A “once-in-a-lifetime” program of dance works of scale will be coming to Sydney in January, including ۱۱ international works from France, Belgium, South Africa and beyond making their Australian premiere.
The program, which triples the scale of the dance offering at the last Sydney festival, will bring ۱۷۴ performers and crew to Sydney, with the crowning jewel being the acclaimed French choreographer Rachid Ouramdane’s Outsider. The ۲۰۲۴ work features ۲۱ dancers from the Ballet du Grand Théâtre de Genève and four elite athletes, navigating a “cat’s cradle” of high wires and slack lines, to the mesmerising, minimalist music of the avant garde composer Julius Eastman.
Outsider will be performed in a purpose-built ۷۲۰-seat theatre in the recently renovated Cutaway at Barangaroo – the first time the space has been activated for theatrical performance. The venue will also host Christos Papadopoulos’s My Fierce Ignorant Step; a double bill of works by the Chinese choreographer Tao Ye with his company TAO Dance Theatre; and a new work by genre-defying collective (La)Horde, best known for their work with pop stars such as Madonna, Sam Smith and Rosalía.
Under the banner of the Sydney festival, which announces its full program on ۱۹ October, this is the first southern hemisphere outing for Dance Reflections, an international festival funded by French jewellery maison Van Cleef and Arpels, which has previously been staged in cities such as London, New York, Hong Kong and Seoul.
“Dance Reflections has been a real gamechanger in the creation and dissemination of dance on this scale,” says the Sydney festival director, Kris Nelson, who witnessed first-hand the impact the inaugural festival had in London, where he was working at the time.
In Sydney, he says, it will be a “once-in-a-lifetime” opportunity for dance lovers, including the Australian debuts of Ouramdane, (La)Horde and the rising star Leïla Ka, who has choreographed for Beyoncé. The Belgian master Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker will return to Australia with her company Rosas, and, from Australia, there’s a brand new work from Indigenous and intercultural dance company Marrugeku.
It’s been more than a decade since Sydney’s last major dance festival, Spring Dance. Launched by the Sydney Opera House in ۲۰۰۹, it ran for four years and featured superstars such as Akram Khan and Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui, before being dropped in ۲۰۱۳ for financial reasons. At the time, the Sydney Opera House CEO Louise Herron described the city’s dance audience as “relatively small but passionate”.
Nelson is hoping that’s changed. “I’m not daunted,” he says, pointing to the viral popularity of dance on TikTok, and the pop cultural work of choreographers such as (La)Horde and Leïla Ka, who draw from queer club culture and street dance.
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The festival is offering ۱۰,۰۰۰ A-Reserve tickets across the program at $۴۹, and two works will be free: Trisha Brown’s seminal Roof Piece, in the gallery spaces of the Art Gallery of NSW; and the Belgian choreographer Cassiel Gaube’s tribute to house music, Soirée d’études, in the public space at Carriageworks.
“I’m really excited because we’re presenting a massive sampler of different kinds of dance, from the super classical to the acrobatic, to clubby and queer, personality-driven dance with big characters on stage, and works where you’re watching these incredible bodies do amazing geometry,” Nelson says. “This is your chance to test it out.”
