IMPERMANENCE
Sydney Dance Company
Written by Joella Marcus (she/her)
“Dance is a beautiful medium — one of the most powerful ways we have to connect” Ryan Pearson
A visceral and thrilling exploration of the juxtaposition of beauty and devastation, this full-length work by Rafael Bonachela features a score full of emotional power from Grammy Award-winning composer Bryce Dessner.
Rafael Bonachela is a Dancer, Choreographer, Curator, and has been Artistic Director at Sydney Dance Company since 2009. Bonachela began his dance training in Barcelona and has worked with Kylie Minogue, Tina Turner and designers like Hugo Boss. He joined Sydney Dance Company in 2008, and has since created over 20 works for the company after being at the helm for over 15 years. Bonachela’s works consistently display great emotional sensitivity, whilst bringing a pure yet powerful energy to the language of dance.
Best known as a founder of American rock band The National and for his film scores for The Revenant and The Two Popes, Bryce Dessner was initially inspired by the tragedy of the Australian bush fires and the Notre-Dame fire in Paris. Sydney Dance Company’s ensemble is joined live on stage by the Australian String Quartet. This is an epic, driven performance that packs an emotional punch.
Impermanence: the state or quality of being temporary; not permanent; fleeting; transitory.
We all suffer the ache of impermanence - time is fleeting, life is unpredictable and the world keeps turning. Age old adages attempt to concisely convey the awareness that nothing in life lasts forever but words can never hold all that passes us by.
“The body speaking truths that words often can’t reach…a truth that lives in motion” - Rafael Bonachela
The gestural language of dance is an art of storytelling that transcends traditional lexicons and the confines of logic. Where words fall short, the body becomes a living emotional and cultural archive, unveiling exploratory movements, positions of comfort and the bruises of memory. Through the language of limbs, the body is able to tell a story that “allows space for ambiguity, imagination, and personal connection…[and is] about sensation, emotion, presence”, as summarised by Sydney Dance Company’s Artistic Director Rafael Bonachela.
The versatility of the monumental double-bill Twofold, performed by Sydney Dance Company [SDC], responds to the emotional and psychological states of the now with dance pieces Rafael Bonachela’s Impermanence and Melanie Lane’s Lovelock. The performances break down the walls between dancer and modern audience; embracing the live nature of dance, with the dancers bodies harnessing the ability of dance to humanise, embody and communicate the collective experience of a world in flux.
Impermanence returned to the stage in 2025, debuting internationally in Ljubljana, Slovenia, after its inception in the throes of 2020, and is Bonachela’s embodied meditation on the transitory nature of life. A continuation of a conversation that began in a fractured world, and “has matured, deepened, and continues to reveal itself in unexpected ways” as explained by Bonachela. The collaborative masterpiece is a visceral dance piece that makes the intangible tangible and encapsulates the emotional and psychological states intrinsic to the intensity of human existence. It raises themes of loss, resilience and the beauty of change – a somewhat poignant reminder in a time when the world continues to face an amalgamation of anxieties due to its incessant instability.
Layered upon metaphysical and epistemological discussions, Impermanence, like many of Bonachela’s other works, harbours a motive of personal reconnection, and sees the intermingling of Bonachela’s private and public worlds. Fusing home, cultural and personal connections, Impermanence is a vulnerable and open work that requires emotional honesty from dancers, collaborators and audience alike. Playing on raw impulses it is a beautiful exploration of the ephemerality of life that many of us have lost touch with, underscoring the question that is present in many of Bonachela’s works ‘What does it mean to be human?’.
In Bonachela’s own words the piece is “deeply human, vulnerable, fierce, tender, and searching” and “strangely hopeful in the way it shows that even in fragmentation, there’s strength”.
The piece is a call to action, and a reminder that impermanence is not just a source of loss but a source of inspiration as it holds contradictions within itself and harbours an energy of agency, urgency and illumination. But what it does not give us is an answer rather a “mirror—a space to reflect, feel, and remember what it means to be alive” as noted by Bonachela.
Whilst Bonachela may be questioning what it means to be human, the performance invites audiences to connect with the dancers on the collective experience of wanting to create something larger than themselves. Decentering the individual and our supposed self-determination and placing both audience and dancer in “larger web of relationships - ecological, emotional, cosmic”. Whilst we may not willingly submit to all forces beyond our control: nature, time, loss, and even silence, we humans are reactive by default and Impermanence capitalises on this, as audience and performer alike are pulled into controlled chaos.
As an intimately intertwined collective of dancers begin a performance of “breathtaking athleticism” [Sydney Morning Herald], the high stamina work cultivates a synergy between dancer and audience as they enter into an open dialogue. Cutting between vignettes and collection performances the dance oscillates between beauty and devastation, control and rhythm and expresses the emotional turbulence embedded in human existence.
