High quality movie files, full-length DVD’s and printed programmes of some of these have also being delivered to the National Film & Sound Archive of Australia (NFSA) so that Heritage Collection’s works will be preserved for posterity and available from NFSA in the future for research and study.

More about the Heritage Collection        Jil Sykes essay: Graeme Murphy and the SDC

Preservation of the Collection has been made possible due to the initiative of Julian Knights, former Chair of the Australia Council’s Major Performing Arts Panel and a former Chair of Sydney Dance Company, and generous support from Dr Kristine Dery and Tom Dery, Julian and Lizanne Knights, Andrew Messenger, Sylvie Mutschler, Rowan and Annie Ross (matched by the Macquarie Group Foundation), and Joe Skrzynski AO and Ros Horin (The Sky Foundation).

Videos Tab above: 1) You and I (celebrating Graeme and Janet dancing throughout the years)
2) The Costumes – Photos collage featuring costumes of Graeme’s work (Launceston Museum talk)

Book Glimpses of Graeme: Reflections on the work of Graeme Murphy – Here is the link

Note: the programs displayed on this site are not listed chronologically, inciting curiosity…

“… Murphy clearly has an extraordinary talent – in addition to his gifts as a choreographer – of bringing together artists of various stripe who can meld dance, music, lighting, design and theatre into an unforgettable evening.”

The Times, New Orleans

Videos Tab above: Graeme Murphy’s giving context to the work
The Australian Ballet promoting MURPHY

Review        Program

After Venice premiered in December 1984 at the Drama Theatre of the Sydney Opera House and toured nationally as well as Greece, Italy and Spain, and the US.

Original Program

“Stunning movement and haunting moods make it a tour de force”
Janice Berman, Newsday, New York

“After Venice is an extraordinary work, one that grips you in the theatre and haunts you when you’ve left it….The fabric of movement in it shows that Murphy has a rare skill as a dance dramatist.”
Jill Sykes, Sydney Morning Herald , Dec 3, 1984

“Perhaps Mr. Murphy’s real coup de theatre is the use of Olivier Messaien’s Turangalila Symphony. With its 10 very dramatic movements, the Messaien is a symphony to swoon by – it has the power and the glory, the ecstatic dimension for a tale of climax and decline. It is marvelous, enveloping all in a texture of sound.” Anna Kisselgoff, The New York Times

Featured video: Scene 1

Videos Tab above: Scene 2, 3 & 4

Stay tuned for more videos…

Choreographer’s Note: “With CUT, I indulged in a work that in some ways looked back over my shoulder at some key motif that had emerged in my choreography over the years. During this process, I reveled in the emerging talent of the dancers and also took great pleasure in those dear and wonderful artists of longer standing – ah the heady complexity of fine port.” Graeme Murphy AO

Videos Tab above: CUT -  full program in four parts

a 60 second TVC (advertising the Melbourne season)

Narelle Benjamin GOSSAMER excerpts (part of the Director’s Cut program)

Review1          Review2

Original Program

Videos Tab above:

1) Synergy with Synergy Part 1 (full show filmed as a TV Special)
2) Synergy with Synergy Part 2 (full show filmed as a TV Special with rolling credits at the end)
3) Synergy with Synergy clip (excerpt from Body of Work 2000)
4) Lemurian Dances (composed by Michael Askill)
Performed by members of the UWEC Wind Symphony percussion section

Full show has also been reformatted in widescreen format  PLAYLIST link

Mythologia is an epic dance-drama on an operatic scale, taking the audience on a wonderful journey through a collection of dynamic, bold and breathtaking dance sequences in the telling of the many Trials of Heracles.

Choreographer’s note: ”With the advent of the Sydney Olympics, Sydney was under global scrutiny as thorough as any archaeological dig. Mythologia, by exploring a noble and ancient civilisation, also attempts to illuminate the grand chaos of our own. Within the fabulous physical beauty of our city, acts of kindness, tolerance, nobility and harmony are played out alongside selfishness, flippancy, cruelty and hedonism. Deeds as extreme as any Bacchic fantasy occur in this city daily. Yet Sydney remains a Mecca for the persecuted, the thoughtful and the creative – a place where against a backdrop, sometimes exquisite sometimes tawdry, individuals still aspire to ascend an Olympus of their own making.

In the dark labyrinth of mythology I have found a parallel between myth and dance – both depending so much on interactive interpretation. Here the role of the observer is as vital as the teller, and the audience becomes its own diviner of truth. I, in my own creative capacity, am merely a tool of greater forces and can but submit to the Fates.

