Sydney Dance Company takes to Sydney Opera House with a high-impact triple bill celebrating the strength, precision, and expressive power of the human body. Engine unites three extraordinary choreographers – Rafael Bonachela, Fran Díaz and Melanie Lane – in an exhilarating showcase of contemporary dance.
Sydney Dance Company Artistic Director Rafael Bonachela’s new work, The Journey Itself Is Home, is set to a score by Grammy Award–winning composer Bryce Dessner and draws inspiration from the writings of 17th-century Japanese poet Matsuo Bashō. Exploring movement as a state of being, the work traces an evolving landscape of change, longing and transformation, where fragility and strength exist in tension. Bonachela’s signature style drives the work’s shifting emotional arc, underscoring a choreography that unfolds through momentum rather than destination. Bryce Dessner’s four-movement score weaves together orchestral and electronic recordings, reflecting the arc of tension, release and renewal.
Berlin-based Spanish choreographer Fran Díaz, one of Europe’s most exciting rising talents, makes his Australian debut with The Mass Ornament, set to the music of Polish composer Henryk Górecki. Reimagining Siegfried Kracauer’s 1927 essay, Díaz transforms mass movement into a study of the collective and the individual to reveal a deeply human network where bodies operate in unison, en masse, in constant dialogue with one another.
The program includes the Sydney return of the critically acclaimed Love Lock – a vivid, futuristic work that collides romance, tradition, and imagination – by Australian choreographer of Javanese/European cultural heritage Melanie Lane. Drawing on social ritual, symbolic gesture and the emotional charge of love songs, Lane reimagines folk dance for an accelerating world, celebrating its power to move, warn and empower. Featuring spectacular costumes by legendary Australian designer Akira Isogawa and a pulsating score by UK electronic artist Clark, Love Lock unfolds with a palpable otherworldly energy.
For the first time Sydney Dance Company will offer an under 25’s ticket tier of $35, encouraging greater access to the physicality, creativity and innovation of contemporary dance. This will be an ongoing offering during Sydney Dance Company’s mainstage Sydney seasons.
June 24 – July 12
Image: Pedro Greig