Sydney Dance Company’s Pre-Professional Year invites you to experience the work of its first-year dancers as they bring an intensive year of technical training, artistic enquiry and creative exploration to the stage.
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Info & Dates
Dates: 25 – 27 November
Location: Neilson Studio, Sydney Dance Company
Across four performances, PPY1 presents three world premieres by Lisa Maris McDonell, Rhiannon Newton and Thomas Page, alongside an excerpt from ab [intra] choreographed by Sydney Dance Company Artistic Director, Rafael Bonachela. Together, these works offer a glimpse into the instincts and creative possibilities shaping the next generation of contemporary dance artists.
Performance Dates & Times
25 November, 6:30pm
26 November, 6:30pm
27 November, 4pm & 6:30pm
The Clegg Foyer bar will be open from 6pm before and after the evening performances.
Program
Program
Vestiges
Thomas Page
Excerpt of ab [intra]
Rafael Bonachela Artistic Director, Sydney Dance Company
Interval
Nerve
Rhiannon Newton
Invisible Alchemies
Lisa Maris McDonell
Vestiges
Driven by an overarching question of “What remained?”, the choreographic language of Vestiges explores the traces and echoes of society in an imagined post-human (or at least our version of human) world. The dancers navigate pathways, patterns and processes “left behind” by familiar systems drawing on societal constructs, the choreographed body, and the works of Thomas Page Dancers.
In addition to the core choreographic concept, the work was designed with the dancers in mind as a way of introducing the PPY1 cohort, as a company to the wider world. It was created with echoes of each dancer’s individual voice embedded within the choreographic landscape.
Choreography: Thomas Page
Music: Black Sands (Duke Dumont’s “Grains of Sand” Reconstruction Edit) by Bonobo
Hybrid:ID oval p-dance by Alva Noto
motto by Dmitru Selipanov
Excerpt of ab [intra]
Originally premiering in 2018, ab [intra] explores the primal instincts, impulses and visceral responses that shape human experience. Moving between tenderness and turmoil, the work brings physical intensity into dialogue with emotional vulnerability.
For PPY26 Unfolds, PPY1 will perform a 15-minute excerpt of this fiercely physical and deeply felt work, restaged by Juliette Barton and Todd Sutherland.
Choreography: Rafael Bonachela
Composer: Nick Wales
Original Costume Design: David Fleischer
Nerve
Nerve traces some of the most basic neuromuscular patterns that shape our human movement from birth. Together Rhiannon and PPY1 have explored how this blueprint for movement deep within our nervous systems also has the capacity to power actions that move beyond, or transform, our individual human being. From breath to full flight, Nerve awakens a collective nervous system, where moving together mobilises a forcefield of potential, connecting us both deeply into our humanity and the potency of collaborative more-than-human action.
Choreography: Rhiannon Newton
Music: View of Granite by Jannah Quill
2020 by Jannah Quill
Clouds by Megan Alice Clune
Invisible Alchemies
Invisible Alchemies is a collection of images and ideas, including delicate golden threads of connection over time and place, unseen magic, care, attentiveness, thin veils between worlds, and how the collapse of individualism ironically leads to the visibility of the individual.
Choreography: Lisa Maris McDonell in collaboration with the dancers
Music: Lisa Maris McDonell with Jonah Rewi McDonell, Aron Ottignon and Nane Kahle
Costume Design & Supervisor: Harriet Ayers
PPY1 2026
Dates: 25 – 27 November
Location: Neilson Studio, Sydney Dance Company
Meet the graduating cohort of PPY1 2026
Imogen Adair
Allyssa Cleary
Emilia Considine
Sophie Dang
Saskia Dixon-Valk
Rosie Emslie
Stephanie Engelhardt
Saffron Francis
Amelia Gee
Madison Gill
Georgia Hill
Lena Killalea
Sienna Lentini
Gemma Montalbano
Ella Morgan
Tilda Morse
Sofia Ramadge
Tayah Showman
Aurielle Smith
Amy Stone
Isabella Waldron-Kazas
Lily Woods
Image by Daniel Boud.
Acknowledgements
Dates: 25 – 27 November
Location: Neilson Studio, Sydney Dance Company
With special thanks
We would like to thank all of our generous supporters of Sydney Dance Company’s Pre-Professional Year. A special thank you to Tim Fairfax AC for his visionary support of Sydney Dance Company’s Training Associate and Learning Associate roles. We’re deeply grateful for the opportunities provided by the following scholarship donors: the Wales Family, the Doug Hall Foundation, Mary Zuber, and the lan Wallace Giving Fund. We would also like to acknowledge the Hepzibah Tintner Foundation for establishing the Hephzibah Artist Development Program and the Tanja Liedtke Foundation for their support of our Pre-Professional Year program.
