INDance 2025 Program

FOUR INDEPENDENT CONTEMPORARY DANCE WORKS

14 - 23 AUGUST

NEILSON STUDIO

SYDNEY DANCE COMPANY IS BASED IN WALSH BAY SYDNEY. OUR STUDIOS ARE ON THE LANDS AND OVER THE WATERS OF THE GADIGAL. WE RECOGNISE THEIR CONTINUING CONNECTION TO THE LAND AND WATERS AND THANK THEM FOR PROTECTING THIS COASTLINE AND ITS ECOSYSTEMS SINCE TIME IMMEMORIAL. WE PAY OUR RESPECTS TO ELDERS PAST AND PRESENT, AND EXTEND THAT RESPECT TO ALL FIRST NATIONS PEOPLE.

2

SYDNEYDANCECOMPANY.COM

WELCOME TO INDANCE Supported by the Neilson Foundation

We are thrilled to present our fourth season of INDance, connecting independent contemporary dancemakers to Sydney audiences.

We thank the Neilson Foundation for their visionary investment in this initiative, fostering continuous development of a flourishing landscape for independent dance in Sydney.

It’s exciting to provide this opportunity to witness these innovative works from independent dance makers at the Neilson Studio in the Walsh Bay Arts Precinct. It’s a great way to show our commitment to promoting and supporting Australian artists, their collaborators and the works they produce.

This year’s program explores diverse and innovative concepts that push the boundaries of dance, reflecting the rich and vibrant contemporary Australian landscape.

Audiences will experience a breadth of creative expression through the choreographic voices of Rebecca Jensen, Amy Zhang, Alison Currie & Alisdair Macindoe and Jo Lloyd and their incredible teams of collaborators.

Endean take us through a duet where dance and sound interconnect, urging us to refocus our attention, as we unwittingly fall out of sync.

This is followed by Amy Zhang’s [ gameboy ].

Inspired by Japanese game shows, video games and internet culture, two avatars dropped into the game of life. They’re put through the ringer and tested on their ability to stay in the game.

Week Two brings two very different works.

In Progress Report, Alison Currie & Alisdair Macindoe critique and unravel our relationship to consumerism and waste. The final work, FM Air, created by Jo Lloyd, appears and disappears – like a scent.

We trust this program full of incredible concepts, created and performed by cuttingedge independent Australian artists, will take audiences on a journey through exhilarating contemporary dance.

Rafael Bonachela Artistic Director

Lou Oppenheim Executive Director

This season of INDance was curated by Rafael and an independent panel, who we would like to thank for their support in the curation process.

Over three nights each week, you will experience different styles, moods and themes, through four unique dance works.

In Week One, we are excited to present works from two powerful artists. In Slip, choreographer and dancer Rebecca Jensen and musician Aviva

#2025SDC

3

FM Air Photo by: Peter Rosetzky

4

SYDNEYDANCECOMPANY.COM

CONTENTS

WEEK ONE • PAGE 6 SLIP • PAGES 7 – 10 [ GAMEBOY ] • PAGES 11 – 15

WEEK TWO • PAGE 16 PROGRESS REPORT • PAGES 17 – 20 FM AIR • PAGES 21 – 24

#2025SDC

5

WEEK ONE THURSDAY 14 AUGUST TO SATURDAY 16 AUGUST 6.00PM - SLIP

BY REBECCA JENSEN WITH AVIVA ENDEAN 7.45PM - [ GAMEBOY ]

BY AMY ZHANG

6

SYDNEYDANCECOMPANY.COM

Slip Photo by: Zan Wimberley

#2025SDC

7

SLIP Excerpt from Slip Essay

by Roslyn Orlando 2023 “This slip of time and sound can stretch to much bigger timescales. For example, a balletic choreography of disembodied arms to The Dying Swan by Camille Saint-Saens, invokes a video of Anna Pavlova’s famous ballet performance, recorded in 1929. However, if the song is interspersed with sound effects from the virtual reality game Waltz of the Wizard, the disembodied arms suddenly and simultaneously refer to a virtual world envisioned a hundred years later, a world where real arms represent fake arms and real-world gestures only affect objects in a non-material realm. This slippage across centuries and realms produces a kind of portal where two time-spaces come into contact. The ‘subtle error’ is recalibrated as a new reality.

