Speed and athleticism are the hallmarks of The Australian Ballet's latest program of contemporary dance, one that brings together works by three critically acclaimed choreographers.
Faster is a triple bill showcasing the work of British choreographers David Bintley and Wayne McGregor and AB resident choreographer Tim Harbour. It premieres at the Arts Centre, Melbourne (March 17-27) before travelling to the Sydney Opera House in April.
The Australian Ballet's artistic director David McAllister says including McGregor's latest work in the program, fresh from its world premiere in London this month [November], is a coup for the company.
"It's a celebration of Wayne's 10 years as resident choreographer at the Royal Ballet and it has a commissioned score by Steve Reich, who has just turned 80," McAllister says. "It's an anniversary piece and so new it hasn't got a name yet. It's in creation as we speak but it is very exciting to have it headlining the Faster program."
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Dancer Jake Mangakahia says McGregor's work is thrilling for a performer because of the precision it demands. "Wayne can make the body look like liquid and at other times, the movement can be very angular," says Mangakahia, a rising star in the corps de ballet.
"Often the movement starts in the back or the ribcage and the head movements seem to float above the body. It's really cool for a dancer because you get to explore what your body can do and what emotions that might bring for the audience when they see it."
McGregor's high-energy choreography is particularly exciting for the male dancers in the company, he says. "The guys love it because it shows off the strength of a man with lots of jumps and spins and there is always an element of surprise," Mangakahia says. "It takes the dancers and the audience on an adventure."
Contemporary dance in 2017
Expect a strong dance presence in the summer arts festivals, with the Sydney Festival welcoming Indonesia's Ekosdance Company for the Australian premieres of Cry Jailolo, performed by young men of a remote coastal town, and its companion piece, the all-female Balabala (Carriageworks, January 7-10).
Wesley Enoch's first Sydney Festival program also welcomes Townsville's Dancenorth and dancers from Tokyo in Spectra, a fusion of contemporary western movement and Japanese Butoh (Seymour Centre, January 11-15), and Canada's explosive Company 605 for its Australian debut with Inheritor Album (Carriageworks, January 15-19).
The Adelaide Festival hosts the Australian premiere of the Israeli company L-E-V, an offshoot of the revered Batsheva Dance Company, founded by principal dancer-choreographer Sharon Eyal and multimedia designer Gai Behar.
The company's shows, Killer Pig and OCD Love (Her Majesty's Theatre, Adelaide, March 18 and March 19 respectively) feature pulsating soundtracks by techno pioneer Ori Lichtik and the Swedish electronic music duo The Knife in shows The New York Times likened to "a Hieronymous Bosch painting of an extraterrestrial rave".
The Sydney Dance Company presents its season of emerging choreographers in New Breed 2016 at Sydney's Carriageworks (November 29-December 10) before opening 2017 with a new double bill titled Orb (Sydney, April 28-May 13; Melbourne, May 17-20; Canberra, May 25-27), comprised of Ocho, a new work by SDC artistic director Rafael Bonachela, and Full Moon, created for the company by Taiwan's Cheng Tsung-lung, artistic director of the Taipei-based Cloud Gate 2 Theatre.
Bringing the traditional and the contemporary together, Bangarra Dance Theatre will tour extensively in 2017, taking choreographer Frances Rings' acclaimed Terrain to Ballarat, Bendigo, Mildura, Hobart, Geelong and Shepparton from February.
Melbourne's Asia TOPA: Asia-Pacific Triennial of Performing Arts (February 13-March 6) shines a light on contemporary music, theatre and dance from across the region. Highlights include the National Ballet of China's revival of The Red Detachment of Women, the iconic Cultural Revolution statement performed for US President Richard Nixon when he visited China in 1972, and a visit from China's TAO Dance Theatre, which will performs two works - 6 and 8 – for the first time in Australia.
Melbourne's Chunky Move premieres a new production, Antigravity, at the Malthouse from March 17-26. A collaboration between choreographer Anouk van Dijk and the Singaporean visual artist Ho Tzu Nyen, it explores the ethereal nature of clouds and their power to heighten or disturb human existence.
The program for Melbourne's Dance Massive, the country's only contemporary dance festival, has yet to be finalised at time of writing but the event is scheduled for March 14-26.
Classical dance in 2017
The Australian Ballet makes a feature of its leading women in 2017 with David McAllister's reimagined The Sleeping Beauty, Graeme Murphy's Nutcracker: The Story of Clara and Christopher Wheeldon's epic new story ballet Alice's Adventures in Wonderland.
Principal dancer Amber Scott will perform the role of Alice in Melbourne from September 12, and in Sydney from December 5 at the Capitol Theatre, the company's temporary home during the renovation of Sydney Opera House's Joan Sutherland Theatre.
Alice's Adventure's in Wonderland will be the largest work The Australian Ballet has ever staged, both in terms of the number of dancers (it was originally created for the 90 dancers in The Royal Ballet in 2011), and the scale of the Bob Crowley-designed production.
David McAllister's opulent The Sleeping Beauty, with costumes and sets by the multi-award-winning theatre designer Gabriela Tylesova, returns for an encore season at Queensland Performing Arts Centre from February 24, the Arts Centre, Melbourne (from June 16) and Sydney's Capitol Theatre from November 11. The 2017 production's Auroras are Benedicte Bemet, Robyn Hendricks and Leanne Stojmenov.
Graeme Murphy's Nutcracker: The Story of Clara, a radical retelling of the original story, celebrates its 25th year in Australian Ballet repertoire in 2017. It opens in Sydney in May, making it the final ballet to play in the Opera House's Joan Sutherland Theatre before the construction crews move in. It plays in Melbourne from June 2.
Melbourne audiences will see the triple bill showcase Symphony in C featuring works by corps de ballet dancers Richard House and Alice Topp and George Balanchine (Arts Centre, August 24 – September 2).
In Brisbane, The Queensland Ballet gets Raw in March with a neoclassical triptych of Christopher Bruce's 1981 work Ghost Dances, Liam Scarlett's No Man's Land and Glass Concerto, choreographed by Greg Horsman to the music of Phillip Glass. The company performs Swan Lake at the Lyric Theatre, from May 5-13.
Lovers of the Russian school and traditional grandeur can give themselves a pre-Christmas present with the St Petersburg Ballet's touring productions of The Nutcracker and Swan Lake as they touch down in Adelaide (December 8-11), Melbourne (December 13-17) and Sydney (December 20-24).