Bringing the creative team for Mythologia together has put me back in touch with a favourite composer, Carl Vine. Carl and I have worked together many times since our first adventure with Poppy in 1978.“

Mythologia was filmed at the Lyric Theatre of the Queensland Performing Art Centre (QPAC) in Brisbane in late 2000.

Videos Tab above: New excerpts video

The Story                  The Texts                 The Choir                 Program

Jayne and Chris flew to Sydney to perform alongside the Russian Olympic team in a series of shows. This introduced them to an events promoter, Michael Edgley, and to Sydney Dance Company’s artistic director Graeme Murphy. The show was taken to other Australian cities and then Graeme agreed to fly to Europe and choreograph two new routines for their first World Professional Championships in the USA.

They also performed at the Royal Variety show in front of the Queen Mother and Prince Charles at the London Palladium. A new routine, Song of India (choreographed by Graeme), had been filmed and was played on a huge screen, at the end of which Jayne and Chris appeared to tumultuous applause.

They returned to Australia to prepare for Torvill and Dean: The World Tour. Graeme Murphy became co-artistic director and after assembling a company of top international ice skaters, rehearsals were held in a disused warehouse in downtown Sydney. Three months later, a few try-out shows were performed in New Zealand and Australia, then the entire company was transported to Oberstdorf for final rehearsals before the opening at Wembley Arena, London, England in the summer. Capacity audiences for eight shows a week with a run of seven weeks ensured that almost half a million people saw the show

Torvill and Dean: The World Tour went to North America, opening in St Johns, Newfoundland and toured throughout Canada, performing in enormous ice hockey arenas. After a short break, the show moved to the southern hemisphere and Australia, including performances in Tasmania in the circus tent, last used in Nottingham a year earlier.

In the summer, Jayne and Chris filmed an hour-long television special called Fire and Ice. Rehearsals and filming took place in Germany. The music was composed by Carl Davis, the director was Tom Gutteridge and Graeme Murphy once again choreographed. It was the highlight of the Christmas viewing schedule in the UK.

Previous Video: Song of India

Videos Tab above:
1) Short interview with Graeme (TV)
2) 1985 World Championships VENUS (artistic dance)
3) Fire and Ice (full 1986 show – low res)

Iva Davies’ hit single No Promises was all over the charts (and became a key moment in the work in which Iva danced with Janet Vernon)

Program              Iva Davies interviews

“Boxes reflects on a world where physical and emotional barriers are erected knowingly, and all too often unknowingly; a world where we strive to measure and analyse everything in our physical universe.  It is a view through a window into a new environment – a world of change.”
Graeme Murphy, 1985

The revolving set
At the time, the Sydney Opera House stage featured an enormous hydraulic powered ‘revolve’, a giant Lazy Susan that could raise, lower and rotate the stage. Boxes set designer Laurence Eastwood utilised this to breathtaking effect. “The set itself was a humongous wooden scaffolding cube,” says Davies. “Right at the climax of the piece, the entire 20-tonne thing would start to revolve, with us on it. I can remember looking out on the audience every night, and everybody’s jaws were on the floor.”
Boxes would never be performed in any other theatre

Link to FULL SHOW via Sydney Opera House STREAM (until Nov 18, 2023)

Videos Tab above:
TV interview of Graeme Murphy
No Promises – Original clip
No Promises – today’s revival

Yet as always with the work of Graeme Murphy, it is the music that drives the inspiration, becoming the pivot upon which the choreographer spins his distinctive stamp. With Ellipse, Murphy works for the first time with the music of prolific Australian composer Matthew Hindson. Increasingly recognised for his outstanding achievements, Hindson was the Sydney Symphony Orchestra’s composer of the year in 2000 and Musica Viva’s featured composer in 2002.

Following its world premiere at the Sydney Opera House in May 2002, Ellipse has been performed in regional centres in Australia and in New Zealand, Noumea and Bangkok, Thailand. In 2004 the Company’s touring of Ellipse includes a 10-city tour of the United States.

The New York Times Review                          From the Composer

FROM THE CHOREOGRAPHER

“Ellipse is a suite of dances set to a selection of Matthew Hindson’s music played by ensembles ranging from intimate duos, to full-throttle orchestration. Hindson’s musical and stylistic range is extraordinary and this eclecticism offers a huge challenge to dancer and choreographer alike,. It demands huge energy, subtle lyricism, comedy and drama. In fact, it runs the complete gamut of the contemporary dance performers ‘raison d’être’.

