running Time: 50 minutes approximately
Age Recommendation: 12 years +
Warnings: No latecomers, theatrical haze, a middle finger.

The Complication of Lyrebirds
Running Time: 50 minutes approximately
Age Recommendation: 12 years +
Warnings: No latecomers, loud noises and trigger warnings for First Nations people.

Choreographed by Rachel Arianne Ogle

Western Australian choreographer Rachel Arianne Ogle wields her technical and extremely physical style to draw immense unseen forces in the bodies of four dancers. Inspired by tectonic shifts, gravitational torsion and states of emotional rupture, precipice is a dance of abandon and precarious control.

Ogle has assembled leading performance designers to create a multi-sensory experience where choreography unfolds within an electrifying light and sound installation. Contrasting precision and strength with mounting tension and fragility, this is a bold and unique work of contemporary dance from one of Australia’s rising choreographic artists. 

‘A knockout production… Rapid high-tech triggers transport us into an expansive universe through light, sound and dance… A ticket to another dimension.” – The West Australian 

Choreography Rachel Arianne Ogle
Composer Luke Smiles / motion laboratories
Lighting Design Benjamin Cisterne
Costume Design Colleen Sutherland
Costume Construction/Technician Kristy Armstrong & Sheridan Savage
Producer Rachel Arianne Ogle
Auspice Auspicious Arts 

Dancers Storm Helmore, Tyrone Robinson, Yilin Kong, Imanuel Dado 

This project has been assisted by the Australian government through the Australia Council, its arts funding and advisory body; Department of Local Government, Sport and Cultural Industries, Western Australia; City of Perth; and STRUT Dance.

By Parkin Projects

Been missing your lust for life lately? Well, you’re in luck, Rock & Roll is back baby and our hearts are aching for it. You’re invited to witness a raw and edgy interpretation of youth culture through the decades, featuring an all-female Rock & Roll triplet commanding and reinventing this space.  

Inspired by bona fide music icons like Janis Joplin, Mick Jagger, Tina Turner & Iggy Pop, Cry Baby dissects such character idiosyncrasies to produce an electric performance. Be immersed in a choreographic playground that resembles a 1970’s rock-show spectacular or your own bedroom. Head banging, hip thrusting content guaranteed. 

Don’t forget to leave your ego at the door… 

Go on and cry, cry baby 

“Seriously, if you love rock and roll, you must see this show. Even if you hate that genre of music, Cry Baby is packed with so much insight and nuance that it will make you laugh while it tugs at your entire being.” – Review by Scott-Patrick Mitchell 

Choreography Parkin Projects – Kimberley Parkin 
Music Nathan Menage, Sze Tsang, Thomas Beech
Lighting Designer Peter Young
Set / Costume Designer Kimberley Parkin  

Performers Rhiana Katz, Celina Hage, Georgia Van Gils 

Thank you, Peter Young, for your exceptional lighting design, thank you to Brooke Leeder for producing and coordinating this tour. Department of Local Government, Sport and Cultural Industries, Western Australia.

Fall! Falter!! Dance!!! and How Did I Get Here?
Choreographer, Writer and Performed by Ryuichi Fujimara

When recognition is limited and reward is small, why perform?

This program is made of two chapters from HERE NOW Trilogy written, choreographed and performed solo by Ryuichi Fujimura as a double bill.

Fall! Falter!! Dance!!!
I have often wondered about the desire to perform. What keeps bringing me back to the stage? Is it the applause from the audience? The lure of the bright spotlight? The brief and torrid moment of connection with an audience reminiscent of a one-night stand? Fall! Falter!! Dance!!! is a reflection on a contemporary dancer’s life, in which recognition is limited and the reward is small. Through this solo, self-devised performance work, I ask myself the fundamental question: ‘Why perform?’.  

How did I get here?
This short work investigates how one’s perception of time changes over time and how we recognize and accept our mortality as we enter the autumn phase of life. 