As a dancer “the show requires you to drop in and out of varying states of consciousness” notes Ryan Pearson, a company dancer at Sydney Dance Company since 2024. Ryan Pearson is a proud Biripi, Worimi, Minang, Goreng, and Balardung man from Taree, New South Wales, is an alumni of Bangarra Dance Theatre and in 2023 presented his first choreographic work, 5 Minute Call as part of Dance Clan. Now as a global performer where the dance floor becomes a home amongst changing locations, dance comes naturally to Peason, as a “ powerful tool — a way to connect with so many aspects of who I am”.
With six new dancers in the company, including two performing for the very first time, it was “a debut marked by transformation, courage, and deep connection”, remarked Bonachela. The changing cast of new dancers adding nuance and new emotional landscapes to a “piece [that] breathes differently every night”.
One of the newest performers is Mathilda Ballantyne, an Australian-Chinese artist from Melbourne/Naarm, whose work navigates the space between the precision of classical ballet and the fluidity of contemporary dance. Mathilda joined Sydney Dance Company in 2025 as a Company Dancer and since joining in January has felt each day “has added a new shade to how I move and how I feel in space”. From the perfection focused discipline of classical ballet training, through salsa training and her own freelance contemporary works, Sydney Dance Company has allowed Ballantyne to “have a sense of freedom to be who I am, and to live my truth, as corny as that sounds”. For Ballantyne it was “diving into a whole new world head first…incredibly intimate and raw” supporting an ensemble of fellow artists as they “lift each other up…collide [and] breathe together on stage”.
Ballantyne likens performing Impermanence to a thunderstorm - “From the inside it feels very urgent, alive, a little bit dangerous, but in a really good way…it's like sprinting through a thunderstorm while balancing a candle’ but the candle is so calm and this thunderstorm won't hurt you”. The palpable tension, raw strength and cyclical routines of collapse and resilience holding promise of change - the candle an unwavering spirit amongst the storm.
Ballantyne joins Pearson to form the mosaic of 17 dancers that transform the stage into “a dream where every limb speaks a different language, but somehow they all agree”. As they move as one the dancers surrender to the physicality of Bonachela’s tight, sharp and surging routine, pushing themselves to the brink to achieve and strengthen each of the intense and fleeting emotional shifts. “At one point, there might be a sense of beauty — a quartet or a group in harmony — and in the next, chaos, with all the emotions that come with it” says Pearson. The difficulty of the routine, softened by the individuality of the dancers offering themselves to the audience as they expose their own emotional embodiments of Impermanence. The “authenticity, those tiny imperfections, spontaneous breaths, emotional surges that’s where the magic is”, says Bonachela.
As the performance draws to a close we begin to awaken from the dream-like reverie of Bonachela’s works, feeling still the lingering pulses, haunting gestures and traces of the last fleeting sparks. The rebirth of the dancer as “Equal parts wrecked and reborn” exhausted to the point of euphoria.
The final performances of Impermanence and Forever & Ever as part of the International Tour 2025 will take place on 28th August in Helsinki, Finland. Following this, Sydney Dance Company's upcoming 4th INDance season returns this August with the presentation of four full-length productions of independent work by five artists; Rebecca Jensen, Amy Zhang, Alison Currie & Alisdair Macindoe and Jo Lloyd. Each work has been handpicked by a panel of industry advisors led by Sydney Dance Company’s Artistic Director, Rafael Bonachela who has consistently committed to igniting new possibilities for independent artists and supporting a new generation of emerging artists and choreographers.
“In a world that often rushes forward without pause, [Dance] offers a chance to reflect, to remember, and to reckon with what’s been lost or transformed.” - Rafael Bonachela
Sydney Dance Company International Tour 2025 Dates & Locations
Sydney Dance Company INDance 2025 Dates
Based on Gadigal Land at Sydney’s Walsh Bay Arts Precinct, Sydney Dance Company is at the forefront of contemporary dance, pioneering and continuously evolving the artform. The Company’s international reputation reflects contemporary Australia on a global scale, connecting with diverse audiences worldwide under artistic direction of Rafael Bonachela.
Sydney Dance Company’s ensemble of “awe-inspiring” (In Daily) dancers are currently on their 2025 Internal tour performing Twofold; a monumental double bill featuring the return of Rafael Bonachela’s Impermanence alongside Melanie Lane’s new work, Love Lock. From Paris to Ljubljana to Helsinki, we are thrilled to be bringing our repertoire of works to international audiences.
Quotes sourced from curatorial interview with Rafael Bonachela, Mathilda Ballantyne and Ryan Pearson.
Full Interview with Rafael Bonachela
Full Interview with Mathilda Ballantyne
Full Interview with Ryan Pearson
Cast and Credits:
Choreographer | Rafael Bonachela
Composer | Bryce Dessner
Original Music Performed By Australian String Quartet
Music Features | Another World by Anohni
Lighting Designer | Damien Cooper
Stage Designer | David Fleischer
Costume Designer | Aleisa Jelbart
Contacts:
Clare Callaghan, clare@articulatepr.com.au
Rohan Furnell, RohanF@sydneydancecompany.com
Olivia Blackburn, OliviaB@sydneydancecompany.com