A collaboration with an Asian choreographer, performances in primary schools and a US tour form part of next year’s season.

Sydney Dance Company breaks new ground with its 2017 season, which includes the Company’s first collaboration with an Asian choreographer and also its first tour to NSW primary schools.

Nelson Earl will perform in the new double bill Orb. Photo courtesy of Sydney Dance Company

The big new work for 2017 is a double bill called Orb, which will premiere at Sydney’s Roslyn Packer Theatre in April. Described as “an extraordinary lunar mystery”, Orb will feature a new work by SDC Artistic Director Rafael Bonachela called Ocho, paired with the world première of a piece called Full Moon, to be created on the dancers by Taiwanese choreographer Cheng Tsung-lung, Artistic Director of the Taipei-based Cloud Gate 2 Theatre. Ocho is Bonachela’s latest collaboration with composer Nick Wales, while Full Moon will feature electronic music by Lim Giong, who composed the award-winning score for the 2015 martial arts film The Assassin.

“Living in our modern world, the vibrant city lights have endlessly fascinated me and occupied the interspaces of my sight and feelings at night. On the contrary, the moon, nature’s symbolic beauty of night, shines light into my eyes and helps me uncover the mysteries of the unconscious world which I do not know, yet I feel exist,” says Tsung-lung.

October will see the 100th performance of Bonachela’s internationally acclaimed 2012 work 2 One Another when it is revived for a season at the Roslyn Packer Theatre.

During 2017, SDC will embark on national, international and regional tours. From June to August it will tour Australia with a double bill featuring Bonachela’s 2015 work Frame of Mind choreographed to a Bryce Dessner score, recorded by the Kronos Quartet, and Gabrielle Nankivell’s Wildebeest, which premiered at SDC’s New Breed program for emerging choreographers. Wildebeest is about to enjoy a return season as part of SDC’s Untamed at the Roslyn Packer Theatre (October 18 – 29).

From February to early March, SDC will perform Frame of Mind, Wildebeest and Jacopo Godani’s Raw Models in New York, Boston and the New England towns of Swarthmore and Amherst. The Company will also tour a new work for four dancers called Crazy Times, created specifically to engage young audiences. Choreographed by Antony Hamilton in collaboration with playwright Matthew Whittet (whose film Girl Asleep is currently in cinemas), Crazy Times will open at the Sydney Opera House in March before touring to primary schools in Western Sydney and regional NSW.


SYDNEY SUBSCRIPTIONS NOW ON SALE

 

 

Get Limelight's free weekly round-up of music, arts and culture.