Across Australia, 2025 proved to be a year in which dance asserted its reach, its relevance and its appetite for scale. Works unfolded in theatres, on festival stages, in public spaces and industrial sites, revealing an art form unafraid to stretch its vocabulary or to interrogate its foundations. The volume of reviews published across the year speaks to that breadth: a national landscape alive with new commissions, bold reinterpretations of the canon, and the continual evolution of independent practice.
A defining feature of the year was ambition. Large interdisciplinary works brought together dancers, choirs, sculptural installations, electronic sound and experimental design in ways that treated the stage as a living ecosystem rather than a single frame. Elsewhere, choreographers pursued the opposite approach, crafting tightly focused pieces that demanded a slower, deeper kind of attention. Taken collectively, the year mapped a spectrum of artistic daring, where scale was less important than intention, and where risk-taking was not only visible but expected.
Classical companies reaffirmed the continuing potency of the repertoire while demonstrating an increasing alertness to its complexities. Major story ballets returned with fresh casts, heightened musical sensibility and a renewed interest in dramaturgical detail. Re-stagings of twentieth-century masterworks revealed how psychologically charged choreography can resonate differently with each generation of dancers. At the same time, new Australian works moved forward with confidence, often drawing on specific geographies, communities or cultural lineages to articulate stories that belong unmistakably to this place.
Festivals across the country contributed significantly to the texture of the year. Perth Festival offered a striking juxtaposition of international and local voices; Adelaide Festival probed questions of legacy and continuity; and programs in Sydney and Melbourne emphasised cross-disciplinary collaboration and the expanding intersections between dance, technology and installation. These contexts gave audiences opportunities to encounter dance as both spectacle and enquiry, revealing the sector’s appetite for conversation across forms and borders.
A number of strengths were visible across companies and independent makers alike. Ensemble work reached a new level of refinement, with dancers demonstrating exceptional stamina, cohesion and emotional clarity. The independent sector continued to be a source of invention, producing works that were formally adventurous yet deeply grounded in practice. And across the country, there was clear momentum toward culturally specific storytelling: First Nations collaborations, works shaped by diasporic identity, and international partnerships built on reciprocity rather than tokenism.
What ultimately characterised 2025 was a sense of forward motion. Choreographers interrogated familiar narratives with sharper questions; dancers embraced a level of technical and interpretive demand that stretched well beyond the expected; and companies large and small navigated the tension between heritage and innovation with increasing sophistication. The result was a year that invited audiences to look closely – at bodies, at ideas, at histories, at the possibilities of the form itself.
What follows reflects that complexity: a year shaped by bold choices, by curiosity, and by the insistence that dance remains one of the most searching and adaptable art forms we have.
Queensland
Denise Richardson
It seems that every year is notable for one reason or another when it comes to dance in Queensland, but 2025 had many, with beginnings, endings, anniversaries, premieres, as well as plenty of other notable performances, spread across the months between Christmases.
The appointment of Ivan Gil-Ortega as Artistic Director of Queensland Ballet early in the year was a beginning greeted with optimism. Despite the subsequent deep budget cuts culling the ranks of both QB dancers and general staff, the hope was that the company could now get on with it, leaving behind the turbulence of the previous year. Its 2025 program began optimistically with a remount of Sir Kenneth MacMillan’s Romeo and Juliet, followed by seasons of the popular Bespoke and Triple Bill programs. The highlight though, was the welcome return after six years of Dangerous Liaisons, an audacious, beautifully crafted piece of theatre, and the late Liam Scarlett’s first (and last) commission for the company as Artistic Associate. The year finished with a final season of Ben Stevenson’s The Nutcracker – on the calendar since 2013 – but with promises of a new production of the box office favourite by Derek Deane to take its place in 2026. This Nutcracker forms part of Gil-Ortega’s inaugural program for QB, which will include Christian Spuck’s Messa da Requiem in the finally completed, Glasshouse Theatre, QPAC.
In an otherwise packed year for both companies, 2025 saw Dancenorth and Australasian Dance Collective (ADC) each celebrate 40 years of performing. An immersive roving performance titled A Live Moment, celebrating Dancenorth’s history, took over the company’s home, the historic School of Arts in Townsville, late September. ADC celebrated at the Playhouse, QPAC with Blue, a tryptic of works acknowledging the marriage of the company’s past with its future and framed by the old adage of ‘something old, something new, something borrowed, something blue’. Importantly, performances were attended by each of the respective founding Artistic Directors, Dr Cheryl Stock AM (Dancenorth) and Maggi Sietsma AM (Expressions Dance Company-now ADC).
