BRIDGE DANCE INTENSIVES

The Bridge Youth Dance intensive was developed in response to the desire from young dancers to attend Bridge Early Career and to connect with Ausdance NSW Dance Week workshops. Bridge Dance Intensive provides tools to guide early career dance artists into a new chapter of their practice. Bridge is a place to embark on new experiences to inspire a new chapter. This provides tools to guide early career dance artists into the professional dance sector and includes intensive workshops with leading choreographers, industry sessions covering project development, career management and support and daily technique classes by leading artists from around Australia.

THANK YOU TO THE 2017 BRIDGE DANCE INTENSIVE WORKSHOP FACILITATORS

SHAUN PARKER - TWO WORKSHOPS ENTITLED MOVEMENT AND MEANING

Shaun Parker is an award-winning choreographer whose work has toured the United Kingdom, France, Germany, Austria, The Netherlands, The Middle East, Singapore, New Zealand and Australia. Born in Mildura, he studied a Bachelor of Arts at the Victorian College of the Arts and a Bachelor of Science at Monash University, before embarking on a performance career that spanned seventeen years with leading companies such as Meryl Tankard’s Australian Dance Theatre, Force Majeure, Sydney Theatre Company, Chunky Move, The Song Company, Opera Australia, State Theatre Company of South Australia, ALIAS (Geneva), Meredith Monk (New York), and Sasha Waltz (Berlin)

OMER BACKLEY-ASTRACHAN - TWO WORKSHOPS ENTITLED WHAT THE HECK ARE WE DANCING ABOUT?

Omer Backley-Astrachan was born in Israel and is a Sydney based dancer and choreographer. From 2009-2012 Omer danced with Kamea Dance Company and Kibbutz Contemporary Dance Company in Israel. In 2012 he moved to Tel-Aviv where he worked with local choreographers as well as Jerusalem Dance Theater and Idan Cohen Dance Company. Omer has toured company and solo works to Singapore, USA, Brazil and South Korea. In 2014 Omer moved to Sydney with his wife and dancer Sharon Backley-Astrachan and has worked here with leading dance artists such as Dean Walsh, Kay Armstrong Joshua Thomson and more.

KAY ARMSTRONG - TWO WORKSHOPS ENTITLED QUESTIONS ARE GOOD; WHAT ARE YOURS?

A graduate of W.A.A.P.A, Kay has worked professionally as a performer and choreographer in theatre, film, television, corporate theatre and street theatre for the last 26 years. Her work has been seen in local, interstate and overseas festivals. Kay was awarded the prestigious Robert Helpmann Scholarship in 2004 and in 2013 she was awarded the prestigious Ausdance National Peggy Van Praagh Fellowship for established artist. Since 2013 Kay has produced two new solo works, several performance projects with disability service provider Sunnyfield, she has been a guest choreographer for Vivid Festival, Sydney Fringe Festival Platform Shots, Catalyst national dance residency and Sydney Dance Company Pre-Professional Year.

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DEAN WALSH – TWO CHOREOGRAPHIC WORKSHOPS

Dean Walsh is an award winning Australian inclusive dance practitioner – choreographer, director, facilitator, collaborator, dancer and movement researcher. In the last five years he has geared the primary focus of his practice towards the intersection between arts (dance) and science (marine biology, physics and ecology), formulating an inclusive embodied environmental methodology known as PrimeOrderly. In 2016 he co-directed RUCKUS ensemble’s latest major work Speed of Life as well as touring with them and facilitating workshops in Cambodia at Epic Arts Centre in Kampot. He has worked with many of Australia’s leading companies, some include: ADT, One Extra Co, the oPera Project, Stalker Theatre, Sydney Dance Company, movement consultant for Sydney Theatre Company and choreographed twice for Opera Australia. He has worked with international companies including DV8 Physical Theatre in London and Paul Selwyn Norton’s and Co in Amsterdam, as well as choreographing and performing in more than thirty of his own works, many touring nationally and internationally since 1991. He was awarded the Robert Helpmann Scholarship in 2002 and the coveted two-year Australia Council Dance Fellowship 2011-2012.

