Choreographer Lucy Guerin has left the Melbourne contemporary dance company she founded, handing artistic direction to fellow choreographer Melanie Lane after 25 years at its head, The Guardian reports.
Before her departure, Guerin performed in public for the first time in 13 years, presenting a solo work, Place Dances, at Melbourne's Buxton Contemporary art gallery. She told The Guardian she found the return to performing "incredibly confronting," speaking hours before the premiere.
Guerin said her body still carries the memory of steps such as an arabesque or a jump, and that she had partly believed a return to the studio and some training would restore her old abilities. She acknowledged that assumption was mistaken.
Why it matters
Lucy Guerin Inc has been a leading force in Australian contemporary dance for most of its existence, according to The Guardian, and has shaped the work of other local choreographers, among them Gideon Obarzanek, formerly artistic director of Chunky Move, and Stephanie Lake, who is internationally recognised.
The company's output is known for close analysis and intellectual discipline, a quality The Guardian notes can read as academic to newcomers, though it says the work produces moments of real wonder within a deliberately spare aesthetic.
Guerin's exit also marks a rare long tenure in a field where careers are typically short. The Guardian observes that dance makes heavy physical demands and carries a growing risk of injury, pressures that usually cut careers short. Guerin's CV spans decades and includes several international awards.
A career built on geometry and space
Guerin told The Guardian she aims for "pure dance" but finds theatricality always seeping in. She said her long-standing interest lies in how choreography is structured and how it engages with space, rather than in characters or story.
That interest was visible in Place Dances. The work opens with a lecture in which Guerin recalls being bored as a child whenever ballet gave way to narrative, drawn instead to the abstract formations of the corps de ballet.
Geometry has run through her choreography from the start, often staged on stark, uncluttered sets. At Buxton Contemporary she used her body to trigger the motion sensors on the gallery's doors and lifts, and marked out diagonals with bright electrical tape — one of her preferred ways of dividing a room.
She traced part of this approach to her first dance teacher, who labelled the room's four walls and four corners from one to eight so that students could place themselves physically in the space. Guerin said this made her think about how she was positioned in relation to the architecture around her, and how that positioning stays with a dancer.
Although Guerin oversaw the creation of the company's North Melbourne studio, WXYZ, she has long been drawn to unconventional, non-theatrical venues. She told The Guardian that a visual arts setting does not demand a theatrical arc, and that audiences tend to be more receptive to less traditional work in such spaces.
Venice, a Bessie and a "rare masterpiece"
Among the milestones Guerin cited were the company's selection for the 2023 Venice Biennale, where it performed Pendulum and Split, and a New York Dance and Performance award, commonly called a Bessie.
She described Split as especially meaningful. The original cast featured Lane alongside Lilian Steiner, and Guerin said it was one of the few occasions with the company when she began without a fixed idea, working with the performers until something took shape. The Guardian reports that one reviewer called the resulting work "a rare masterpiece of human struggle."
The company's repertoire has not been uniformly solemn. Pendulum, with its swinging golden spheres and ceremonial score, was notably reflective, according to The Guardian, but a sardonic and sometimes subversive humour runs through much of the work. Place Dances was received as openly funny, with Guerin mocking academic pretension and flopping face down onto a pile of black tulle as a wry comment on artistic suffering.
As she prepared to leave, Guerin described herself as calm rather than triumphant. She said she takes pride in the works the company has produced and in touring them to major theatres internationally, but that she is proudest of the relationships and chances she created for artists closer to home, noting that the independent dance sector is where she built her career.
She said the moment felt right, and that once she had said her decision aloud she felt settled. She added that she will not know how the change feels until it is fully behind her, given how busy the period has been.
Guerin is due to begin a month-long residency with the Bogliasco Foundation near Genoa, Italy, and has further projects lined up that she is not yet able to disclose.
Lane now takes over a company whose next chapter will be watched closely by the Australian dance community and by the international presenters who have carried its work abroad.
