See all the dance — Artistic Director's pick

This year, dance at Brisbane Festival isn’t just something to watch — it’s something to feel. It’s bold, kinetic, and unapologetically alive, offering audiences a chance to witness movement at its most potent. It is where raw expression meets technical brilliance, where tradition collides with the avant-garde, and where the most urgent conversations happen not in words, but in the language of the body.

The international centrepiece Gems from Benjamin Millepied’s LA Dance Project is contemporary ballet at its most refined — elegant, exquisite, and deeply cinematic. This is a museum piece in motion, where Millepied’s choreography collides with David Lang’s haunting score and Barbara Kruger’s bold, declarative visuals in Reflections. Hearts & Arrows thrums with the pulse of Philip Glass, electrified by Liam Gillick’s razor-sharp design, while On the Other Side offers a hypnotic dreamscape where Alessandro Sartori’s couture meets Mark Bradford’s raw, textured world. Commissioned by Van Cleef and Arpels, this triptych has never been performed together before. Gems is an Australian exclusive to Brisbane.

What happens when you merge traditional theatre with breakdance, inline skating, skateboarding, freestyle basketball, BMX, and freerunning? You get an adrenaline-fueled explosion of extreme urban sports, dance, music, and theatre. Enter the Netherlands’ ISH Dance Collective, bringing their breathtaking spectacle of raw skill and artistry to Brisbane.

Stephanie Lake Company’s The Chronicles is a large-scale powerhouse of sound and movement that asks not just how we live, but why. Featuring a terrifyingly disarming children’s choir and twelve extraordinary dancers, this frenetic piece amplifies raw physicality with haunting choral harmonies.

Bad Nature by Australasian Dance Collective, in collaboration with Club Guy & Roni (The Netherlands), will have its world premiere at Brisbane Festival. Pushing the boundaries of perception, inviting audiences to step into an unreal space that warps the senses with kinetic sculpture. The dramatic and awe-inspiring designs of Boris Acket will create the world of Bad Nature — four synthetic environments created through sound, light and kinetic sculptures, morphing and mutating in a replication of our natural world.

Stephen Page, an icon of Australian Indigenous dance, comes home with the Queensland premiere of his masterpiece Baleen Moondjan. A contemporary ceremony inspired by a story from his grandmother of the Ngugi/Nunukul/Moondjan people of Minjerribah (Stradbroke Island). With the Brisbane River as the backdrop, this visually spectacular and deeply moving work tells the story of a proud Elder, a curious granddaughter, and the day a baleen whale comes close to shore to carry Granny Gindara’s spirit out to sea.

Following this, Unveiling Shadows marks the first solo work from First Nations artist and performer Josh Taliani. His signature style — open choreography infused with the art form of vogue (a staple of Ballroom culture) — creates a deeply personal and fiercely expressive experience.

And for those who love dance with joy, bad puns, and a bucket of chaos, Common People Dance Eisteddfod is back — spandex, suburban dance battles, creative costuming, and a cast ranging from age 2 to 82. Back for its seventh year, this explosion of joy has touched the hearts of more than 10,000 people.

Each of these works offers something different, but together, they reveal the boundless potential of dance — how it can challenge, uplift, and change the way we see the world. So, this year, don’t just see one. Let yourself be moved, over and over again.