ORBIT

ORBIT is a new touring program designed to take independent dance to the next level. Led by Australian Dance Theatre (SA), Dancehouse (VIC) and Sydney Dance Company (NSW), ORBIT will see exceptional independent choreographic works slingshot to multiple cities on a fully supported tour.

ORBIT’s 2026 program will feature Agitato by Jo Lloyd, Charcoal by Keia McGrady, [ gameboy ] by Amy Zhang and Future History by Gabrielle Nankivell.

Running the gamut from a poignant mediation on country, an exploration of ingenuity in the face of ecological collapse, a choreographic reckoning with a virtuosic piece of classical music from 1823 and a videogame inspired work about our digital lives, ORBIT offers audiences the chance to experience works from artists at the vanguard of contemporary Australian performance.

ORBIT has been assisted by the Australian Government through Creative Australia, its principal arts investment and advisory body and delivered in partnership by Australian Dance Theatre, Dancehouse and Sydney Dance Company.

Agitato is an encounter with Fanny Mendelssohn’s largely unknown ‘Allegro molto agitato in D Minor’ (1823), a small jewel buried in the truncated past of a musical career obscured by conventions.

Formal perfection ricochets off fracture and restlessness. Choreographic structures breathlessly assembled and disassembled in a single breath. Delivering a corporeal rather than a historical reflection on the music, Agitato locates order in disorder, with each irate and stormy note in Mendelssohn’s original composition becoming a choreographic instruction vibrating with frenetic energy.

Agitato is a palimpsest of music seen through a contemporaneous mirror, an understanding between women across centuries, made visible and visceral on stage.

Credits
Choreographer Jo Lloyd
Dancers Rebecca Jensen, Jo Lloyd, Louie Wisby, Thomas Woodman
Composer Duane Morrison
Costume Designer Andrew Treloar
Lighting Designer Shiv Geaney
Dramaturg Anny Mokotow
Dancers in Original Production Harrison Ritchie-Jones, Lee Serle
Producer of Original Production Michaela Coventry – Sage Arts

Two dancers mark the stage with charcoal. As their footfalls gently move through Country, they inscribe a living conversation between spirit and landscape that spans generations.

Inspired by the regenerative power of cultural burning, Charcoal sees emerging choreographer Keia McGrady creates a visceral meditation on Country, lineage and the cycles of rebirth that are held in the land upon which we all walk.

The physical and invisible textures of the landscape manifest in a work steeped in ancestral knowledge drawn from deep collaboration with family.

Charcoal traces a dialogue between spirit, memory and land in a work where movement becomes sacred offering and the body transforms into canvas.

Credits
Lead Artist & Performer Keia McGrady (Githabul Migunberri Gomeroi)
Performer Amelia Jean O’Leary (Gamilaroi and Wadawurrung Yinarr)
Sound Composer Joshua Santospirito & Waveney Yasso (Yuwi Burra & South Sea Island)
Sound Engineer Joshua Santospirito
Lighting Designer & AV Jason James
Original Costume Designer Noah Johnson

Two avatars are dropped into a series of escalating challenges. As they complete each level, they’re asked to consider how far they’ll go to ‘win’.

Choreographer Amy Zhang brings her signature of fusion of street styles and contemporary to explore the collision between the real and the virtual in a work that is as irreverently fun as it is physically virtuosic.

Taking inspiration from Japanese game shows, The Sims, and the strangest corners of the internet, [ gameboy ] is a raucously renegade work that steps inside the screen and slyly looks back.

If life is a game, who’s holding the controllers?

Credits
Director & Choreographer Amy Zhang
Collaborators & Performers William ‘Billy’ Keohavong and Ko Yamada
Sound Designer Jackson Gracia
Contributing Composer Maxwell ‘Thv Flood’ Douglas
Lighting Design Theodore Carrol

Future History is a new ritual for a world in a constant state of flux.

Nankivell and her collaborators locate the body within cycles of global uncertainty, extinction, conflict, epidemic and catastrophic climate events to create a dance that thrives on the edge of oblivion.

Illuminating the vulnerability and resilience implicit on life on Earth,  Nankivell uses every facet of her physicality to embody everything from the jittering of microscopic organisms to seismic ecological shifts.

Future History connects the personal and universal in a thrilling and urgent exploration of what it means to live here now, then and in the future.

Credits
Lead Artist Gabrielle Nankivell
Creative Collaborators Luke Smiles, Martin del Amo, Kristina Chan, Joshua Thomson, Rasmus Ölme & Vânia Vaneau
Composer Luke Smiles
Dramaturg Martin del Amo
Costume Concept & Realisation Harriet Oxley
Set and Lighting Realisation Meg Wilson