Adam Blanch has created a new ballet to Sculthorpe’s Earth Cry, with inspiration too from Hitchcock’s The Birds.

Sydney City Youth Ballet was founded over 20 years ago by Tanya Pearson. Now run by Lucinda Dunn – a former Principal Artist with The Australian Ballet, who has been Artistic Director for the past two-and-a-half years – the company is about to collaborate with Sydney Youth Orchestra Philharmonic for the first time for a concert called Together Live.

Queensland Ballet dancers Mia Heathcote (daughter of former AB Principal Steven Heathcote) and Joel Woellmer will perform as guest artists – a measure of how well regarded SCYB has become. “It’s not your local ballet school concert. This is a youth ballet with dancers striving to break into a professional career,” says Dunn.

The programme for Together Live will feature selections from classical ballets The Nutcracker, Les Sylphides and Le Corsaire, as well as the world premiere of The Sky is Falling by Australian choreographer Adam Blanch.

^{Cameron Doherty, one of the SCYB dancers in The Sky is Falling. Photograph © Nick Prokop}

Blanch trained at The Australian Ballet School and has danced with Queensland...