Lucy Guerin Steps Down After 25 Years at Her Melbourne Company

After 25 years leading her own company, Lucy Guerin is stepping away. The Melbourne-based choreographer will hand the artistic directorship of Lucy Guerin Inc to choreographer Melanie Lane, closing a quarter-century run at the helm of the ensemble she founded.

Guerin marked the transition with a farewell performance. She danced a solo show, Place Dances, inside Melbourne's Buxton Contemporary art gallery. It was her first public dancing appearance in 13 years.

"I have found it incredibly confronting, to be honest," Guerin said, hours before the premiere.

Why the return to the stage was so hard

Guerin described the gap between memory and physical capacity. "As a dancer, you always remember in your body what it feels like to do an arabesque or a jump," she said. "And part of me thought I could still do all those things if I just got back in the studio and trained a bit."

She laughed at her own optimism. "But I'm afraid that wasn't the case."

The return contradicts a basic rule of the profession: dancers rarely expect longevity. The physical demands on the body and the rising risk of injury tend to force short careers. Guerin bucked that trend, building a CV that spans decades and collecting several international awards along the way.

Place Dances ran at Buxton Contemporary as Guerin's final act with the company. The work put her own body, rather than her dancers', at the center of a gallery setting.

The transition means Lucy Guerin Inc will operate under new artistic leadership for the first time since its founding. Guerin's legacy includes the sustained international profile she built for a Melbourne-based contemporary dance outfit over a 25-year tenure.

Melanie Lane now takes over as artistic director, and her first programs will show how the company's identity evolves without its founder at its center.