Independent dance is where it gets really personal and interconnected. In two of the three short works in PIECES 2024 the choreographer is also a performer.

In the third, the score was co-written by the choreographer’s mother and one of the dancers in that work designed the costumes for another of the dances. 

Working alone isn’t easy but pretty much everyone knows everyone else, paths often cross and helping hands are extended.

One way that happens is when well-established contemporary dance companies make room – and provide resources – to expand the possibilities for sole operators. 

Sydney Dance Company, for instance, last year started INDance as a way of giving independent artists a platform and introducing the SDC audience to different names. But when it comes to sharing the love, Lucy Guerin Inc’s PIECES is in a class of its own. In nearly 20 years of operation it’s commissioned about 80 new works. 

This year’s iteration of PIECES got the Rolls-Royce treatment when Lucy Guerin Inc partnered with the University of Melbourne’s recently formed arts and culture division, UMAC. That gave access to UMAC’s splendid new Union Theatre, a space that can seat between 360 and 400  people. Luxury indeed...