The Australian Ballet returned to Brisbane in August with David McAllister’s opulent production of The Sleeping Beauty – its visual lavishness still sometimes overpowering – while the French contemporary dance company Ballet Preljocaj made a return appearance, this time with Swan Lake. Choreographer Angelin Preljocaj’s visually stunning, although somewhat dystopian exploration of the original plotline of cursed young love seemed to polorize audience opinion.
Finally, endings, inevitable or not, are usually tinged with sadness, but the unexpected passing mid-year of Louise Deleur, a choreographer, educator and artist of remarkable vision and integrity, rocked the wider dance community to its core. A force in the contemporary dance field, her influence, especially as Head of Contemporary Dance at Queensland Ballet Academy, shaped generations of dancers. In 2018 Louise founded the Brisbane International Contemporary Dance Prix, to provide pathways for emerging contemporary dancers. The highly regarded initiative went ahead in September as planned and will continue under the direction of friend and colleague Amelia Waller. It is a wonderful legacy.
Daniel Gaudiello
2025 has been a year of transition and bravery from most Ballet companies I have seen from the Australian Ballet schools production of now which nurtured the new and celebrated the old to the fresh collaboration with Sia, Garry Stewart and the Queensland Ballet that showed immense diversity versatility in our Australian dancers. It was heart warming to see The Australian Ballet rework Manon and put the company through It’s emotional paces. It’s been very exciting to see Patricio Reve move from the Queensland Ballet to the Royal ballet in such an elegant style. He is my dancer to watch. Grace Caroll from the Australian Ballet definitely has us all watching her, especially for her lyricism and delicate Port de bras.
I’m looking forward to seeing what 2026 brings more risk and more versatility give us our tutus and our new works. Keep the audience on the edge of their seats.
Caitlin Halmarick
As I think back to the shows I have seen in 2025 what stands out for me is the excellence of Australian stories. Moving from Sydney to Townsville has reiterated to me the power of art in the every day. Being a regional centre, our big national companies rarely tour to our city, so instead we create and source our own art. I’ve had the pleasure in travelling to Melbourne for Gary Lang NT Dance Company’s ‘The Other Side of Me’ as part of DanceX, and The Australian Ballet’s ‘Manon’, which was performed to the high level that such a magnificent ballet demands. I’ve also been to Brisbane for various performances at Brisbane Festival, including Australasian Dance Collective’s ‘Bad Nature’, Blak Dance’s ‘Preparing Ground’, and LA Dance Project’s ‘Gems’. However, it has been the performances in Townsville that have had the biggest impact.
These shows are of high quality and theatrical range. The North Australian Festival of Arts (NAFA) staged many of these fantastic shows in our northern city. A stand out of the festival was Kerrod Box’s ‘Crimson Confluence’. A solo dance show, this was an intimate display of vulnerability and coming of age whilst being an extraordinary showcase of technical contemporary dance and simple, yet highly effective stage props to create complex scenes. Also included in NAFA’s 2025 program was Dancenorth’s 40th anniversary celebration, ‘A Live Moment’. As an employee of Dancenorth, I had the privilege of assisting in the presentation of this work, and to witness the palpable joy emanating from audiences in what was a performance that balanced the display of Dancenorth’s professional Ensemble and Special Guests including local Traditional Owners, and community-focused participatory dance theatre.
Special mentions this year also include Global Dance Collective’s ‘Legacy’, celebrating 30 years of community Latin dance and Belly Dance in Townsville. A reminder that trust in local dancers and a single spark can create a legacy of dance excellence and a place for community in regional Australia.
Stepping outside of the dance world for a moment, another special mention this year goes to TheatreINQ’s annual ‘Shakespeare Under the Stars’ program. Who can beat a performance of ‘Caesar’ in a balmy northern winter garden?
Whilst our Australian arts are always a place of excellence, this year has reiterated to me the importance of community-focused art that serves the people whose stories it tells. The regional Australian arts community should feel proud of its cultural voice and the art we create together.
Victoria
Belle Beasley
After a long year of watching and thinking about dance, it feels nearly impossible to produce a comprehensive survey of the year’s experiences. Whilst having reviewed numerous shows, I am all too aware of the many that I was unable to attend. Further, my metropolitan base prevented me from engaging with the diverse dance communities nationwide, of which there are many vital and noteworthy examples. Nevertheless, across Sydney and Melbourne in this year, the performances I attended represent a broad spectrum of classical and contemporary dance, with strengths and weaknesses emerging in both traditional programs as well as in more experimental creations.