MONICA DAVIDSON – DANCE BUSINESS BASICS WORKSHOP

Monica Davidson has been self-employed in the arts since she was a teenager, as a journalist and filmmaker. After learning about business the hard way, Monica started helping others and is now a recognised expert in the field of creative industry. Her work includes training, mentoring and consulting to individual practitioners as well as larger arts businesses and government organisations. In 2013 Monica was appointed as the first NSW Creative Industries Business Advisor through the Department of Trade and Investment, and her contract was recently extended for another five years. In 2014 Monica was honored as a Westpac Woman of Influence for her work, and in 2016 her award-winning company Creative Plus Business joined the City of Sydney Creative Spaces project, where Monica continues to support creative people who want to be creative, make money, and love their work.

JO CLANCY – YINDYAMARRA MORNING CLASSES

Jo Clancy is a Wiradjuri woman from the NSW Central West who lives on Darug and Gundungurra country in the Blue Mountains with her family. Jo has developed a number of contemporary Aboriginal dance works for festivals and events nationally and internationally including the Commonwealth Youth Dance Festival in Glasgow, Dance and the Child International in Taiwan and Denmark, the Honolulu Festival, the Dreaming Festival, Homeground at the Sydney Opera House and Boomerang Festival. Jo was Head of Dance at NAISDA Dance College in 2005-2006. She currently sits on the NAISDA Academic Board, coordinates their Garabara Ngurra Dance Program and is Sessional Teacher at the College. Jo is the founder and director of the Wagana Aboriginal Dancers and DUST Youth Dancers. She delivers dance in education programs in schools and pre-schools across Sydney and regional NSW.

CHRIS MIFSUD – MORNING CLASSES

Chris Mifsud started dancing at the age of 14 in Adelaide, South Australia under the guidance and mentorship of Kasey Lynch. In 2013, Chris graduated from the Adelaide College of the Arts with a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Dance Performance and went on to work with multiple independent artists in Adelaide and Brisbane before moving to Sydney in 2014 to take up a position in Sydney Dance Company’s Pre-Professional Year. Chris has toured as a dancer to Singapore and Papua New Guinea, performed in multiple Adelaide Fringe Festivals and the Brisbane Festival, taught workshops around Australia and New Zealand and also teaches regular workshops and classes for Sydney Dance Company. Other companies that Chris has danced for include Opera Australia, Limitless Dance Company, LoCreAdo Dance Company, Outkast Performing Arts and Sydney Dance Company.

JONATHAN HOMSEY – FREESTYLE AND IMPROVISATION WORKSHOP

Jonathan was born and raised in Hong Kong and moved to the United States in 1995. Jonathan has worked on projects with ABC Networks and Club Sea World and performed as an opening artist for Ashanti, Kelly Clarkson, Ja Rule, Xzibit and Nick Cannon all before the age of seventeen. Originally a dance major at Chapman University, Jonathan is a graduate of dance at Victorian College of the Arts. Since living in Melbourne, Jonathan has had the pleasure to dance with Beatphonik and be a co-founder of the groups Sole Symphony Movement, and Menagerie Dance Co-operative; in addition he also was a dancer for Guy Sebastian as part of the Taylor Swift World Tour. Homsey was also awarded Best Emerging Producer in the Melbourne Fringe Festival 2013. In 2015, Jonathan debuted his second work Vessel as an Artist-in-Residence at City of Maribrynong.

AUSDANCE NSW

Ausdance NSW is the key support & advocacy body, for the creation, presentation and practice of dance in NSW.

Ausdance NSW is part of the Ausdance National Network.

Ausdance acknowledges and respects the Traditional Custodians of the Lands on which we work and dance and pays respect to elders past, present and emerging.