Technology has done much to produce an out-of-sync world. From the early example of Pavlova’s recorded dance, which has allowed it to become reproduced countless times across the century, to the proliferation of recording and dissemination apparatuses all over the world, reality has become layered over itself. A 24-hour day will now produce 30,000 hours of recorded time on YouTube alone. As the world becomes less comprehensible through the layers of data that feed our daily experiences, algorithmic protocols are used to assist in organising content. These invisible, algorithmic processes are akin to the incantations of medieval occultists, drawing us into relational webs of desire, imagination, premonition and promissory cure, leading us into a new dark age – an age of unverified truths. At some point, sounds out of time become all sounds playing at once.

The possibility that everything can be repeated opens up all portals to total cacophony.

A dancer falters momentarily, is flung back and forth in her body, never presenting as one discreet entity, not wholly definable but rather a gesturing, glitching body attached outwards at all times.”

Full essay

8

Choreographer

Rebecca Jensen

Composer

Aviva Endean

Visual Design

Romanie Harper

LX Design

Jennifer Hector

Animation

Patrick Hamilton

Technical Operator

Jordi Edwards

Outside Eye

Lana Šprajcer

Slip premiered at Darebin Arts Speakeasy as part of FRAME: A biennial of dance. It was initially commissioned for the 2022 Keir Choreographic Award by Dancehouse, the Keir Foundation, and Australia Council for the Arts, with presenting partner Carriageworks. Further development was supported by Lucy Guerin Inc ‘Moving Forward’ Residency, and the Chloe Munro Fellowship.

SYDNEYDANCECOMPANY.COM

SLIP REBECCA JENSEN WITH AVIVA ENDEAN

Choreographer Rebecca Jensen is a dancer, choreographer, and teacher, born in Tāmaki Makaurau (Auckland) (1988) and based in Narrm. Her work ranges in scale and medium, including performance for theatres, galleries, and unconventional spaces, alongside participatory projects, community events, and films. Her low-fi, process-driven practice focuses on the body, and the interdisciplinary potential of choreography. She works through dance, utilising it’s equally speculative and practical qualities to, encourage reflection, connection and transformation.

Rebecca has presented work in festivals including Tempo festival Auckland 2019, 2024, Nelson Arts Festival 2024, FRAME Biennale 2023, the Kier Choreographic Award 2016/2022, Front Beach Back Beach 2022, CONTACT HIGH, Gertrude Glasshouse 2021 & PAGEANT New York 2025, Blindside Gallery 2021, College Dance, La Biennale di Venezia 2018, Dance Massive Festival 2015/2017. Her long form collaboration with Sarah Aiken includes a suite of eco-horror works.

Together they direct participatory dance project Deep Soulful Sweats which has been presented across Australia and internationally since 2013.

Rebecca is influenced by her extensive history working as a performer with choreographers including Jo Lloyd, Lucy Guerin Inc, Shelley Lasica, Harrison Ritchie Jones, Lee Serle and Adam Linder. Alongside this, her teaching work is an integral part of her practice and feeds her enduring interests in the body and researching how movement is embodied, transmitted, and cited. She is a 2015 DanceWEB scholar, Australia Council Cité internationale des arts resident 2020 and was Resident Director of Lucy Guerin inc 2023 and is a Gertrude Studio Artist 2024 - 2026.

#2025SDC

9

SLIP COLLABORATORS AVIVA ENDEAN (Composer)

JENNIFER HECTOR (LX Design)

Aviva Endean is a clarinettist, composer, and performance-maker dedicated to connecting people with each other and their environment through attentive listening. Her creative practice opens up possibilities for collaborations, transcending the traditional in favour of a dynamic artistry which embraces the unfamiliar.

Whilst deeply steeped in music, her vision extends beyond her primary artform to expand ways in which sound can be experienced and understood, and to discover new forms of expression that reflect the here and now.