Without the cushion of a narrative, the dancer must find rhyme and reason and a mode of communication so the piece doesn’t become a series of complicated exercises. With music as evocative as this, though, it is impossible not to conjure emotional and dramatic sequences. So here within a madly contoured elliptical design (courtesy of the talented Gerard Manion), lit by an orbiting plane of a single light (thanks again Damien Cooper), the dancers frolic, contort and embrace. Their Akira-clad bodies are etched in space and suspended in theatrical timelessness. The music buffers them In lyricism and whips them with rhythmic lashings and their sole focus becomes that most human activity – survival. Welcome to the mysterious elliptical world of dance.”

Graeme Murphy AO – May 2002

In commemoration of Australia’s Centenary of Federation in 2001, The Sydney Dance Company and The Australian Ballet joined forces for the first time to present an unforgettable celebration of the Tivoli Circuit. TIVOLI is Graeme Murphy’s homage to this extraordinary period of variety theatre. Featuring 35 dancers from two of Australia’s most celebrated companies, guest artists and singers and a 10-piece band, Tivoli is a large-scale production which toured nationally in 2001 and, due to the overwhelming audience response, Sydney Dance Company presented a return season in 2003 at the Capitol Theatre in Sydney.

Interweaving backstage scenes with onstage acts, Graeme Murphy’s TIVOLI captures the essence of ‘a night at the Tiv’ whilst also telling the story of the era. The story opens in 1906, when the main character, a starry-eyed Jack, lands a job as a stagehand. This marks the beginning of a life-long love affair with the theatre, and we watch as he works his way to the top in the midst of great change – two World Wars, the roaring 20s and the depression years, the topless follies of the 50s and finally the disastrous advent of television. Drawing upon authentic music and authentic acts from Tivoli productions, TIVOLI reveals the humour, glamour and magic of the era to a whole new generation.

TIVOLI received four Australian Dance Awards, for outstanding achievement in choreography – won by Graeme Murphy, outstanding performance by a company, outstanding performance by an individual – won by guest artist Harry Haythorne, and outstanding performance in a stage musical – won by Tracey Carrodus.

Review           Program           Frank van Straten interview          Graeme Murphy interview

The stage performance was filmed a number of times in Melbourne and Sydney and has now been edited in full, 176 min of it!

The making of this musical was also filmed as a documentary.

Featured video: 13 min Promo

Videos tab above:
Excerpt from ‘Gloom and Glitz’ (7 min)
‘Fashion in the Foyer’ (5 min)
‘Swan Silver’ (6 min)
Remembrance Songs excerpts (10 min)
Celebrating the late Harry Haythorne

There has always been a strong element of sexuality in the work of Graeme Murphy. Fornicon continues the theme, taking it somewhat farther than he’s gone before.

An author is in prison because of subversive writing. He suspects his wife, Helene, of infidelity, and is inspired to write a book, Fornicon, concerning the exploits of Don Giovanni and Helen of Troy, a great seducer and great seductress of historic literature. They meet and play sexual games together and with anyone else who takes their fancy. The stories of the two characters mingle, The Don seducing Zerlina, while Helene gets into the act with Masetto, and also keeps the flame alight with Paris.

There are lots of laughs in Fornicon – it certainly does not take itself seriously. Murphy sees sex as manipulative and power seeking, but above all as fun. In his program note, he says that AIDS has “brought about a moral cautionary tale to a lot of theater . . . but maybe the stage is one of the few places where you . . . can see the magic of wild abandon.“

There is a tender pas de deux for Zerlina and Masetto and a sensual one for Helene and Paris, but such scenes are outnumbered by orgiastic groups and those involvinq a crazed bishop with increasingly bizarre phallic fantasies.

Janet Vernon was marvelous as the wickedly seductive Helene. Mark Williams, a pop and rock singer who also moves well, made a believable character of The Don. Murphy himself was The Author, pulling the whole plot together. All the dancers performed with the skill and gusto thal is the hallmark of Sydney Dance Company.

Video Tab: Mark Williams performs Fornicon on live TV

Program

Sydney Dance Company premiered it at the Drama Theatre, Sydney Opera House, on April 7, 1989 during The Choreographer Dances – Gala Performance.

