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Long-time artistic director and choreographer Rafael Bonachela is leaving Sydney Dance Company (SDC).
Spanish-born Bonachela will step down in the middle of 2028, marking 20 years at SDC. Under his leadership, the company has emerged as a significant player on the global dance stage and established extensive training programs for young dancers.
“By the time I leave it will be 20 years,” said Bonachela, who turns 54 next week. “For 20 years I have had the incredible privilege to be running this company. I could do this forever, trust me. I love it with every cell of my body, but I also believe this is the right time for change.”
Bonachela has been in discussions with the board chair Emma-Jane Newton and other directors for several weeks and said he had set a long period before his final departure to allow for an orderly transition.
“Hopefully, by the end of this year, someone will be appointed and they will have a year to program the second half of 2028,” he said. “While I’m still around and the person is here, I can help in whichever way I can.”
When Bonachela was handed the reins in 2009 (amid a flurry of “he’s from Barcelona” headlines) he had inherited a company still reeling after the sudden death of his predecessor Tanja Liedtke, who was killed in a road accident in 2007 just three months after her appointment. Liedtke’s tragically brief time at SDC followed the 30-year tenure of legendary dancer and choreographer Graeme Murphy.
“I’ve always been taking these crazy jumps in the unknown,” said Bonachela, who has tattooed on his forearm the words (in Spanish) In love with life. “I came here to work but they were looking for a director – I didn’t even know that. I came here with a three-year contract and a company artistically struggling but I felt like a challenge and I thought, ‘What’s the worst that can happen?’”
Bonachela came to Sydney from London, where he had worked with Rambert Dance Company for 13 years as a dancer and choreographer. He also worked with Kylie Minogue, choreographing her Showgirl and Fever tours.
At SDC, as well as making new work himself, Bonachela’s focus has been on taking the company to the rest of the world and nurturing new Australian talent, in particular through the pre-professional year program established in 2014.
“I came here to run a dance company and now I see Sydney Dance Company as a cultural powerhouse and a national centre for education,” said Bonachela. “Artistically, I wanted the company to become a repertory company, but of new creations. So to commission new work and to build an identity that was part of a global conversation.
“I did not move to Australia to lie in Bondi Beach. In fact, sometimes a whole summer goes past and I’m like, ‘I better go to the beach at least once’! I came here because I knew that there was an opportunity for me to make a difference.”
And while Bonachela said there had been too many highlights to narrow down to one, he does remember with particular fondness a show that was part of the 2017 Sydney Festival. A collaboration with the Art Gallery of NSW, in Nude: art from the Tate collection, the dancers – and audience – were naked, including Bonachela himself.
“Once we’re all naked, we’re all the same, in a way,” he said. “That was a really beautiful experience.”
SDC audiences have come to expect and appreciate Bonachela’s trademark physicality in the many works he has made for SDC. It demands much of the dancers, and he hopes that will be at least part of his legacy.
“I remember being in New York and there were people from New York City Ballet and they were like. ‘Oh my God, there is being fit and then there’s Sydney Dance Company fit!’ That is so true because we have to work really hard. I am so into physicality and movement, the thrill of it and how far we can go. It’s part of my identity. I hope the dancers will carry that identity forwards – the virtuosity and rigour that is ingrained in the organisation.”
And what words does he have for his successor?
“Be yourself, of course,” he said. “They will bring their own set of skills and talents. And there’s always the artistic vision that’s very important because you bring everyone along behind you. But it’s also something that keeps moulding and shifting and changing. Flexibility in the way you lead a company really helps.”
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