A graduate of the Victorian College of the Arts (VCA), Jenny Hector’s designs have garnered acclaim both nationally and internationally, and has been honoured with two Green Room Awards, including the 2016 Award for Technical Achievement. Recently Jenny has designed for Ilbijerri Theatre Company Big Name, No Blankets, Guts Dance SUB, Decibel New Music Twin Peaks is 30, Cornelius, Dee, and Wilks Bad Boy. Her other notable contributions include lighting designs for Cornelius, Dee, and Wilks Runt, Fraught Outfit’s Exodus II, Prue Lang’s Stellar, Sandra Parker’s Out of Light, and Jo Lloyd’s Overture. Jenny is a member of the Australasian Dark Sky Alliance and the recipient of two Green Room awards and the 2016 Award for Technical Achievement.

Aviva’s solo music has been released on Room40 (Lawrence English) SOFA music (Norway) and FRIM (Sweden) with solo and collaborative shows presented by major festivals including Huddersfield Festival (UK), Music Meeting (NL), Sound of Stockholm (SE), DarkMOFO, MONA FOMA (TAS), and The Substation (Melbourne), as well as appearing as soloist with Sydney, Brisbane and Melbourne Symphony Orchestras. She has worked in close collaboration with organisations including Chunky Move, Australian Art Orchestra, Chamber Made, and Liquid Architecture and is an ongoing member of Hand to Earth, The Cloud Maker, and Driftwood.

JORDI EDWARDS (Technical Operator) Jordi Edwards is an Audio-Visual Technician, Light designer and Artist from Deer Park in the Western Suburbs of Melbourne. He has spent the last ten years working and touring in a number of different fields of live performance including Music, Theatre, Dance and installations.

ROMANIE HARPER (Visual Design)

LANA ŠPRAJCER (Outside Eye)

Romanie Harper is a designer from Naarm/ Melbourne working across theatre, dance and experimental performance. Recent design credits include The Black Woman of Gippsland, Meet Me at Dawn and Sunshine Super Girl (Melbourne Theatre Company), Swim (Griffin Theatre Company), Fu*ck Christmas, Nosferatu, K-BOX, Australian Realness, Trustees, Good Muslim Boy and Little Emperors (Malthouse), 8/8/8: REST and 8/8/8:WORK (Rising Festival), The Crying Room; Exhumed (The Substation), The Master & Margarita, The Cherry Orchard and Packer and Sons (Belvoir St Theatre), Shhh and Desert 6.29pm (Red Stitch Actors Theatre), Hercules, Die! Old People Die! and We All Know Whats Happening (Arts House), What Am I Supposed to Do? (Deep Souful Sweats), Slip, Contest and Moral Panic (Darebin Speakeasy), Bad Boy, Runt and This Is Eden (Fortyfive Downstairs).

Lana Šprajcer is an independent dance artist based in Naarm. Born in Zagreb, Croatia, where she graduated with a BA in Contemporary Dance and a BA in Comparative Literature, collaborated and performed for many nationally acclaimed choreographers and co-founded Mold Kolektiv, a collective of visual / dance artists with whom she continues to make and perform choreographic works in Europe.

In Australia, she has worked and performed with artists / choreographers Shelley Lasica, Rebecca Jensen, Jo Lloyd, Alicia Frankovich among others. Her writings on dance have been published at plesnascena.com and danceis.com.

She teaches Guided Dance Practice at LGI.

10

SYDNEYDANCECOMPANY.COM

[ gameboy ] Photo by: Jade Ellis

#2025SDC

11

[ GAMEBOY ]

[ gameboy ], a dance theatre work that fuses street styles and contemporary, drops two avatars into the game of life.

Created by Amy Zhang, and featuring two of Australia’s sought-after dancers William ‘Billy’ Keohavong and Ko Yamada, the work questions what is the secret to winning at life.

Inspired by Japanese game shows, video games and internet culture, two avatars are put through the ringer and tested on their ability to stay in the game.

Through a series of increasingly difficult levels, [ gameboy ] challenges players to truly consider the consequences of their actions.

Will they win?

12

Choreographer

Amy Zhang

Sound Designer

Jackson Garcia

Contributing Composer

Maxwell ‘Thv Flood’ Douglas

Performer / Collaborator

William ‘Billy’ Keohavong & Ko Yamada

Lighting Designer

Theodore Carroll

Special thanks

Emma Wong

SYDNEYDANCECOMPANY.COM

[ GAMEBOY ] AMY ZHANG

Choreographer Amy Zhang is an in-demand movement director, choreographer and casting director based on Gadigal Land (Sydney). Her work spans across film, tv, theatre and live performance.