Video Tab above: Another version performed at the 25th anniversary Australian Ballet School’s Gala in Melbourne, 1989.

Videos Tab Above:
30 sec Trailer
ACT I in full
ACT II in full
1993 Music clip from Southern Sons ‘You Were There’                                     

Program

THE STORY (written by Kristian Fredrikson)

Lost in a storm and pursued by phantoms, Beauty’s father finds himself in a midnight garden. There he spies a white rose, which he plucks as a gift for his daughter. To his horror, Beauty’s father is confronted by an enraged man/beast. The Beast agrees to spare his life if he offers his child as a sacrifice.

The loving Beauty persuades her stricken father to bring her to the Beast’s mansion that she enters through a magic mirror. She is attended by the Beast’s magic spirits, but recoils in terror when the Beast appears. He swears her no harm, but warns against venturing through certain enchanted mirrors.

Driven by nightmares, Beauty enters one of the forbidden mirrors leading into a realm inhabited by the Beast’s futuristic persona. She finds herself in the domain of the mechanistic Corporate Beast, a world where greed is the dehumanising spell. Horrified, Beauty flees back through the Mirror, but the Beast’s wrath at her disobedience sends her tumbling through another mirror into the drugged madness of the Rock Beast’s concert. Finally, Beauty escapes to the safety of the past and the Beast’s mansion.

Beauty and the Beast‘s relationship begins to grow into a companionable friendship, but when she sees a vision of her father lamenting into illness, she begs the Beast to allow her to return to him for a short visit. Upon her promise to return he permits her to leave.

But Beauty forgets her promise and the Beast and his future selves fall sick unto death or begin to self-destruct. The spirit of the Rose seeks to support the Beast. Through the magic mirror Beauty sees the Beast’s distress and returns in haste. Already the Rock and Corporate personae are beyond her embrace, but she finds the Beast himself and, as she kisses him with true grief and love, the Beast’s outer self is transformed into the inner man. As the woman kisses the true man, the ghosts of his tortured past and threatened future farewell her in love.

Graeme Murphy AO often spoke of how he based his telling of the story of Daphnis and Chloé on the novella by Longus, essentially giving it a very sensual although still innocent flavor, just like the book. The work was seeped in ancient Greek atmosphere and was guided by the illustrative score composed by Maurice Ravel (originally for its Ballet Russes premiere with choreography by Fokine in 1912).  Murphy’s amazing take on Daphnis and Chloé was seen as a brilliant blend of traditional narrative story telling mixed with a vivid theatrical imagination, and some surprising diversions.  It was certainly enriched by Kristian Fredrikson’s designs, among them Bryaxis as a terrifying leather clad bikie leader; Pan on a cloud; Cupid on a skateboard.  Their fruitful collaborations were always so effective and so theatrically brilliant, the results here left the audience entranced.  In particular, New York audiences were blown away by Daphnis and Chloé.  The Company was invited to bring the entire season of 3 Programs holus bolus to Sadler’s Wells in London.

Link to large video                               1980 Program

 “If there’s one thing Sydney Dance Company has going for it, it’s a sense of humour – and best of all an irreverent one.  It also has in its favour a fresh approach to ballet standards, a troupe of accomplished dancers and a predilection for especially sensual and provocative choreography.”

Allan Kozinin, the News & Courier, Charleston, SC – Spoleto Festival

Premiered in Warsaw in 1926, Szymanowksi’s opera could be regarded as a series of tableaux.  The first Byzantine, the second Arabic-Indian and the last Hellenic.  The choice of Sicily as the setting for this fantastical mystery play in itself confirms the extent of Szymanowski’s interest in this Mediterranean civilization, a fascination shared by Graeme Murphy.  Embellished by the exoticism inherent in this passionate, although unhistorical story of a love triangle between the King, Roxana and The Shepherd, King Roger is also concerned with a contest of faiths. In fact, the King was lauded for embracing and celebrating all cultures and beliefs, welcoming diversity and creating an early multi-cultural society.  Yet in the opera he is tested fully when his Queen and many of his followers embrace The Shepherd’s calling, with dramatic results. The rich lavish costumes were designed by Kristian Fredrikson.

“In a very real sense, King Roger was Sicily.  His was the conception, his was the incentive; he and only he could have created the favourable climate that was a precondition of all the rest.  Enlightened yet always discriminating, he was the first royal patron, focusing the efforts and energies of those around him, never once losing sight of his eternal objective – the greatness and glory of the Kingdom.”