Choreographer, Writer and Performer Ryuichi Fujimura
Dramaturg Carlos Gomes
Video Artist Laura Turner
Design Consultant Tobhiyah Stone Feller
Musician Hamed Sadeghi
Outside Eye Cloé Fournier
Original Lighting Designer (Fall! Falter!! Dance!!!) Frankie Clarke 

This project has been supported by the Australian Government through the Australia Council, its arts funding and advisory body; the NSW Government through Create NSW; and through residencies at ReadyMade Works (Ausdance NSW DAIR), Abbotsford Convent (Pivot) and Temperance Hall (Critical Path and BalletLab). With special thanks to Emily Ayob, Brian Carbee, Kate Champion, Alice Cummins, Mayu Kanamori, Lim How Ngean, Michael Pigott, Rosalind Richards, Emma Sandall, Contemporary Asian Australian Performance (CAAP), Force Majeure, FORM Dance Projects, Performance Space and Redline Productions. 

Concept, Director, Choreographer: Jasmin Sheppard

The Complication of Lyrebirds is a contemporary dance work designed to break away from the social expectations of what it means to look or sound Aboriginal.  

Re-contextualising historical documents, such as ‘The White Australia Policy’ and ‘The Exemption Form’, as choreographic tools. The Complication of Lyrebirds investigates societal and cultural sources of expectations and pressures to create a unique and powerful choreographic narrative. 

The lyrebird adopts the calls of other birds to appear attractive, however, there is an authentic identity to the bird that is no mimic. In the same way, Indigenous people are faced with external pressures to prove their ‘blackness’ and adopt different ways of talking and appearing. If your family was denied their culture by the impact of colonisation, then what really makes you Aboriginal? 

Concept, Director, Choreographer Jasmin Sheppard, Tagalaka
Co-Collaborator Kaine Sultan Babij, Eastern Arrente
Sound Designer, Composer Naretha Williams, Wiradjuri
Composer, Musician Cris Derksen, Cree
Video Artist Samuel James
Lighting Designer Karen Norris, Moriori Maori
Props Designer Emily Adinolfi  
Costumer Designer Fiona Holley
Dramaturg Carly Sheppard, Tagalaka 

Dancers Kaine Sultan Babij, Eastern Arrente & Audrey Goth-Towney, Wiradjuri.

The Complication of Lyrebirds was originally commissioned and produced Campbelltown City Council through Campbelltown Arts Centre and premiered as part of Sydney Festival 2021. 

Rachel Arianne Ogle is a Western Australian dance artist with an extensive career as a dancer, performer, choreographer, educator and arts worker.

Rachel’s work is distinguished by precise, physically demanding and acutely complex choreography. Her detailed approach to kinaesthetic movement and energy allows intricate, elastic dynamics to emerge and immersive experiences to manifest through the dancing body. Rachel’s works seamlessly integrate choreography and design, creating synergetic collaborations with designers across visual, spatial and sonic planes.

Rachel has created work for Sydney Dance Company, Tasdance, Maya Dance Theatre (Singapore), Proximity Festival, Link Dance Company, WAAPA, Nat Cursio Company, STRUT Dance and STEPS Youth Dance Company.

Rachel’s work precipice was nominated for a Helpmann Award for ‘Best Dance Work’ and shortlisted for an Australian Dance Award for ‘Outstanding Achievement in Independent Dance’ in 2015; and awarded ‘Best Choreographer’ in the Performing Arts WA Awards in 2020.

Rachel has been the recipient of an Asialink Residency (2016); an Australia Council International Residency at the Experimental Media and Performing Arts Centre (EMPAC) in New York (2017); and an Australia Council International Residency at Cite Internationale des Arts in Paris (2018).

Rachel’s latest work ‘And The Earth Will Swallow Them Whole‘ had its commissioned premiere in Perth Festival 2022.

Rachel is a 2022 Sidney Myer Creative Fellow.

Parkin Projects is a project-based dance company residing in Boorloo under directorship of Kimberley Parkin. Kimberley Parkin (she/her) is a former graduate from The Western Australian Academy of Performing Arts completing her Bachelor of Arts (Dance) Honours degree in 2018. She has presented dance works through STRUT Dance; Short Cuts, SITU-8: City & Groundworks 2022, FRINGE WORLD FESTIVAL Perth, State Theatre Company of WA. She has performed professionally through FRINGE WORLD FESTIVAL, The Blue Room Theatre, Stephanie Lake’s Colossus and in various STRUT Dance programs.