Her work is grounded in Chinese ways of knowing and storytelling through experimenting with the intersections of street style foundations and contemporary frameworks.

Amy’s work has caught the eye of many, choreographing for global brands such as Hermes, Cartier, Nike, Calvin Klein as well the likes of Rita Ora, The Veronicas and Pnau Pnau. Her work has been featured at Australian Fashion Week, as well as on Channel 10, ABC, SBS and Nowness. She has also collaborated with Google to curate an AI dance app that was presented at Google I/O annual developer conference in Los Angeles.

In the arts space, Amy has worked with organisations across theatre and major galleries including, Hong Kong Museum of Art (M+), Art Gallery of NSW, The Hayes Theatre, Arts House, QPAC, The Gallery of Modern Art (GoMA), Adelaide Fringe Festival and Belvoir St Theatre.

Amy was also an artist in residence at the City of Sydney Live/Work residency in 2019-2020.

#2025SDC

13

[ GAMEBOY ] COLLABORATORS JACKSON GARCIA (Sound Designer) Jackson Garcia is a movement and music artist based on Gadigal land. Jack is a well recognised street dancer who has competed and performed all around the world. Having grown up playing the drums, Jack combines this with his understanding of street dance and their cultures to inform his music.

His unique take on sound has found Jack creating sound for many movement performances in both the digital and live space.

Performances that he has created sound for have been shown in places like, Performance Space, First Draft, 4A Centre for Contemporary Asian Art and Metro Arts.

WILLIAM ‘BILLY’ KEOHAVONG (Performer/Collaborator) Born in Australia, William (Billy) Keohavong is a scholarship recipient of both New Zealand School of Dance, and Ev & Bow Full-Time Training Centre. His journey into dance started with Street Dance, specifically Dancehall and House. Billy was then offered a position with The Human Expression (THE) Dance Company (Singapore) as a full-time Artist. This opportunity brought him all over Asia and Europe, performing and touring extensively within festivals like; Florence Dance Festival (Italy), Zawirowania Dance Festival (Poland), Laiks Dejot Festival (Latvia), Fukuoka Fringe Dance Festival (Japan), Daegu Dance Festival (South Korea), Bangkok International Dance Festival (Thailand) and M1 Contact Dance Festival (Singapore); just to name a few. He has worked with highly acclaimed choreographers such as: Sue Healy, Ross McCormack, Meryl Tankard, Martin del Amo, Tor Colombus, Kuik Swee Boon, Sarah Boulter, Shaun Parker and Natalie Allen.

MAXWELL ‘THV FLOOD’ DOUGLAS (Contributing Composer) Track: “Respawn” KO YAMADA (Performer/Collaborator) Ko is a freelance dancer, choreographer, event organiser and movement artist based in Sydney Eora. With over 20 years of experience in dance, Ko is a versatile mover, having trained in classical ballet, contemporary, tap, jazz, hip hop, breaking, popping, locking and house. Ko has studied and graduated from The Australian Ballet School’s ITP program, Newtown High School of the Performing Arts and The Next Step Performing Arts Professional. His work in many different dance scenes has taken him around the world, having travelled to the US, UK, Europe, Asia, Oceania and Africa performing, choreographing, teaching, battling, judging and learning from many masters across the globe.

With his versatility in dance styles, Ko has worked on a several range of dance works both as a performer and choreographer. In recent years, he has dived into the world of theatre performance and dance films, exploring the artistry of movement both on stage and on film.

His recent appearances in theatre include FORM & FLOW by Daniela Plonova at Adelaide Fringe Festival 2025, [ gameboy ] by Amy Zhang at Dance24 Festival by Metro Arts 2024 and Blanc de Blanc Uncorked by Strut & Fret 2023-2025.

His recent film appearances include Disney’s Zombies 4 directed by Paul Hoen and The Long Walk directed and choreographed by Sue Healey.

Billy is now the Rehearsal Master and Artist at ‘THE’ Dance Company.

14

SYDNEYDANCECOMPANY.COM

THEODORE CARROLL (Lighting Designer) Theodore Carroll is a transgender, Gadigalbased multidisciplinary artist, producer, and designer. In 2022, he co-founded the indie production company Red Zebra Productions, dedicated to creating bold, immersive works that challenge artistic boundaries.

