Dan McCabe/PICA
Shelley Lasica was the first dance artist represented by an Australian commercial gallery. But how do you stage an exhibition on dance?
Jada Narkle photographed by T.J. Garvie.
The theatre, dance and music works at this year’s festival have helped fulfil a three-pronged vision from some two decades ago.
Kate Longley/The Australian Ballet
In their 60-year history, this will be The Australian Ballet’s fifth take on Swan Lake. It has opened in Melbourne before touring nationally.
Daniel Boud/The Australian Ballet
The Australian Ballet’s new double-bill Identity stages the work of Daniel Riley and Alice Topp in a reflection of the identity of Australian dance – and Australia.
Exposed by Restless Dance Theatre.
Roy Vandervegt/Arts House
Some offerings were political and academic, some were celebratory. Some told us personal or cultural stories, some had 100 dancers, some had one.
West Australian Ballet/Bradbury Photography
Choreographer Krzysztof Pastor reproduces something familiar with a dash of local flavour.
Abby Murray/Rising
With former Chunky Move founder and choreographer Gideon Obarzanek as co-director, dance had a heavy presence at this year’s Rising festival.
Roy Vandervegt/Adelaide Festival
Choreographer Stephanie Lake brings together nine dancers and nine drummers in this thrillingly original work.
Emma Fishwick/Perth Festival
Rachel Arianne Ogle’s new chorography is an exploration of mortality and death.
Abby Murray
From Broome-based dance company Marrugeku, this new work is a throbbing protest about the violence experienced by Indigenous, racial, trans and queer Australia.
Yaya Stempler
This new dance work from Chunky Move is mesmerising and wondrously odd.
The Yomiuri Shimbun via AP Images
Minor human errors beautifully show Tokyo’s opening ceremony for what it is: real people in real time.
Daniel Boud/Bangarra
Embedding traditional dance stories and modern dance within Bangarra’s signature style, SandSong is a rich, evocative and powerful production.
Perth Festival/Christophe Canato
From choreographer Emma Fishwick, this slow, dreamy performance and its cast of 15 dancers, speaks especially loudly to Australia of today.
Roy Vandervegt/Adelaide Festival
This new work from Restless Dance Theatre is staged in a bowling ally, and asks us to consider the possibilities of perspective.
Yaya Stempler/Sydney Festival
Force Majeure’s The Last Season, directed by Danielle Micich, forges a stimulating but disjointed narrative.
British-Bangladeshi choreographer Akram Khan draws in the dance training of his cast to create a whole new genre of performance.
Jean Louis Fernandez/OzAsia Festival
The most exciting work at OzAsia cuts across genres, styles, and cultures to create something distinctive and new. This year, three new dance works did just that.
Sunset is collaboration between freelance director and choreographer Maxine Doyle and Western Australia’s STRUT Dance, in association with Tura New Music.
Simon Pynt
As part of the 2019 Perth Festival, dance-theatre performance Sunset takes place in a former men’s home on the banks of the Swan River.
Ngathu, in Bangarra’s Ones Country, is a brilliant combination of the contemporary and traditional, telling the story of the ngathu, or cycad, in Arnhem Land.
Photo by Daniel Boud
Bangarra’s current season of three new works, Ones Country, is uneven in parts but worth seeing for the diversity of Indigenous stories from some new choreographic voices.
Hummus becomes a “choreographic texture” in We Love Arabs.
Gadi Dagon
We Love Arabs is a complex satire that blends dance, theatre and hummus to investigate the politics of Israeli Jews and Arabs.