BECAUSE OF GRAVITY
BECAUSE OF GRAVITY
Teaching & Facilitation
Youth & Community Projects
Theatre / Film / Digital /Music
TEACHING & FACILITATION
TEACHING & FACILITATION
Performance & Research
HELLO
I am a multi-faceted Artist with a 25-year portfolio career of work in the UK, Australia, and wider internationally.
A large breadth of experiences has empowered me to develop a range of interrelated practices that inform the ways that I create, facilitate, collaborate, and serve.
From an in-depth and rigorous foundation in Choreography, Dance, and Movement, I work as a: Director, Choreographic Artist, Writer, Video Artist, Movement Director, Creative Consultant, Performer, Collaborator, Facilitator, Mentor, Curator, and Producer.
My responsive practices and work expand to working in and with Theatre, Live Art, Dance, Film, Digital Technologies, Visual Art and Design, and Sound and Music.
My practices engage closely with people and organisations to generate strategies for empowerment and change-making that are specific and meaningful to the people, and the environment the work impacts.
As an international artist, and via my dual identity as both an Australian and British citizen, I aim to make meaningful contributions to both countries. I also aim to contribute wider internationally via partnership building and collaborations with artists, communities, change-makers, producers, curators, advocates, and organisations.
Throughout my career, I have worked artistically with Belarus Free Theatre (including on the New York Times listed 'Best Theatre of 2017' and 'Off West End' award winning production 'Burning Doors', 'Trustees' - Malthouse and Melbourne International Festival, 'Counting Sheep: Staging A Revolution, 'Tash Cuisine' and more), BBC Philharmonic Orchestra, Contact Youth Company, Keisha Thompson, Joseph Lau, Company Chameleon, Buzz Dance Theatre, Cheryl Stock on 'Accented Body' (2006 Brisbane International Festival), Zen Zen Zo Physical Theatre, Shane Anthony, Queensland Symphony Orchestra, Tarcisio Teatini-Climaco, Wendy Wallace, Louise Deleur, Rosetta Cook, imitating the dog, Laura van Tatenhove, Sarah Sayeed (‘Sufi In The City’), Babylon'13 on the feature-length documentary 'Iron Butterflies', and more.
I have received commissions from the EU consortium BeSpectACTive! (Creative Europe funded), Illuminating York, moves - International Festival of Movement of Screen and the Watching Dance Project, Moving Dance Forward, British Council UK/Pakistan 'New Perspectives' program, University of Salford, TURN Prize, and Dance Manchester and the Science Engineering Education Research and Innovation Hub (SEERIH) at the University of Manchester to collaborate with leading British Astrophysicists.
As a self-organising and collaborating artist, I have also created and produced works that have been presented at venues and festivals that includes: The Lowry, The Place and Chisenhale Dance, Rewire International Music Festival, Modern Body Laboratory, Supercell Festival of Contemporary Dance, Urban Moves International Dance Festival, Mintfest, and Teatro La Fenice.
In development, producing, curation, fundraising, administration, and coordination roles I have worked with Contact, Phluxus2 Dance Collective, Manchester Dance Consortium, NW Dance Artist Led for Artists Network, Vanhulle Dance Theatre, Dance Manchester, Rio Rhythmics Latin Dance Academy, Director/Producer Cheryl Stock on 'Accented Body', and Ausdance QLD.
I also have an extensive portfolio in teaching and mentoring in community, education, prevocational training, and professional contexts, with e.g. The Lowry Centre for Advanced Training, The Aboriginal Centre for Performing Arts, Bangarra Dance Theatre, Roehampton University, The Place Summer House, University of Salford, University of Central Lancashire, HWY Festival La Boite Theatre Company, Dancenorth Australia, Expressions Dance Company (now Australian Dance Collective), and more.
I am also Co-Director and Founder of the creative house Project Auske with longstanding collaborator Joseph Lau (www.projectauske.com).
I acknowledge the Australian Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples as the Traditional Custodians of country throughout Australia and their connections to land, sea, and community. I pay my respects to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander cultures, and to Elders past and present.
'Iron Butterflies', a new Ukrainian feature-length documentary is part of the official selection at Sundance Film Festival World Cinema Documentary Competition 2023 (USA), Berlin International Film Festival Panorama program 2023 (DE), Thessaloniki Film Festival 2023 (GR), Movies That Matter 2023 (NL), Hot Docs Canadian International Documentary Festival 2023 (CA), and DOK.Fest 2023 (DE).
I have worked as Choreographer and Lead Performer on 'Iron Butterflies'.
"Occasionally, the screen goes to black and white, and what seconds ago was simple footage is revealed as reenactment. And not even simply that, but...dance that probes the underlying themes - complicity, terror, loss. It is wordless exposition, simple and powerful..."
- Richard Whittaker, Austin Chronicle -
"On July 17, 2014, Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur was shot down by Russian forces over eastern Ukraine, killing all 298 people on board. The reality of this attack, and its possible ramifications for the then-ongoing war in Donbas and the West’s relationship with Russia, was immediately questioned by the Russian government and media. As voluminous evidence — including physical artifacts like the butterfly-shaped shrapnel found in the bodies of the pilots — piled up, the lies denying reality only became more outlandish and incredible.
In a world where violence can only be defended by lies, and lies only maintained by violence, Iron Butterflies presents the truth of what happened to MH17, but also what was at stake by not confronting it. Director Roman Liubyi uses a wealth of visual material and individual testimonies to craft this artful yet evidence-driven examination of a turning point in recent world history. This act of mass murder not only destroyed so many people’s lives and the possible future that they could have built — it contained the seeds of the future we now live in."
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FEATURED PORTFOLIO & PROJECTS
Photographers whose work appears on this site: Ekua Bayunu, Maureen Billeau, Victor Isabel Bueno, Lisa Cullen, Costin Chesnoiu for Teatrul National Radu Stanca Sibiu, Bridget Fiske, Christine Fiske, Jessie Giraud, Joseph Lau, Nicolai Khalezin, Matt Kowalczuk, Stelios Manousakis, Nadia Milford, Stephanie Pan, Dorin Alexandru Părău, Point of View, Jana Sedláčková, Brian Slater, Cloe Sophia, Eamonn Sweeney - CreativeImageworx and Sammie Williams.
Website design: Bridget Fiske Branding Design: Love Press