In 2024, Theo was appointed Designer in Residence at PACT Centre for Emerging Artists, debuting his work with Marcus Whale’s Ecstasy Album Launch, which was later performed at Liveworks Festival. Recently, he co-designed as an associate designer alongside Frankie Clarke for FORM Dance at Riverside Parramatta.

Other recent design works include the highly received Papers from the Citadel, PACT Centre for Emerging Artists (2025) where he received mentorship as part of his design residency

by Fausto Brusamolino, Flip The Script, PACT (2025), Lucky Lartey’s Full Circle, PACT (2025), Conscience, Joining the Dots Theatre (2025), Othello, Flightpath Theatre (2025), IDEA, FORM Dance at Eternity Playhouse (upcoming 2025) and he will be debuting his first lighting design as part of Fringe at Eternity Playhouse later in 2025 as a collaboration with Lucky Lartey on Ghana Road Show. Theo’s lighting design credits span across a total of 150 works.

Theo was selected in 2024 for KXT on Broadway’s In the Vault residency program for his upcoming immersive production The Bacchae. A development of this work premiered as part of PACT Underground in 2024 under the name Bacchants, with further support from the Inner West Council’s Creative Town Hall Program. Theo’s collaborative approach has been recognised across mediums, Looking for Haberfield, a film he co-directed for Don’t Talk Productions was officially selected for the Lift-Off Filmmaker Sessions Volume 5 (2025), and he was selected as a finalist and award winner at the Stinkwater Film Festival (2024).

His practice continues to push the boundaries of multidisciplinary performance, merging design, theatre, and audience immersion.

#2025SDC

15

WEEK TWO THURSDAY 21 AUGUST TO SATURDAY 23 AUGUST 6.00PM - PROGRESS REPORT

BY ALISON CURRIE & ALISDAIR MACINDOE 7.45PM - FM AIR

BY JO LLOYD

16

SYDNEYDANCECOMPANY.COM

Progress Report Photo by: Gregory Lorenzutti

#2025SDC

17

PROGRESS REPORT

Progress Report critiques and unravels our relationship to consumerism and waste, exemplifying the imperative need to transform the value of garbage.

Co-direction, Choreography, Writing and Concept

Alison Currie and Alisdair Macindoe

Plunging into the psychology of the performer as they attempt to traverse an increasingly overwhelming world of industrial plastic waste, Progress Report puts our everyday decisions under the microscope to reveal contradictory, at times hilarious, and often unbearable truths.

Sound Designer

Sascha Budimski in collaboration with Alisdair Macindoe

Lighting, Set and Costume Design and Fabrication

Meg Wilson

Lighting Consultant

Matthew Adey

Wardrobe Assistant

Geoffrey Watson

Creative Producer

Jason Cross

Additional Polystyrene Set Build (NSW)

Mariska Lowri

Producers

Insite Arts

Soloists

Rachel Coulson & Geoffrey Watson

Choreographic Development Dancers

Lewis Rankin, Kialea-Nadine Williams, Cazna Brass

Special thanks

Penelope Leishman, Seb Calabretto StyroBoss

Progress Report brings together longtime collaborators, dancemakers and multidisciplinary artists Alison Currie and Alisdair Macindoe, and their mutual interest in the place of objects and subjects in performance.

Progress Report mirrors a dynamic state of change where objects, performer, text and choreography are in flux. Upcycled objects become friends, strangers, clothing, scientific specimens, and stunning yet unruly and daunting landscapes, that reduce back to packaging and rubbish in an instant.

Progress Report questions forces that shape our cultural norms and ideologies. Capricious and profound, this performance compels us to confront our complicity in an era defined by wastefulness, offering a potent vision for transformation.

Progress Report was commissioned through Vitalstatistix’s Incubator program in 2019 and premiered at Vitalstatistix in 2021, and has received support from Create SA, Creative Australia, the Australian Government RISE Funds, Insite Arts, The Substation and Dance Hub SA.

18

SYDNEYDANCECOMPANY.COM

PROGRESS REPORT ALISON CURRIE & ALISDAIR MACINDOE

Co-direction, Choreography, Writing and Concept Long-time multidisciplinary dance-makers, Alison Currie and Alisdair Macindoe explore the relationship between bodies and objects in their collaborations, weaving themes of technology, climate and consumerism, charting new territory in contemporary dance.