Presented as part of the Sydney Festival were Stephanie Lake’s The Chronicles and Justin Talpacido Shoulder’s Anito. The Chronicles exemplified the high standard of physicality in Australia’s contemporary dance landscape, bringing together interdisciplinary production elements with fast-paced choreography performed by twelve leading independent dance artists. Shoulder’s Anito left an impact in its experimental fusion of movement, sound, sculpture, and concept. Generating supernatural qualities from within organic forms to create a world in which the real and surreal were indistinguishable, Anito was a testament to the transformative potential of theatre.
In Melbourne, experimental dance continued at Chunky Move. Presented as part of AsiaTOPA, Antony Hamilton’s U>N>I>T>E>D showed off the crème de la crème of futuristic technologies, testing the limits of dance in the post-industrial age with robotic forms integrated into set, costumes, and movement. Though impressively high-tech, U>N>I>T>E>D did not provide much optimism in regard to the future of dance and technology, emphasising rather how movement is compromised by the physical restrictions of wieldy animatronics. Melanie Lane’s Phantasm, however, offered a much more promising interpretation of dance’s future, constructing a surreal narrative using dance, sound, set design, lighting, sculpture, and even scent. Blending references from dance history and pop culture, Lane’s Phantasm was one of the most memorable performance experiences I had this year.
Over at the Regent Theatre, the Australian Ballet dancers had their work cut out for them with a packed season. In Johan Inger’s Carmen, an unusual but welcome reinterpretation of a historical classic, the women of the company shone in choreography that offered opportunity for the expression of female rage, abjection, and sensuality. The contemporary triple bill Prism presented works from Jerome Robbins, Stephanie Lake, and William Forsythe. Lake’s Seven Days revealed the choreographer as dipping her toe into new stylistic territory, whilst Blake Works V exhibited the exciting pyrotechnics of Forsythe’s influential movement language, albeit in one of his more anticlimactic compositions. Of the three, it was Robbins’ Glass Pieces that stole the evening, with its seamless harmony of post-modern dance and minimalist Phillip Glass compositions brought to life in front abstract set design inspired by Robbins’ notation grid sheets. Finishing the company’s year in Melbourne was Kenneth MacMillan’s iconic ballet Manon, marketed as piece in the classical canon but proving much more experimental in its movement and theatricality than I initially assumed. Though Manon demonstrated the need for the Australian Ballet to strengthen its execution of dramatic character-driven choreographies, the opulence of MacMillan’s production, a result of his desire to make a ballet “like a Tennesse Williams play”, along with the richness of Massenet’s score, still made for an immensely enjoyable performance experience.
Western Australia
Nina Levy
Reflecting on the year that’s been, I want to begin by saying that for personal reasons I missed seeing a number of works that were presented in Perth this year. It’s a credit to WA’s vibrant dance sector that, in spite of this gap in viewing, there is still plenty for me to discuss in this annual round-up.
First to catch my eye this year was Enneagon Movement, with their sultry, sassy, slapstick duet Hyperfantasia, presented at Fringe World Festival in January (and later in the year at The Blue Room Theatre). A collective of emerging dance artists led by Giorgia Schijf, Enneagon Movement impressed again with “PILOT”, a program that offered five early career dance makers support to create and present a short first-development-stage work. The resulting mixed bill of works-in-progress was pacy and engaging, a credit to the choreographers, but also to Enneagon for their initiative and leadership. I look forward to seeing what comes next from this smart young collective (I’ve heard some promising rumours).
Presented in February, Perth Festival artistic director Anna Reece’s debut Perth program was about quality rather than quantity, from Marco da Silva Ferreira’s exhilarating C A R C A Ç A, to Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui’s powerful and political new work for STRUT Dance Manifest, to Christos Papadopoulos’s darkly mesmerising Larsen C.
In June Co3 Contemporary Dance kicked off its tenth anniversary celebrations with Gathering.1, a blending of party and performance that transported punters into a world in which past and present collide. My personal favourite of the mixed bill was local choreographer Kimberley Parkin’s short new work Tri-Hard, a darkly comic trio that explores the relationship dynamics of that number. Parkin is another talented artist whose pathway I’m watching with interest.
