never are
by Emma Riches
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“never are” (2025), Emma Riches. Photo by Peter Darnley-Stuart.
— A solo that composts itself.
Casting a magnifying glass over what is already there, never are gives up in order to regenerate. Tracking backward in order to move forward.
A new work by choreographer Emma Riches that becomes a compost of itself; components break down, decay, and nourish, as they are re-used, re-affirmed, and re-imagined, generating new from the old through choreographic texture.
“This beautiful temporal work has created a splash among Sydney’s contemporary dance scene.”
— Ira Ferris, BRAND X, 2025
“This work put Riches on the map.”
— Dolce Fisher, Dance Informa, 2025
Choreographer / Performer Emma Riches
Collaborator & Body Double Emma Harrison
Sound Designer Rachel Lewindon
Production Designer Sam Read
Costume Designer Sandra Riches
Mentor Martin del Amo
Outside Eye Rhiannon Newton
This project is supported by the City of Sydney, Brand X, Ausdance NSW, Critical Path, ReadyMade Works, ImPulsTanz Festival through the ATLAS Choreographic Scholarship Program and LGI made possible by WXYZ Studios.
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Emma Riches is an Australian artist working across performance, choreography, writing, teaching and producing with an interest in how these roles can intersect and inform each other. Since graduating from the Victorian College of the Arts (BFA Dance, 2015), Emma has worked with notable artists including Jill Crovisier (JC movement production), Sandra Parker, Jo Lloyd, Siobhan McKenna, Alice Will Caroline, Tra Mi Dinh, Emma Harrison, Phillip Adams/Matthew Bird, Victoria Hunt, Adele Varcoe, Nebahat Erpolat as well as Dance Makers Collective, Tasdance, Deep Soulful Sweats and Polito. Emma’s work has been commissioned by DirtyFeet, the University of Melbourne and presented at M1 CONTACT Festival Singapore, The Flying Nun by Brand X, Sunshine Art Spaces, Dancehouse, Strawberry Fields Music Festival and Melbourne Fringe Festival (Compass development program). She has been a choreographic resident at institutions across Australia including Critical Path, ReadyMade Works, Lucy Guerin Inc, Temperance Hall, Ausdance NSW, Strut, GUTS, Dancehouse, Schoolhouse Studios and internationally at ImPulsTanz, Vienna. Emma’s choreographic practice is interested in developing structures to push the creative and physical endurance of the performer while finding ways to leave a tangible trace of the performative action. She is the initiator of ‘The Not New Project’, a platform that profiles specific aspects of dance practice through bite-sized publications.
Emma is also the Producer for DirtyFeet, a Sydney-based organisation that champions emerging and inclusive practice.