Fusing Macindoe’s multidisciplinary expertise in dance, sound, and coding with Currie’s proficiency converging visual art with performance, their works challenge our collective social conscience.

Recognised as an independent choreographer working at the nexus of visual arts, Currie’s practise is concerned with sculptural forms and environments in relation to the performer, connecting audiences with our universally shared humanity through live performance.

Currie’s significant independent and commissioned works include Concrete Impermanence, I Can Relate (Carriageworks), Of All Things (ADT), Somewhere, Everywhere, Nowhere, (with Yui Kawaguchi, OZAsia Festival) and Maintain, Rest, Value (with Ade Suharto). Currie was a Keir Award Finalist (De-Limit with David Cross) and awarded Arts South Australia’s inaugural Triennial Project Grant.

Macindoe is a multidisciplinary choreographer exploring Artificial Intelligence; new musical technology; trans-humanism; climate change; death; and identity in the age of narcissism. His works have been commissioned and presented widely including for Now or Never: Arts Centre Melbourne, FRAME Biennale: The Substation, Brisbane Festival: QPAC, Unwrapped: Sydney Opera House and PIECES: UMAC. As performer and sound designer, Macindoe has collaborated with Lucy Guerin, Antony Hamilton, and Stephanie Lake, touring over 50 cities worldwide. Macindoe has been awarded six Greenrooms, a Helpmann, and a New York Bessie, and was Resident Director, Lucy Guerin Inc 2019, a 2020-21 Sidney Myer Foundation Fellow, and a 2022 Chloe Munro Mid-Career Fellowship recipient.

Currie is based between Meanjin/Brisbane and Tarntanya/Adelaide and Macindoe in Naarm/Melbourne.

#2025SDC

19

PROGRESS REPORT COLLABORATORS SASCHA BUDIMSKI (Sound Design)

RACHEL COULSON (Soloist)

Sascha Budimski is an award-winning sound artist based in Kaurna/Adelaide who focuses on sound design and compositions for theatre, dance, and art installations. His work often incorporates electronic beats, glitched instruments, textured ambiences and evolving atmospheres.

Rachel Coulson is an independent dance artist and facilitator based in Naarm.

Sascha developed an interest in sound while studying dance at Adelaide College of Arts and holds a Diploma of Music Industry from the School of Audio Engineering, Adelaide.

His sound designs have been featured in productions throughout Australia and Europe, including performances in Germany, Spain, Belgium, Denmark, and Sweden.

MEG WILSON (Lighting, Set and Costume Design) Meg Wilson is a Kaurna/Adelaide based interdisciplinary artist and designer whose practice spans installation, performance and set, lighting and costume design.

Meg has designed for productions by State Theatre Company of South Australia, Windmill Theatre Co., Vitalstatistix, Theatre Republic and Restless Dance Theatre, and has created public projects for FELTspace, Open Space Contemporary Arts (OSCA), and curated a public program for ACE Open. Meg helped establish RUMPUS for whom she was venue designer, was Lead Artist Intern with The Rabble, 2016 and in 2018 resident artist with Urban Theatre Projects for Right Here. Right Now. Meg has exhibited independently with Contemporary Art Centre SA, BLINDSIDE, Constance ARI, Nexus Arts and FELTspace. Meg was awarded the 2019 Green Room Award for Contemporary and Experimental Performance (Innovation in Durational Performance).

20

Rachel has performed in works by Alisdair Macindoe, Alison Currie, Antony Hamilton, Melanie Lane, Rebecca Jensen + Sarah Aiken, Siobhan McKenna, Stephanie Lake, and Tra Mi Dinh.

Rachel makes site-specific work alongside Harrison Ritchie-Jones (Slogtown) in real-time and on film. They share this dance practice with youth companies, tertiary students and independent artists around so-called-Australia.

She works closely with Antony Hamilton (Chunky Move), Lucy Guerin (Lucy Guerin Inc), Daniel Riley (Australian Dance Theatre) and Joel Bray (Joel Bray Dance) as Rehearsal Director and Artistic Support.

