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Tanja Liedtke

In May 2007 the Sydney Dance Company appointed the German-Australian dancer and choreographer Tanja Michaela Karin Liedtke as successor to Graeme Murphy as artistic director of the Sydney Dance Company. She had already gained experience as a dancer in several countries. The Sydney Dance Company is renowned in the field of modern dance; working for a company like Sydney Dance Company is considered a dream job by many dancers.[1]

Tanja Liedtke, with the Sydney Opera House in background.
Photo: © Ben Symons - Ben Symons Photography. Published here with his kind permission<bensymonsphotography.com>

Career progression

On the 6th October 1977 Liedtke was born in Stuttgart and at age 4 she moved with her parents to Madrid in Spain, where she started learning to dance. Then the family moved to England and Liedtke completed her dance studies at the Ballet Rambert School in London. In the year 1995 the Liedtke family had spent a week in Australia on holiday and Tanja was excited about Australia right from the start (G. Liedtke, personal communication, 17/12/2019). In 1996 Tanja's father obtained a position with a company in Australia and Tanja and her parents moved to Sydney. Her first job as a dancer was with the Australian Dance Theatre (ADT) in Adelaide. For several years she worked there and took part in international tours through Australia, Asia, Europe and North America.

In 2004 Liedtke developed her first full-length piece of dance performance, “Twelfth Floor”. She received the “Australian Dance Award for Outstanding Achievement in Choreography” for this work in 2006. In the course of her short career she was commissioned to design choreography on four continents. Before she could officially commence work in her new position at the Sydney Dance Company, she died tragically in a traffic accident in August 2007 near her apartment in Sydney.

Tanja Liedtke as others saw her

In the world of contemporary dance Liedtke already enjoyed a considerable reputation. In an obituary for Liedtke Alan Brissenden wrote in the British newspaper The Guardian on 18th September 2007 of Liedtke’s 'understated sophistication' and her ‘mischievous sense of humour’, and of how intensely focused she could be in her work.[2]

Kristina Chan, Tanja's best friend, fellow dancer and collaborator: "She really set the bar high with her work ethics and standards. She really inspired people who worked with her to really give their all … but she also had that other side to her where she was cheeky, gorgeous, fun, spontaneous."[3]

Sophie Hyde, producer and co-director of a documentary film about Liedtke: "She had also just stepped so magnificently and so surprisingly into the national (and international) spotlight."[4]

Paul White, an Australian colleague of Tanja Liedtke, described her as someone who believed in the power of dance; as a choreographer movement was more important to her than an idea or a concept.[5]

The Tanja Liedtke Foundation is a dance foundation founded in July 2008 and based in Stuttgart, Germany, to honour the dancer Tanja Liedtke and to allow her vision to flourish. The Foundation’s purpose is to preserve the artistic legacy of Tanja Liedtke, support the development of contemporary dance theatre and foster Australian/European artistic connections.

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