Top Dog
Images Daniel Boud.
Sydney Dance Company
PPY Revealed season
Carriageworks
November 2025
Choreographer/director: Emma Harrison
Performers/collaborators: Pre professional year two students
Sound designer: Amy Flannery
Lighting design: Karen Norris
Costume: Harriet Ayers
Head of training: Linda Gamblin
This piece provided the perfect antidote to an evening of serious contemporary dance. Not that the themes depicted in Top Dog weren’t seriously relevant. Harrison did a brilliant job addressing themes associated with gender equality, bullying and compulsory conformity expressed through the overarching machinations of competitive dog sports. Whereas the other works on the bill transported us to mysterious other-worlds, Harrison transported us to a hyper surrealist current alternate in the immediate.
- Vicki Van Hout FORM Dance Blog
Bring them in now, big smiles, leads up! In this dog-eat-dog world, are you the total package?
Through the glamour of pageants and competitive dog shows, Top Dog unacks tall poppy syndrome, questions of pedigree, and who gets to stand in the spotlight.
Coined in the 80’s and felt just as strongly today, we explore why it’s cringe to care, the stakes of competion, who has the grit to win, and the unwritten rules that decide who to compete in the first place.
PPY Revealed season
Carriageworks
November 2025
Choreographer/director: Emma Harrison
Performers/collaborators: Pre professional year two students
Sound designer: Amy Flannery
Lighting design: Karen Norris
Costume: Harriet Ayers
Head of training: Linda Gamblin
This piece provided the perfect antidote to an evening of serious contemporary dance. Not that the themes depicted in Top Dog weren’t seriously relevant. Harrison did a brilliant job addressing themes associated with gender equality, bullying and compulsory conformity expressed through the overarching machinations of competitive dog sports. Whereas the other works on the bill transported us to mysterious other-worlds, Harrison transported us to a hyper surrealist current alternate in the immediate.
- Vicki Van Hout FORM Dance Blog
Bring them in now, big smiles, leads up! In this dog-eat-dog world, are you the total package?
Through the glamour of pageants and competitive dog shows, Top Dog unacks tall poppy syndrome, questions of pedigree, and who gets to stand in the spotlight.
Coined in the 80’s and felt just as strongly today, we explore why it’s cringe to care, the stakes of competion, who has the grit to win, and the unwritten rules that decide who to compete in the first place.