Info & Dates
Dates: 25 – 27 November
Location: Neilson Studio, Sydney Dance Company
Across four performances, PPY1 presents three world premieres by Lisa Maris McDonell, Rhiannon Newton and Thomas Page, alongside an excerpt from ab [intra] choreographed by Sydney Dance Company Artistic Director, Rafael Bonachela. Together, these works offer a glimpse into the instincts and creative possibilities shaping the next generation of contemporary dance artists.
Performance Dates & Times
25 November, 6:30pm
26 November, 6:30pm
27 November, 4pm & 6:30pm
The Clegg Foyer bar will be open from 6pm before and after the evening performances.
Program
Program
Vestiges
Thomas Page
Excerpt of ab [intra]
Rafael Bonachela Artistic Director, Sydney Dance Company
Interval
Nerve
Rhiannon Newton
Invisible Alchemies
Lisa Maris McDonell
Vestiges
Driven by an overarching question of “What remained?”, the choreographic language of Vestiges explores the traces and echoes of society in an imagined post-human (or at least our version of human) world. The dancers navigate pathways, patterns and processes “left behind” by familiar systems drawing on societal constructs, the choreographed body, and the works of Thomas Page Dancers.
In addition to the core choreographic concept, the work was designed with the dancers in mind as a way of introducing the PPY1 cohort, as a company to the wider world. It was created with echoes of each dancer’s individual voice embedded within the choreographic landscape.
Choreography: Thomas Page
Music: Black Sands (Duke Dumont’s “Grains of Sand” Reconstruction Edit) by Bonobo
Hybrid:ID oval p-dance by Alva Noto
motto by Dmitru Selipanov
Excerpt of ab [intra]
Originally premiering in 2018, ab [intra] explores the primal instincts, impulses and visceral responses that shape human experience. Moving between tenderness and turmoil, the work brings physical intensity into dialogue with emotional vulnerability.
For PPY26 Unfolds, PPY1 will perform a 15-minute excerpt of this fiercely physical and deeply felt work, restaged by Juliette Barton and Todd Sutherland.
Choreography: Rafael Bonachela
Composer: Nick Wales
Original Costume Design: David Fleischer
Nerve
Nerve traces some of the most basic neuromuscular patterns that shape our human movement from birth. Together Rhiannon and PPY1 have explored how this blueprint for movement deep within our nervous systems also has the capacity to power actions that move beyond, or transform, our individual human being. From breath to full flight, Nerve awakens a collective nervous system, where moving together mobilises a forcefield of potential, connecting us both deeply into our humanity and the potency of collaborative more-than-human action.
Choreography: Rhiannon Newton
Music: View of Granite by Jannah Quill
2020 by Jannah Quill
Clouds by Megan Alice Clune
Invisible Alchemies
Invisible Alchemies is a collection of images and ideas, including delicate golden threads of connection over time and place, unseen magic, care, attentiveness, thin veils between worlds, and how the collapse of individualism ironically leads to the visibility of the individual.
Choreography: Lisa Maris McDonell in collaboration with the dancers
Music: Lisa Maris McDonell with Jonah Rewi McDonell, Aron Ottignon and Nane Kahle
Costume Design & Supervisor: Harriet Ayers
PPY1 2026
Dates: 25 – 27 November
Location: Neilson Studio, Sydney Dance Company
Meet the graduating cohort of PPY1 2026
Imogen Adair
Allyssa Cleary
Emilia Considine
Sophie Dang
Saskia Dixon-Valk
Rosie Emslie
Stephanie Engelhardt
Saffron Francis
Amelia Gee
Madison Gill
Georgia Hill
Lena Killalea
Sienna Lentini
Gemma Montalbano
Ella Morgan
Tilda Morse
Sofia Ramadge
Tayah Showman
Aurielle Smith
Amy Stone
Isabella Waldron-Kazas
Lily Woods
Image by Daniel Boud.
Acknowledgements
Dates: 25 – 27 November
Location: Neilson Studio, Sydney Dance Company
With special thanks
We would like to thank all of our generous supporters of Sydney Dance Company’s Pre-Professional Year. A special thank you to Tim Fairfax AC for his visionary support of Sydney Dance Company’s Training Associate and Learning Associate roles. We’re deeply grateful for the opportunities provided by the following scholarship donors: the Wales Family, the Doug Hall Foundation, Mary Zuber, and the lan Wallace Giving Fund. We would also like to acknowledge the Hepzibah Tintner Foundation for establishing the Hephzibah Artist Development Program and the Tanja Liedtke Foundation for their support of our Pre-Professional Year program.