Sections of Text by arrangement with the English National Opera                                   Program

Music Note           Program

Videos Tab above
2 x excerpts from “Body of Work”
+ the Full original show

Free Radicals on Spotify (and other musical gems by Michael Askill)

Choreographer’s  Note:

Synergy with Synergy (1992) explored industrial and mechanical might to 8 existing percussion scores. Free Radicals has the percussive link, but the work exists on a much more human scale. It would be easy to view Free Radicals as son-of-Synergy with Synergy, but the critical difference is that this work began with no score, just the musicians and the dancers. Each creative element in this work was generated by all the artists during the working process. Therefore, rather than having the comfort of existing music on Day One of our rehearsal, every day in fact produced a musical world premiere, a new movement vocabulary and even lighting and design experiments. In short, from nothing, we have attempted to create a spare but efficient piece of theatre underscored with choreographic and rhythmic complexities.

The process taxed all of our resources incredibly. Michael and the two Alisons were constantly pressured with minimal instrumentation to produce new music at maximum speed and to find within themselves sufficient variety and invention to sustain this full evening work. They in turn challenged the dancers to find new depths of rhythmic complexity in a dance world notorious for counting in basic units of 8 regardless of true time signatures. We in turn retaliated by propelling the musicians into the avalanche of movement.

Similarly, the ever generous dancers unearthed some long forgotten skills – for example, tapping – left to gather dust since eisteddfod days; singing; and even some distant memories of flamenco rhythms. Particularly, in the solos, the dancers’ own personalities and eccentricities became a foil for the process – a process both revealing and exhilarating.

The percussive pulse seemed to drive us forward and the feeling of shared ownership by the participants in this work meant no-one would let go of the necessary energy, an energy that infuses this work and I hope enthuses you, its audience.

NY Times Review1    NY Times Review2    Austin Chronicle    Daily Press

The Story of Salome

Video Tab above: A mesmerezing duo with Tracey Carrodus and Josef Brown

Choreographer’s Notes                  Composer’s Notes                Review

Salome on Spotify (and other musical gems by Michael Askill)

Receiving its premiere on 25 May 2004 at the Sydney Opera House, Shades of Gray is an intense work rich in symbolic and historical references. Set in the hedonistic milieu of the last few decades of the twentieth century, Shades of Gray cuts a swathe through the destructive decadence of this time.

Unfolding on and off stage in 18 scenes, the story follows Dorian’s dazzling dance career from the late 60′s to early 90′s in several performances within the performance, viewed by the audience as if backstage.The interweaving narrative tracks the downward spiral of Dorian and his celebrity click from glitzy euphoria to out-of-control debauchery. Dorian’s portraits come alive through the ‘Shades’, who represent Dorian’s moral decay.

The Story                Program

Choreographer’s and Music Notes

Review

Video tab above: Shades of Gray 48 sec trailer.

Along with Short Stories, the program contained a selection of works which Melbourne, Canberra and Sydney, in particular, had taken to heart : Air and Other Invisible Forces, Tivoli, Ellipse, Cut and Berlin.

Ever After Ever was Graeme’s fond farewell to these special cities that embraced his work in multiple tours over three decades.

Review               Program

Graeme Murphy’s production of Hua Mulan tells the story through a hybrid of classical and contemporary dance forms, using narrative skills to illuminate the slender tale with exploration of character and development of heroic plot lines, revealing the heart and humanity of its heroine, Mulan.

Hua Mulan was an historic collaboration between two cultures and two dance companies, Sydney Dance Company and the Shanghai Song & Dance Ensemble.

Program

In Nearly Beloved, the present arrives some twenty years late to find the past still patiently waiting. What might have been becomes inextricably linked with what was and paths that might have entwined meet fleetingly only to be forever parted.“

Graeme Murphy

Program

Premiered at the Sydney Opera House on August 23rd 1986 and was restaged in 1991. It was based on the shorter piece Old Friends, New Friends (circa 1984) which became Nearly Beloved‘s third act.

VIDEOS Tab above: Old Friends, New Friends performance excerpt

Featured Video (previous page) is a taster from Nearly Beloved, The Movie (see The Story for context)

See also Carl Vine interview

“I know of no other ballet that relies so completely on the interchange between movement and light, and the result is stunning …dazzlingly dramatic lighting design”
The Bulletin (1982)

Featured video: full-length of the 1992 version

1981 New York Times review                      Program (1980)