Parkin Projects was established in January 2021 coinciding with their premiere work Cry Baby at The State Theatre Centre of WA during Perth’s FRINGE WORLD FESTIVAL. Parkin Projects developed the second iteration of Cry Baby for a season at The Rechabite in August 2021. The work received 4 Performing Arts WA nominations. In 2022, the company engaged in two residencies and two performance seasons to develop their second work Killjoy through STRUT Dance, Propel Youth Arts and Co3 Contemporary. Killjoy premiered at Groundworks 2022 and shortly after was accepted as Co:3 Contemporary Dance’s IN.HOUSE recipient for 2023. This independently lead company strives to be a leader in producing accessible and resourceful dance productions whilst closely working with other local artists. Through a project-based approach, the collective forges new pathways and connections within the arts industry by continuous adaptation in each passing performance.

Ryuichi Fujimura is an independent dance artist based in Sydney. Since the mid 1990’s, he has studied contemporary dance technique as well as improvisation and choreography in Australia and overseas.

Over the last twenty years, Ryuichi has collaborated as a performer with both emerging and established artists/companies in various dance, theatre, opera, site-specific performance and film projects. He has performed for Xavier le Roy, Justin Shoulder, Tino Seghal, Vicki Van Hout, Jim Sharman, Alan Sachacher, Weizen Ho, Cloé Fournier, Force Majeure, De Quincey Co., La Fura dels Baus, Clockfire Theatre co. and The Living Room Theatre amongst others.

Ryuichi began his choreographic practice in 2013. In collaboration with Kate Sherman, he created two site-specific performance works (Under Harry’s Circumstances in 2014 and Under Different Circumstances in 2013). He has also created HERE NOW Trilogy, a collection of three short autobiographic solos (Fall! Falter!! Dance!!! in 2022, How I Practice My Religion in 2017 and How Did I Get Here? in 2014).

In recent years, he has collaborated with visual artists including the ArtHitects (Gary Carsley and Renjie Teoh), Justene Williams and Mel O’Callaghan performing at museum/exhibition spaces. In August 2022, he presented his HERE NOW Trilogy across two venues in Sydney over two weeks. In April 2023, he toured to Melbourne with HERE NOW.

Jasmin is a contemporary dancer, choreographer and director, a Tagalaka Aboriginal woman with Irish, Chinese and Hungarian ancestry. 

Jasmin spent 12 years with Bangarra Dance Theatre, performing numerous lead roles such as ‘Patyegarang’, in which critics described her performance as “powerfully engaging, fluent dexterity” (Sydney Morning Herald). She choreographed one major work for the company, ‘MACQ’, on the 1816 Appin Massacres under Governor Macquarie which toured Australian capital cities, regional Australia and Germany.  

Other short works include: ‘No Remittance’ for Legs on the Wall and ‘Choice Cut’ for Yirramboi festival, which made its proscenium arch debut at Ryerson Theatre, CA, at Toronto’s ‘Fall For Dance North’ Festival, 2019. 

Jasmin premiered her first full length work The Complication of Lyrebirds in 2021 at Sydney Festival; Campbelltown Arts Centre. This work was also supported Native Earth Theatre Company.  

In 2021 Jasmin co directed “Value For Money” alongside Sara Black (Guts Dance Araluen Arts Centre and Darwin Festival). 

Jasmin created ‘Given Unto Thee’ for Sydney Dance Company’s New Breed program, and most recently was performer, movement director and associate writer for the major theatre work by S Shakthidharan: 宿 (stay) 

The Neilson Studio is Sydney Dance Company’s newest performance and theatre space located at our refurbished Wharf Studios at the Walsh Bay Arts Precinct.

There are many options for getting to Sydney Dance Company’s Wharf Studios:

Sydney Dance Company Wharf Studios
Wharf 4/5, Walsh Bay Arts Precinct
15 Hickson Rd, Dawes Point
NSW 2000

Public Transport
Public transport is the best way to get to the Wharf. You can arrive by train, bus or ferry. The Wharf is a 15 minute walk from Circular Quay and Wynyard train stations.