GEOFFREY WATSON (Soloist) Geoffrey Watson is an artist whose work is rooted in dance and has branches in wearable design, text and sculpture. Geoffrey’s work is inspired by an adoration of disorientation, romance, and the behaviour of animals.

Geoffrey has performed with dance companies and choreographers including Lucy Guerin Inc. BalletLab, Alisdair Macindoe, Gekidan Kaitaisha and Nana Biluš Abaffy. His choreographic work has been presented at Next Wave Festival, Pieces, Uferstudios Berlin and Rising Festival.

Geoffrey received the 2022 Green Room Award for Best Performer for Reference Material by Alisdair Macindoe, and his costume work has earned him nominations for the 2023 and 2024 awards.

SYDNEYDANCECOMPANY.COM

FM Air Photo by: Peter Rosetzky

#2025SDC

21

FM AIR

FM Air appears and disappears - like a scent.

The three performers move in a continuous bind, oscillating in a transparent tulle bag, highlighting their physical proximity and personal histories.

As the work progresses the dancers shed the bag, becoming progressively clearer to the viewer. FM Air utilises dance to simultaneously disappear and remain permanent through the vehicle of live performance. We watch as they attempt to suspend thought through motion.

Choreographer, Director

Jo Lloyd

Performers

Jo Lloyd, Louie Wisby, Thomas Woodman

Music

Duane Morrison

Costume Design

Andrew Treloar

FM Air is a palimpsest of earlier works, examining behaviour of gendered roles and movements that may have belonged to ancestors or ghosts past. The dancers seek to infiltrate the collusion of mind and motion, to conjure up configurations, a limitless, continuous loop, appearing and disappearing at speed. The work questions the ephemeral, what remains when the dance is finished and what is captured by the gaze of the viewer.

Garment Construction

Andrew Treloar and Hailey Scott

Producer

Michaela Coventry, Sage Arts

FM Air was originally commissioned for The National 4, Carriageworks, 2023.

22

SYDNEYDANCECOMPANY.COM

FM AIR JO LLOYD

Choreographer, Director, Performer Jo Lloyd is a dance artist based in Naarm, working with choreography as a social encounter, revealing behaviour over various durations and contexts. Jo has choreographed, performed and taught extensively in Australia and overseas for 20 years. After graduating from the Victorian College of the Arts, Jo performed and toured nationally and internationally with Chunky Move (Gideon Obarzanek), Shelley Lasica and Sandra Parker.

She has undertaken residencies and commissions with the New Zealand Dance Company, Nibroll Japan, RISING, Chunky Move, Tasdance, Dancenorth, Liveworks, Bundanon, NGA and NGV. Her work Overture, Arts House 2018 and Melbourne Festival 2019, received three Green Room Awards and a Helpmann Award nomination. Recent works include; Agitato at Dancehouse 2025, Swans for MPavilion co-created with Deanne Butterworth, The Mirror of Sadness created with Gabriella Imrichova, Melbourne Fringe 2024, Out of Theatre NGV 2023, Bang Stop, RISING 2022, Handsome at The Substation 2022, Death Role for Bundanon Art Museum 2021, Archive the archive for NGA’s Know My Name exhibition 2020 and DOUBLE DOUBLE created and performed with Deanne Butterworth, Tina Havelock Stevens and Evelyn Morris, which received three 2023 Green Room Award nominations. Jo has been Resident Director of Lucy Guerin Inc. (2016) and recipient of a Creative Australia Dance Fellowship (2018), a Sidney Myer Creative Fellowship (2021) and a Chloe Munro Fellowship (2022). Jo creates/presents work out of Studio 24 at the Abbotsford Convent with producer Michaela Coventry.

#2025SDC

23

FM AIR COLLABORATORS DUANE MORRISON (Composer) Duane Morrison graduated from Melbourne University, majoring in Composition. Now working mainly in the field of electronic music production his skills in this area cover wide terrain. Active in the composition of scores for contemporary dance in Melbourne, he has collaborated closely with choreographer Jo Lloyd for 20 years, receiving a Green Room Award (Music Composition and Sound Design for Dance) for his work on Lloyd and Nicola Gunn’s Mermermer (Next Move 2016). He also received Green Room nominations for Overture (2019), Future Perfect (2011/ Dance Massive 2013) and Apparently That’s What Happened (2008 with David Franzke).

