Lucy Guerin AO, the founder of Melbourne-based contemporary dance company Lucy Guerin Inc, announced today (23 June) that she will step down as the company’s Artistic Director and CEO at the end of 2026.
Marking her departure, Guerin will create a new solo dance work for herself in October 2026, marking her first performance since 2013 and final performance with the company. Her recent LGI works will continue to tour in 2027 and 2028.
Lucy Guerin – quick links
Reaching ‘an end point’
Guerin tells ArtsHub that she never expected LGI, which she founded in 2002, would continue for 25 years, ‘and so I’ve never really anticipated or considered an end point’.
In recent years, however, she had begun to consider a transition away from LGI for two main reasons.
‘Firstly, I’m very excited to hand this [company] over to somebody else and give somebody else the opportunity that I’ve had, which has been incredible,’ she says.
‘And then the other reason is just to have a bit more time for myself, I guess. To step down a bit from the more administrative aspects of running a company and have a bit more flexibility, almost return to being an independent artist – which I know has its own admin problems,’ she laughs, ‘but you know, just not showing up every day at the office.’
Guerin has presented her work in most of Australia’s major festivals and venues, and toured extensively in Asia, North America and Europe, including at Théâtre de la Ville (Paris), Brooklyn Academy of Music (New York), the Venice Biennale and the Shanghai International Festival.
She has been commissioned by companies nationally and internationally, including Chunky Move, Dance Works Rotterdam, Mikhail Baryshnikov’s White Oak Dance Project, Lyon Opera Ballet, Skånes Dansteater, Rambert and The Australian Ballet.
Her awards include the Sidney Myer Performing Arts Award, a New York Dance and Performance Award (Bessie), and multiple Green Room, Helpmann, and Australian Dance Awards. In 2016 she received the Australia Council Award for Dance, and in 2020 was awarded the Order of Australia.
Lucy Guerin Inc’s vital role in the contemporary dance ecology
Guerin has created 26 works in 25 years at LGI, supporting many dancers through development and performance opportunities along the way. A 27th work – her upcoming solo – is still to come.
Dancer and choreographer Lilian Steiner has worked with Guerin at LGI since 2011, a professional relationship she called ‘life-changing [and] one of the most special and rewarding opportunities of my life,’ in a statement supplied to ArtsHub.
Speaking to Guerin’s impact on the Australian dance sector, Steiner said, ‘The traces and impressions Lucy and her company have left in generations of dance artists is remarkable and admirable, and her legacy is one I feel honoured to hold so deeply in my own body and memory.
‘This is truly the end of an important era, and I feel confident to speak on behalf of the wider Australian dance community in giving a heartfelt thank you to Lucy and everyone who has made Lucy Guerin Inc possible, for their utter devotion to our art form and our community for the last 25 years. It has created a strong foundation for future artistic directors and the dance community in Melbourne.’
LGI Chair Peter Jopling AM KC also paid tribute to Guerin, saying in a supplied statement: ‘Lucy Guerin founded this company with a singular artistic vision and the determination to build something lasting – not just for audiences, but for the entire ecology of Australian dance. Twenty-five years later, that is exactly what she has done.’
Calling her decision to step down at the end of the year ‘characteristically clear-eyed’, Jopling said Guerin ‘leaves LGI at a moment of real strength: artistically vital, financially sound, internationally respected, and with a community of artists and supporters who are deeply committed to its future.
‘On behalf of the board, I want to express our profound gratitude for everything Lucy has given to this company and to Australian dance. We are now looking for an exceptional choreographer and artistic leader to build on what she has created – and we are excited about what comes next,’ he said.
Multiple potential successors in the wings
In addition to supporting countless dancers in LGI production over the past 25 years, Guerin has also supported emerging choreographers, especially those working outside of company structures, through the annual short performance program, Pieces for Small Spaces (later known simply as Pieces). The curated program was first presented in 2005.
Does Guerin hope that one of the choreographers she has supported through the Pieces initiative will succeed her as LGI’s next artistic director?
‘That will depend on the recruitment process, and we will have a panel in place to make that decision, but of course it would be wonderful if [that were to happen],’ she says.
‘One of the things that I feel really pleased with, or proud of, is that there is a whole generation of really excellent choreographers who are more than capable of taking on this opportunity in Australia and in Melbourne. So, yes, that feels good.’
She hopes that whoever takes over the reins of LGI will also continue its support of emerging dancers and choreographers.
‘That philosophy, those aims and goals and that vision for the company, I’m hoping will endure: that it will always be applied for research and for experimentation, and for the dance sector to come and converse and be in dialogue,’ she says.
A dance sector in transition
Guerin’s departure from LGI is one of several high-profile departures by dance sector leaders in the coming months.
As previously reported by ArtsHub, Raewyn Hill, the founding Artistic Director of Perth’s Co3 Contemporary Dance Australia is stepping down at the end of 2026, while Dancenorth Australia‘s co-artistic directors Kyle Page and Amber Haines are set to leave the company in 2027. Rafael Bonachela, Sydney Dance Company’s artistic director, has also announced his impending departure from the company, though not until 2028.
Simultaneously, the contemporary dance sector faces a number of challenges, as well as both opportunity and uncertainty, as discussed at the recent Australian Dance Forum held in Melbourne during Rising.
ArtsHub: Australian Dance Summit finds a sector at a crossroads
Guerin believes the contemporary dance sector is ‘incredibly creative and vibrant’ at the present time, ‘especially given the conditions that everyone’s working under’.
‘There are some constraints at the moment, funding-wise, opportunity-wise and touring-wise. I look back and think, “Wow, I was so lucky to have those opportunities”, and I can see that those are much harder now, but in spite of that, I feel that, you know, people are undaunted.
‘Choreographers are still making their work, really interesting work – [there are some] really fantastic projects that I’ve seen over the past few years. I just think it’s a really strong field of artists in Australia, and for me, I guess, because I am Australian, that work really resonates with me as well.’
Lucy Guerin’s parting solo
Guerin’s final work for LGI will be a new solo dance piece which she will perform herself in October – her first dance performance since 2013.
‘I’ve been talking about this solo for about at least five years. I was meant to do it a few years ago, but I’ve been putting it off and putting it off,’ Guerin tells ArtsHub.
‘One of the things about running the company for me has been that I’ve gotten a bit disconnected from my own dancing, just because of the time constraints. I mean, I’m still in the studio with the dancers creating material, but I just thought, “I want to be able to investigate my own dancing and where it sits at this point in time”, you know?’
Guerin says the work will draw upon the fact that, ‘my physicality has changed and so has my experience, so just to see what is there, you know, at this older age – and what’s interesting physically as well as conceptually’.
Nor will stepping away from LGI mean Guerin is walking away from choreography. ‘I’m really happy to keep making dances for the rest of my life, I think, because it just, you know, it never seems like it’s finished.
‘I’ve been thinking a lot about this kind of dialogue between trying to find clarity in my works – in the way that they’re communicating to an audience, and striving for that – but also in the fact that dance isn’t really like that.
‘There’s always these tangents and these sort of inexplicable things that really work and that you could never have foreseen. It’s just really found through the work in the studio, and so it’s almost this dialogue between clarity and this sort of miasma of everything else – space, time, motion, tone.
‘I guess it’s a kind of a response to the fact that we communicate through language and dance ultimately for me has a different communicative beginning than language [does].’
The LGI Board will begin a leadership search in the coming weeks for a new Artistic Director and co-CEO, to commence in 2027.