Bus services
The 324 and 325 buses run from the CBD to Dawes Point, with stops just outside our Wharf Studios. Visit the Transport for NSW website for more information.

Parking at The Wharf
While on-street metered parking is available in Walsh Bay, we recommend parking at the following parking station located nearby:
● Bond One​, 26 Hickson Road, Walsh Bay
● Barangaroo Point, entry via Hickson Road
● Barangaroo Reserve, 5 Towns Place, Barangaroo

“A knockout production… Rapid high-tech triggers transport us into an expansive universe through light, sound and dance… A ticket to another dimension.” – The West Australian

“An intriguing visual feast… the resultant whole assaulting the senses and stirring emotions.” – Artshub

“Rachel Ogle’s cosmic dance, precipice, glances gravely into being as an impressively contained universe of matter and motion, of sound and light… precipice settles the universe within while turning endlessly beyond.” – Realtime

“It’s a wild ride; visceral and invigorating.” – SeeSaw Magazine

★★★★★ “This work is also clever, sharp, subversive and camp, the female dancers poking fun at the boisterous posturing of yesteryear’s ego-fuelled rock legends, reclaiming their gestures to create moments of pure comedic gold” – Scott-Patrick Mitchell on FRINGEFEED

“I screamed, I swigged wine, I head banged and all the shit from 2020 projectile crashed from my dome in a kind of rough-rock exposure therapy. The dancers working the vocab of Jagger and Turner, hammering, and throwing their frames about like Sunday session maggots was a kind of ecstatic 21st century Dionysian ritual for me, a hot mess of limbs and sweat, a shameless celebration of my salt-water bogan origins” -Michelle Hall review on FRINGEFEED

★★★★ “The looseness of the mosh-pit meets the articulation of their training, with electric results. Bodies writhe, hair flies, hips vibrate, creating wild and electric synchrony… There’s a feminist undercurrent, too, in the masculinity of the dancers’ swagger, androgynous in their boiler suits, as well as in the gender imbalance on stage” – Nina Levy, Seesaw magazine

Fall! Falter!! Dance!!!

“While the laughs make such a delightful impact, there is also great poignancy in this dancer’s story. Fujimura reaches out as a human being and we in the audience embrace him.(…) This is an unexpected gem of a program and it should find a longer life.” – Jill Sykes, Sydney Morning Herald

“He certainly had the audience in the palm of his hand as he landed a standing ovation and rapturous applause at his honest approach. Any dancer sitting in the audience would have felt with him the highs and lows. It was brilliant.” – Linda badger, Dance Informa

“Fujimura the actor knows how to introduce humour – and pathos. Fujimura the dancer knows when to intersperse his words with carefully devised dance routines. Fujimura the performer knows exactly when to use stillness and silence. In words and movement, he expressively leads the audience through a range of emotional responses.” – Carol Wimmer, Stage Whispers

“Ryuichi Fujimura, with pathos, grace and humour, created an engaging show, deftly interweaving movement, gesture, mime, spoken word and song, paired by intriguing video by Laura Turner, illuminated by lighting designer Frankie Clarke, and consolidated narratively by dramaturg Carlos Gomez and Tobhiyah Stone Feller as the design consultant.” – Robin Knightly, Sydney Arts Guide

“Despite the air of simple celebration conveyed in the pop tunes and funny anecdotes, FALL! FALTER!! DANCE!!! navigated complex contradictions in the professional lives of artists with an intricate and interesting examination of the very art of performance itself.” – Night Writes Sydney

“This powerful First Nations dance show is a thoughtful highlight of Sydney Festival 2021. The Complication of Lyrebirds asks us to acknowledge that all First Nations people are unique, that they have their own journey to follow and histories to draw upon.” – STEPHEN A RUSSELL, Time Out: December 2020

“A potent and poetic metaphor for many First Nations Australians as they confront the pressures to blend in. It’s a smart and perceptive premise as a foundation.” – GINA FAIRLEY, Artshub 2021: January 2021

“The Complication of Lyrebirds is … full of vivid and clever ideas.” – GERALDINE HIGGINSON, Dance Australia: January 2021

“Throughout, Peter Lenaerts’s sound design was a finger running round the lip of a wineglass, a pebble skittering down a passageway.” – ArtsHub