ANDREW TRELOAR (Costume Designer) Andrew Treloar is an artist working between contemporary art, dance and fashion design.

As a performance designer he has collaborated with Jo Lloyd, Lucy Guerin Inc., Chunky Move, Dancenorth, Marrugeku, Tasdance, NZ Dance Company, Daniel Riley, Henry Jock Walker, Louisville Ballet and The Australian Ballet. His work has been shown across many venues and festivals throughout Australia including the 2018 Commonwealth Games Opening Ceremony, RISING, Midsumma, The National, The Unconformity, Sydney Festival and Brisbane Festival. He has collaborated with Harrison Hall to produce, choreograph and perform in works such as The Venusian Slip (2018 and 2020) and Surprise, Surprize (2021). Collaborations with Jo Lloyd include Out of theatre, FM Air, Bang Stop, Handsome, Death Role, Archive the archive, That’s Her Name, OVERTURE, LIVE JUNK, Garden Dance, CUTOUT and DOUBLE DOUBLE with Deanne Butterworth, Tina Havelock-Stevens and Evelyn Ida Morris, for which he received a 2023 Green Room Award nomination for Design.

24

MICHAELA COVENTRY (Producer) Michaela has been working in the arts for the past 25 years. She is currently the Director of Sage Arts working with artists and companies including Jo Lloyd, Helen Svoboda, Matthias Schack-Arnott, Harrison Ritchie-Jones, Lee Serle, Jason Maling/ Strange Engine and Musica Viva Australia. In recent years she has been the Executive Producer of The Substation (20202022), Lucy Guerin Inc (2018- 2019 & 20052012), Speak Percussion (2015-2017), Megafun (2012-2014) and Producer of Marrugeku and Stalker (2004-2005) and Performance Space in Sydney (2000-2003). She currently sits on the Boards of M.E.S.S and Aphids.

LOUIE WISBY (Performer) Louie Wisby is a physical artist who was born in Naarm on the stolen lands of the Wurrundjeri people and lives on Gadigal land in Sydney.

Louie graduated from the Victorian College of the Arts in 2018 and since then has pursued the creation of her own work and others. She has enjoyed working with Phillip Adams (Glory, Prelude), Jo Lloyd (Garden Dance, Bang Stop, FM:Air, Paris Was Yesterday), Geoffrey Watson (Rachael Wisby) and Yuiko Matsumoto (3).

Her work has been presented by Temperance Hall (Please Do Not Move, Sybylla), Lucy Guerin Inc. (Roses) and Dancehouse (Judy and Me).

THOMAS WOODMAN (Performer) Thomas Woodman is a Naarm/ Melbournebased dancer and choreographer who has worked in various contexts. He completed a BFA in Dance (2015) with Honours through the Visual Art School (2019) at the Victorian College of the Arts. As a performer, Thomas has worked with a number of artists, including Russell Dumas and particularly Jo Lloyd of late (since 2018). He has shared multiple choreographic works, most recently presenting Echo at Dancehouse (2024) and A dead-end in itself at Temperance Hall (2022). Thomas approaches choreography as an equally conceptual and material form, drawing from a pool of multidisciplinary interests.

SYDNEYDANCECOMPANY.COM

Join us for a dance class or a short course with Sydney Dance Classes. Dance online, anywhere, anytime with Classes on Demand.

Over 75+ dance classes available each week.

Photo by Wendell Teodoro

$99 one month intro offer!

Book now

Sydney Dance Company at the Walsh Bay Arts Precinct is a unique venue situated in the heart of one of Sydney’s most vibrant and active cultural hubs.

Our venue features a variety of dynamic waterfront spaces ideal for creative, social and business-related events.

Visit our website or contact us to discuss your next function or event. sydneydancecompany.com events@sydneydancecompany.com +61 2 9258 4884

Join Us as a Regular Donor Be part of something powerful.

When you give monthly, you’re not just making a donation, you’re investing in the future of Australian contemporary dance, and joining a community that believes the arts matter.

It’s an effortless and convenient way to give, where one decision creates longterm impact! Just $25 a month will make a significant difference to the future.

Start your monthly gifting today Every breathtaking Sydney Dance Company experience begins with your ongoing support.

Photo by: Greg Nagel

sydneydancecompany.com @SydneyDanceCo #2025SDC