Friday 4 September 2026 (20.30 session)

Review by Paul Neeson (Arts Wednesday)

Current is the centrepiece of Sydney Dance Company’s celebration of 40 years at the wharf, performed in their intimate performance space in-the-round, the Neilson Studio at SDC. In 1986 they moved from a disused warehouse in Woolloomooloo to the state-of-the-art shiny new facilities at Walsh Bay. The creativity under Graham Murphy and Janet Vernon blossomed in their new digs to become one of the premier contemporary dance companies in the world. Current is a fitting celebration of that journey.

The work comprises four short works: an Australian premiere from Artistic Director Rafael Bonachela, and three world premieres from emerging and exciting new choreographers. The space is intimate with the audience in rows on all four sides of the stage. There is no room for sets, so that along with the fixed overhead lighting it subsequently focused all our attention on the dancers.

E2 7SD – Rafael Bonachela (Lucy Angel and Sam Winkler)

The show opened with Bonachela’s E2 7SD, a very physical duet. The title refers to the East London postcode where Bonachela lived and created the award winning work in 2004. The voices embedded in the soundtrack are the original London dancers, which firmly positions the work in London, not Sydney. This is the first time it has been performed in Australia and Caití Ellen Carpenter and Jai Fauchon gave a very intimate and at times ultra physical performance. The choreography repeatedly transitions from intimate embraces, to sexually charged violence, constantly challenging and upsetting our centre of emotional balance. I’m guessing in another session we would see Lucy Angel and Sam Winkler in the roles, as Lucy explains in the interview below.

Next we had Alpha Mutt from Tasmanian choreographer, Jenni Large. The arresting black costumes (Aleisa Jelbart) accentuate the idea of domination implicit in the work. Using the analogy of a dog, Large explores the concept of control and obedience/submission. For this work the dancers were required to dance in running shoes (as opposed to their usual bare feet or flats) which created its own set of issues, not least being the squeaky noises they made on the dance floor. It was disappointing that the lighting (Alexander Berlage) was at such a low level which meant for me we lost a lot of the detail in the movements and the subtleties of the dancers’ bodies. The ensemble work was at times perfectly synchronised and these moments were exquisitely beautiful.

OUR(SELF) was the next item on the bill, a work from Sudanese born Azzam Mohamed. This was an unusual work that was developed with input from the ensemble. It was reminiscent of a dance-off where a group of street dancers stand around a soloist or small group who improvise, one at a time, and try to outdo each other – competitive but at the same time supportive. Mohamed incorporates many forms of street dance, including Afro-House, Kuduro, Hip Hop, Popping and House. While individually, each form and dancer were virtuosically brilliant, the work overall felt it didn’t know what it wanted to be.

Saving the best till last, Raghav Handa’s One Song was a burst of colour, an explosion of high-energy choreography and an electronic symphony of techno beats (James Peter Brown). The work was infused with Handa’s tradition of Indian kathak movement, and the costumes also referenced the subcontinent. This was super physical dancing at its mesmerising best, climaxing in an (almost) out-of-control but professionally contained rave. I felt I was back in the Hordern Pavilion at Mardi Gras circa 1995. When the work came to a triumphant conclusion, the dancers were exhausted like the ecstatic followers of Bacchus, lying on the floor, spent and breathing heavily trying to regain some oxygen.

We experienced a lot of new and experimental dance forms in this quadruple bill. This constant revision and re-examining of the genre must inevitably lead to new and unique forms and styles. Sydney Dance Company – please keep doing this innovative and essential work. If Current is the culmination of 40 years at the Wharf, I can’t wait to see what comes next.

Season runs until 20 September

You can listen to a recent interview with Lucy Angel here: