REVIEW: TRIPTYCH, the excellence of when dance connects

Wednesday 7pm 16th September 2026, Studio Sydney Opera House.

TRIPTYCH, helmed by Artistic Director and Choreographer Lewis Major, is an exceptional dance work.

There is something magical about how this performance has come together, which seems apt to the work itself. Major says the three pieces weren't originally conceived as a TRIPTYCH, they just gradually found their way into the same programme. This gut approach seems to be the method to read the work.

Major says the pieces aren't didactic and that he wants the audience to have their own experience, to see and feel what they see and feel. There is no instruction manual, no single meaning to unlock. The powerful, engaging work becomes an analogy for its own creation, unfolding intuitively and leaving you to simply experience it. And it has your heart enthralled.

Performers Alexander Abbot, Elsi Auricht-Faulks, Felicity Chadwick and Tahlia Russell perfectly interpret Major's choreography with finesse, exceptional power, strength and intuition. Just amazing.

The symmetry, synchronisation and ensemble cohesiveness is par excellence. When one dancer is performing with a partner but does not touch the ground, the concept and execution alone are reasons you must buy a ticket now.

But there is yet another performer in TRIPTYCH. Lighting and Visual Designer Fausto Brusamolino brings a myriad of light techniques, with a choreography of it’s own that intertwines, clashes and elevates the performance to an engrossing level. With beams, lines and patterns of light, the mise-en-scène is a beauty. Kudos to Frankie Clarke, the Lighting Realiser and Technical Manager.

Each piece has unique lighting, both technically and visually. The opening piece, with squares of light that shift and float, traverses into negative spaces. And an act that, with my personal experience in mind, appears as bodies drifting and curling with the organic grace of underwater life, dappled with rays of sunlight through the ocean waves.

The closing act has gorgeous, simpler lighting, allowing us to bathe in the imagery of Auricht-Faulks, in a costume emulating nakedness, covered in dust that elegantly floats through the air. At times she is the ghost of a music box ballerina, and at others an organic emotional being. This work also allows us to see that Lewis Major, with extraordinary physical choreography, truely knows the beauty of stillness.

James Peter Brown's music and soundscape is another wonderful attribute, in sync with the magnificence at play. The diverse array of sounds and beats have an indirect way of enhancing the state of play and immersing you in the dancers' journey. It creates an atmosphere that seems to surround the dancers rather than simply accompany them, shifting the energy and pulling you further into the world of the work. I loved it.

For me, the excellence of dance is that emotive connection where the narrative is in the knowing. TRIPTYCH achieves this with extraordinary grace, allowing emotion, movement, light and sound to converge into something deeply felt and instinctively understood.

Photos @ Daniel Boud