Introducing the four emerging choreographers who will make moves as part of Sydney Dance Company’s development programme.

Sydney Dance Company and Carriageworks have announced the four up-and-coming dance artists commissioned to create new work as part of the acclaimed New Breed initiative. Now in its third year, New Breed offers new and emerging choreographers the invaluable opportunity of working with dancers at the top of their game as part of a programme that introduces their work to a broad audience.

This year, independent choreographers Rachel Arianne Ogle (Perth) and Shian Law (Melbourne) along with SDC members Jesse Scales (Hobart) and Richard Cilli (Perth) will create works to be performed by SDC dancers at Carriageworks, Sydney’s contemporary multi-arts centre from November 29.

With the support of The Balnaves Foundation, the New Breed initiative was launched in 2014, with the aim of championing the next generation of Australian choreographic talent and their professional development. Five young choreographers were selected in November 2014 to create new dance works. Dubbed an “impressive and entertainingly varied collection of new dance” by Daily Review, it resulted in two sold out seasons in 2014 and 2015.

For her work Wildebeest, Adelaide-based New Breed 2014 choreographer Gabrielle Nankivell was awarded the 2015 Tanja Liedtke Fellowship. Gerlinde Liedtke, Chair of the Board of Trustees of the Tanja Liedtke Foundation, described Nankivell as “totally committed to finding new levels of excellence in her craft”. Sydney Dance Company will include Wildebeest alongside Artistic Director Rafael Bonachela’s newest piece, Anima, in a double bill entitled Untamed, opening at Sydney’s Roslyn Packer Theatre on October 18. The 2015 New Breed programme was met with similar acclaim in Ludwigshaven, Germany, while the Sydney season was extended in order to meet ticket demand.

For New Breed 2016, Ogle, Law, Scales and Cilli will likewise benefit from the ongoing support of Carriageworks and SDC. From August to December 2016, the resources and expertise of Australia’s leading contemporary dance company will be available to these young artists as they prepare their new works.

On New Breed’s third year, Carriageworks Director Lisa Havilah reaffirmed the initiative’s commitment to “supporting the development of contemporary Australian dance” and to establishing “professional pathways for emerging choreographers”. Havilah said she hopes that this “important initiative” will assist in the development of “new audiences for Australian dance”. Similarly, Bonachela views New Breed as a further investment in “what we believe is the very foundation of the future of Australian contemporary dance – its creator”.

New Breed 2016 will play at Carriageworks from November 29 to December 10