Sydney Dance Company: Impermanence | Forever & Ever

• Time:

  • Thu 28.8.2025 18:00

  • Fri 29.8.2025 18:00

  • Sat 30.8.2025 18:30

  • Duration: approx. 2h, interval

• Address:

  Dance House Helsinki, Erkko Hall
  Kaapeliaukio 3
  00180 Helsinki

• Tickets:

  69 / 57 € (Lippu.fi)

  Get tickets

Event Introduction

Australia’s leading contemporary dance company, Sydney Dance Company, brings two works by top choreographers  to Helsinki Festival.

After a sell-out Sydney world-premiere season in 2022, Rafael Bonachela’s Impermanence is “arguably the single best piece created by and for an Australian dance company for many years” (Adelaide Advertiser). A visceral and thrilling exploration of the juxtaposition of beauty and devastation, this full-length work features a moving score full of emotional power from Grammy Award- winning composer Bryce Dessner.

Best known as a founder of American rock band The National and for his film scores for The Revenant and The Two Popes, Dessner was initially inspired by the tragedy of the Australian bush fires and the Notre-Dame fire in Paris. Sydney Dance Company’s “awe- inspiring” (In Daily) ensemble is joined live on stage by the Australian String Quartet. This is epic, driven performance that packs an emotional punch. 

When COVID-19 struck in March 2020, Impermanence was only four days from its world premiere and opening night. As the impact of the pandemic became apparent, performances were cancelled and artists sent into lockdown. Life, and recovery, were on hold, but the collaboration persevered. The ASQ recorded the compositions in lockdown, the dancers rehearsed in isolation, and with the added poignancy of a pandemic that has exposed so many vulnerabilities and changed us all at a profound level, Impermanence returned to the stage.

Experience the power of dance and music performed live together, laden with meaning, fleeting and vulnerable, and from devastation find energy, urgency, radiance and hope. 

Originally premiering in 2018 and returning for a smash-hit season in 2023, Antony Hamilton’s Helpmann Award-winning Forever & Ever “lays siege to the senses with a mighty display of shock and awe” (The Australian). 

Set to a sonically stimulating score by The Presets’ Julian Hamilton, Forever & Ever fuses together a killer mix of dance, techno, high fashion and vivid lighting to hypnotic effect. Exploring ideas of order, chaos, popular culture and human behaviour, this boundary-pushing work is a bold and thrilling theatrical experience that is not to be missed.

Audience discussion Fri 29.8. after the performance.

Credits:

Impermanence

Choreographer: Rafael Bonachela
Composer: Bryce Dessner
Music performed by the Australian String Quartet
Music includes Anohni’s song Another World
Lighting Designer: Damien Cooper
Set Designer: David Fleischer
Costume Designer: Aleisa Jelbart

Australian String Quartet:
Dale Barltrop, Violin I
Francesca Hiew, Violin II
Christopher Cartlidge, Viola
Michael Dahlenburg, Cello

Bryce Dessner’s music composition Impermanence is commissioned by the Australian String Quartet and Sydney Dance Company. This commission has been assisted by the Australian Government through Creative Australia, its arts funding and advisory body.

Forever & Ever

Choreography: Antony Hamilton
Music: Julian Hamilton
Costume Design: Paula Levis
Lighting Design: Ben Cisterne

In co-operation with:

Jane and Aatos Erkko Foundation

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