Under the leadership of Sofie Burgoyne and James O’Hara, STRUT Dance continues to flourish, and one of my top works for 2025 was presented in the organisation’s annual “Restore” program, also in June. CUDDLE, by Melbourne-based choreographer Harrison Ritchie-Jones, won me over with its exhilarating physicality and wonderfully laconic comedic sensibilities.
The premiere of Dawn Jackson’s documentary film POINTE: Dancing on a Knife’s Edge, in August, felt like a landmark moment not just for Jackson and her subject, dancer Floeur Alder, but for the WA dance community. Floeur and her late parents, ballet luminaries Lucette Aldous and Alan Alder, are very much part of the fabric of our sector. Jackon’s depiction of Floeur’s story of trauma and recovery is compelling viewing regardless of whether or not you know the family, but there has been an additional sense of WA pride in the national recognition of this film.
In September it was West Australian Ballet (WAB) who stole my heart, with Alice Topp’s expressive and poignant Butterfly Effect. I saw this work at a time of great grief in my own life, and it is testament to Topp and her team of designers and dancers that I was swept up by the aesthetics of this work, which ranged from expansive and poetic, to raw and punchy.
As the year drew to a close, it was time to say farewell to WAAPA’s Mount Lawley campus as the school prepares to move to its new home in the Perth CBD. Excitement was tinged with nostalgia as the students gave their graduation performances, a site-specific tribute to the campus by LINK Dance Company (directed by Michael Whaites), and a mixed bill that included a work by Sue Peacock inspired by the many people who have walked through the old buildings that comprise WAAPA. As always the standard of performances was impressive, with graduating students Ajah Cameron, Otto Pye, Tahlia Stoker and Luci Young standing out as dancers to watch. In 2026 Tahlia will join West Australian Ballet’s Young Artist program, and Otto and Luci will join Co3 Contemporary Dance.
New South Wales
Emma Sandall
The highlight of 2025 for me was Opening Night of The Australian Ballet’s triple bill Prism. The ownership and maturity the performers brought to the stage that evening completely won me over.
I was especially moved by Robyn Hendricks, partnered by Davi Ramos, in the second movement of Glass Pieces — she was the music personified; by Elijah Trevitt’s wry personality and magnetic presence in both Seven Days and Blake Works V — so utterly captivating I found myself waiting impatiently for the next entrance whenever they slipped offstage; and by Benedicte Bemet’s sublime performance in Blake Works V — she pitched it perfectly, neither overplaying nor underplaying the steps, inhabiting Forsythe’s language with absolute ease and immaculate technique.
Olivia Weeks
Thinking on the works I reviewed across 2025, I am struck less by questions of form or fashion and more by a prevailing sense of integrity. Whether watching pre professional dancers step toward their futures or a major company crafting work for young audiences, the most compelling performances this year were those grounded in clarity of intent and genuine care for both craft and audience.
At the New Zealand School of Dance, across both the classical and contemporary seasons, what emerged most strongly was a confidence in training that does not rush to prove itself. These dancers are technically assured, but more importantly, they are attentive. They listen to music, to one another, and to the demands of each choreographic language. In the classical programme, works such as La Sylphide and Esquisses revealed a cohort comfortable with nuance, style and restraint. In the contemporary season, that same discipline translated into expressive freedom and physical courage. The joy visible on stage felt earned rather than imposed, and that distinction matters.
What this suggested to me about the broader state of dance in 2025 is a renewed trust in process. There is an understanding that artistry develops through patience, through community, and through an openness to complexity. The strongest moments did not come from spectacle alone, but from dancers fully inhabiting the task at hand, whether navigating the emotional weight of a sombre duet or the kinetic demands of a large ensemble work.
That sense of responsibility toward audience was echoed in Bangarra Dance Theatre’s The Bogong’s Song. Created for children, the work never underestimated its viewers. Instead, it offered beauty, humour and cultural depth with remarkable generosity. The production demonstrated how storytelling, when shaped with care, can invite curiosity rather than dictate meaning. It reminded me that dance’s power lies not only in virtuosity, but in its ability to foster connection and understanding across generations.
Taken together, these experiences point to a healthy and thoughtful dance ecology. In 2025, I saw artists and institutions investing in clarity, in lineage, and in the long view. There was confidence without bravado, ambition without excess. At a time when speed and novelty often dominate cultural conversations, it was heartening to witness work that trusted both its makers and its audiences to meet one another with openness and respect.