The Australian Ballet, Sydney Theatre, October 31.

THIS year they called the annual choreographic workshop Bodytorque.Technique. It would have been rather closer to the mark to call it Bodytorque.Influences. Five of the six new works paid such homage to established choreographers you’d think royalties would be in order. But for all the sense there wasn’t a huge amount of originality in movement language, there was a consistently high standard in the work, probably more than in any other year of Bodytorque’s decade-long history. It gave the audience an extremely enjoyable and accomplished evening of dance and the program had consistency and coherence.

The “technique” part of the title steered the choreographers towards a use of classical vocabulary, as it did a couple of years ago when the pointe shoe was the focus of attention. There was no dance theatre or contemporary dance as there had been in other years, giving the evening a satisfying unanimity of purpose.

But of course that’s not the primary purpose of Bodytorque. It seeks to discover and promote new choreographic talent, and it’s extremely rare to find a keeper. In the first decade of Bodytorque there has been only one graduate to the main stage, Tim Harbour, and he has been quiet of late.

It’s not surprising to see new choreographers take inspiration from established dance-makers when they are starting out and this crop has been touched by some of the highest-profile people in the business. For instance, Benjamin Stuart-Carberry’s Polymorphia, with its sudden silences and blackouts, summoned memories of William Forsythe. The complicated, tangled pas de deux in Alice Topp’s Tinted Windows recalled Christopher Wheeldon. Halaina Hills made no bones about her debt to George Balanchine, smartly acknowledging it early in Mode.L by referring to one of the key images from Apollo. Ty King-Wall’s The Art of War, in which four men vie for the favour of one woman, reminded me somewhat of Robert Helpmann’s The Display in its male jostling for ascendancy. And Richard House’s Finding the Calm perhaps scored the Jiri Kylian guernsey for its cool sexiness, elegant arrangements and the suggestion of complex relationships. I could happily have watched Finding the Calm again right away because I wanted to know more about his two couples. Job done.

All the works were confident and, for the most part, extremely well structured. These are gifts that can’t be borrowed. Only Stuart-Carberry got a bit stuck on technique at the expense of direction in Polymorphia, although I enjoyed his strong, expansive upper-body work as two women (Imogen Chapman and Valerie Tereshchenko, both exquisite), mostly occupying separate pools of light and often mirroring one another, looked ravishing but oh so distant. His choice of music,48 Responses to Polymorphia by Jonny Greenwood, worked well with its dissonances that resolve themselves into harmonics in that Stuart-Carberry was interested in symmetry and asymmetry. It’s likely Stuart-Carberry has absorbed lessons from being (a brief) part of Sylvie Guillem’s 6000 Miles Away program. While it was just performed in Melbourne, Stuart-Carberry was also involved when 6000 Miles Away showed in Sydney in March last year. A great opportunity for this former AB dancer.

Hills showed an extremely sure hand in the way she shaped the variety of her groups, duos, solos, entrances, exits and the details that add texture to a work – a terrific ending, too, although the piece overall was too derivative with its Balanchinean hip thrusts and swivels. But as they say, if you’re going to steal, take from the best. Mode.L’s pluses included the ambitious use of Stravinsky’s Octet for Wind Instruments, played live, and Ako Kondo’s sparkling central role. Hills should be encouraged to work on ideas for next year’s Bodytorque pronto.

Topp, who has previously impressed at Bodytorque (twice) was over-enthusiastic in the way her couples grappled and the manipulation of the women went too far in the direction of manhandling for my taste, but she has a touch for mood and atmosphere. Tinted Windows over-stretched itself in the search for a marriage of and differentiation between technique and feeling, an impression compounded by the use of Leif Sundstrup’s rather soft-grained music. There was an odd pause in the middle, too, that simply didn’t work as a dramatic moment. I thought at first that a dancer had been injured or missed a cue. Topp’s coup in securing fashion designer Toni Maticevski to create the romantic costumes added glamour and the opening night audience gave Tinted Windows a huge cheer. Despite my reservations about aspects of the ballet, it would be so good to see Topp given further chances to develop.

It was heartening, by the way, to see two women on the bill. One of the big discussions in classical dance is the paucity of female choreographers.

King-Wall’s melding of martial arts-inflected moves with classicism in The Art of War wasn’t quite as seamless as it might be but there was virtuosic work for the men and a pleasing sense of intrigue with his solo woman in the red dress. The music, a selection of pieces from the group Coda, didn’t strike exactly the right note with the choreography but that’s part of the process – finding the most fruitful correlations between dance and music.

As Hills had earlier in the program and Josh Consandine would do after, King-Wall understood that putting an uneven number of dancers onstage can create tension, narrative and structural interest all by itself. The choreographers were allowed a maximum of five dancers each, and these three took the full option.

Consandine, a former principal dancer with the Australian Ballet and a Sydney Dance Company alumnus, was a natural choice for the program’s closer as he’d come up with the most polished piece of the evening. In-finite was also the most purely classical work, leavened with jokiness and humour but knowing when to stop. The group of two men and three women demonstrated the need to work as a team and the impulse to be an individual; they showed the joy and anguish of dance; they got in some fouettes and pirouettes a la seconde; principal Andrew Killian found himself in a headstand; and there was a brief, antic breakout of jazz hands. A delight.

I could see In-finite being a big hit on the circuit of the Dancers Company, the AB’s touring arm made up of graduating students from the Australian Ballet School and AB guests. I could also see Finding the Calm doing business. A good result for Bodytorque this year.

The provision of live music for several pieces was a bonus, with Simon Thew conducting a small ensemble of players from the Australia Opera and Ballet Orchestra. It does make a big difference. As always Bodytorque gives lower-ranked dancers a moment in the spotlight. There really were far too many to mention (isn’t that good?), but those who like to go talent-spotting at the AB had plenty to work with.

Kat Chan was billed as design co-ordinator for all the pieces and costume designer for In-finite (loved the cheeky little minimalist tutus) and Finding the Calm; Graham Silver lit all the works. The choreographers were most handsomely supported.

Next year Sydney loses Bodytorque to Melbourne. I hope the city cherishes it, although there will need to be patience. In 2014 Bodytorque – subtitled DNA, whatever that may mean – is slated for the State Theatre, three performances only, and not in one block. So there’s a huge stage, a huge auditorium, lack of continuity in performance and lack of heft in the number of performances. I do understand that the AB has the theatre for its use at that time and to go elsewhere would cost, but the venue is far from ideal.

The word is that Melbourne has always asked for Bodytorque. Well, now it’s going to get it, and needs to put its money where its mouth is.