Marking its golden anniversary, the 2026 Sydney Festival will transform the city into a stage for stories that move both body and spirit. Under the direction of Kris Nelson, the festival’s new Artistic Director, the dance program offers a breathtaking survey of contemporary performance, spanning continents and cultures while honouring dance’s power to connect generations, communities and traditions.
From the avant-garde to the ancestral, this year’s program reflects both Sydney’s evolving identity and its enduring love of live performance.
Among the international highlights, South Korean choreographer Eun-Me Ahn brings her electrifying Post-Orientalist Express to Sydney, a riot of colour, rhythm and satire performed by eight dancers in more than ninety costumes designed by Ahn herself. Known internationally as the enfant terrible of Seoul, Ahn transforms traditional forms from Okinawa, Bali and Manila into a vivid exploration of modern Asian identity and spectacle.
In EXXY, Australian-born, UK-based dance artist Dan Daw returns to Sydney Festival for the first time since 2018. Joined by three performers who move like him, Daw revisits his working-class childhood and his journey toward pride and self-acceptance as a queer, disabled artist. The work’s title, a slang nod to “expensive,” signals its raw honesty and defiant humour, blending personal reflection with unflinching physicality.
Italian choreographer Alessandro Sciarroni, recipient of the Golden Lion at the Venice Biennale, reimagines the nearly lost Polka Chinata in Save the Last Dance for Me. Performed across multiple venues including Leichhardt Town Hall, Dancer’s Alley and Sydney Town Hall, the work bridges centuries, showing tradition as a living and evolving dialogue.
Closer to home, Echo Mapping reunites Azzam Mohamed and Jack Prest following their acclaimed collaboration Katma. Stripped of sets and costumes, the duet unfolds in the round at Sydney Town Hall, where Mohamed’s voice and movement meet Prest’s live score in a visceral conversation between sound, body and emotion.
In Sisa-Sisa, choreographers Alfira O’Sullivan and Murtala present two deeply personal solos grounded in Indonesian culture. Murtala’s Gelumbang Raya transforms the trauma of the 2004 Aceh tsunami into remembrance, while O’Sullivan’s Jejak & Bisik traces womanhood, fertility and change with lyrical intimacy. Together they form a quiet, powerful reflection on endurance and identity.
The festival’s Blak Out program continues to anchor Sydney Festival in First Nations artistry. Wiradjuri choreographer Joel Bray’s Garabari transforms the Northern Broadwalk of the Sydney Opera House into an open-air dance ritual, inviting audiences of all ages to move together beneath the stars. With driving beats by Byron Scullin, costumes by designer Denni Francisco (Ngali) and projections by Katie Sfetkidis, Garabari reimagines corroboree for a new generation.
Finally, Jannawi Dance Clan premieres Garrigarrang Badu, meaning “saltwater woman,” at the Sydney Opera House. Led by Peta Strachan, the all-female ensemble celebrates Dharug Country and the vital role of women as cultural carriers. The result is both a visual and spiritual act of continuation, honouring matrilineal knowledge through movement.
Together these works form one of the most dynamic and internationally resonant dance programs in Sydney Festival’s fifty-year history. Whether transforming ancient forms, reclaiming cultural narratives or crafting new languages of the body, each work reminds us that dance is more than expression. It is remembrance, resistance and renewal in motion.
Sydney Festival runs from 8 to 25 January 2026, with tickets on sale from 6 November. Visit sydneyfestival.org.au for full program details.