Contributors

Brisbane independent choreographer Vanessa Mafé-Keane graduated from Stuttgart Ballet School and danced with The Queensland Ballet. She spent the next 10 years in Geneva, where she danced with Le Ballet du Grand Theatre, touring regularly throughout Europe, later becoming a freelance artist with Vertical Danse-Compagnie Noemi Lapzeson and co-founding member of an experimental performance group Co M-S-K. Vanessa obtained her MFA at QUT where she continues to choreograph works that explore collaborations between video, installation and sound. Vanessa teaches at several institutions including QUT, the Aboriginal Centre for Performing Arts and Expressions Dance Company.

Linda is a Vocational Education and Training Consultant working for C & L Communications Consultants Pty Ltd. She has been working in the area of training and education for over 20 years. Her commitment to industry focussed training and extensive experience in developing training programs for community broadcasting in the 1980s led to her appointment as Executive Officer of the industry training body for the arts and cultural industries in Victoria. Since 1993 she has undertaken a wide range of projects for private organisations and government agencies.

Paul H. Mason is a PhD candidate in Anthropology at Macquarie University. He commenced his postgraduate research in psychology, working on Australian Contemporary Dance with MARCS Auditory laboratories. He is currently pursuing his passion for ethnomusicology and dance anthropology by performing fieldwork on practices of fight-dancing in Indonesia and Brazil.

to come

Associate Professor Darcy McGehee lectures in Dance at the University of Calgery. She researches human development and dance.

Shirley McKechnie OAM has a career in dance that spans five decades, all ‘firsts’ in terms of achievement—founder of one of the first contemporary dance school in Victoria in the 1950s; founder of one of the earliest contemporary dance touring companies as director, choreographer and performer (Australian Contemporary Dance Theatre 1963 – 73); founder of the first tertiary dance degree course (Rusden Campus, 1975); a driving force behind the Armidale choreographic seminars (1974 – 76) and a founder of the Australian Association for Dance Education (Ausdance, 1977). She was a member of the Council of the Victorian College of the Arts (1974 – 88); assisted with the founding of the first dance education company (Tasdance, 1981); the founding chairperson of the Tertiary Dance Council of Australia (1985–86); interviewer and researcher for the National Library of Australia (1980s–90s); guest artist, The Australian Ballet (Nutcracker, 1992); National President, Ausdance (1992 – 94); founder of Green Mill Dance Project (1993 – 97); first Australian Research Council grant for choreographic research (Unspoken Knowledges, 1998–2000); Professor of Dance (VCA, 1998); elected as Honorary Fellow, Australian Academy of the Humanities (1998). Shirley is an Honorary Professorial Fellow at the VCA/University of Melbourne and continues as a consultant and a leading advocate for dance in Australia.

Shaun McLeod has danced with Australian Dance Theatre, Danceworks, One Extra and Company in Space, and in various independent projects. He has created or collaborated on works such as 'In Visible Ink' (1995 Green Room award nomination), 'Cowboy Songs' (1997), 'Fallow' (Danceworks, 1997) and 'Chamber' (2002 Green Room award for best video). Shaun was invited to perform at the 2005 Seoul International Crossover Improvisation Festival, was a participant/researcher in the improvisation event Precipice 2006 at the Australian Choreographic Centre, performed in john cage’s 'musicircus' for the 2008 Melbourne International Festival of the Arts, and in 2009 presented 'The weight of the thing left its mark' at Dancehouse. He is interested in the ways in which performance improvisation intersects with choreography and believes that arts practice is a rich research methodology.

Jeff Meiners works at the University of South Australia. He has taught extensively in schools, universities, as leader of a dance education team in London, and with Ausdance to support dance development. Jeff works with the National Advocates for Arts Education, government and education departments, plus overseas projects and as movement director for children’s theatre. Jeff was the Australia Council Dance Board’s Community Representative (2002-07), 2009 Australian Dance Award winner for Outstanding Services to Dance Education, and dance writer for the new Australian national curriculum’s Arts Shape paper. Jeff’s doctoral research focuses on dance in the primary school curriculum.

Elizabeth Melchoir M.Ed is a dance lecturer in the School of Primary and Secondary Teacher Education at Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand. She also works as a dance facilitator providing professional development and support to teachers in primary and secondary schools and coordinates the Wellington Dance in Education Networks. She is a member of the Educational Advisory Board for DANZ and of Footnote Dance Company.

Nina teaches English as a second language to migrants and has studied various forms of dance. She has studied, performed and taught Middle Eastern dance for many years and researched Pavlova as part of a Diploma of Languages (Russian) at Macquarie University.

Dr Josephine Milne-Home is Teaching Fellow and Academic Psychologist, College of Arts, University of Western Sydney. She is Chair of the Australian Psychological Society’s College of Educational and Developmental Psychologists and member of the ARC research project team ‘Intention and serendipity: investigating improvisation, symbolism and memory in creating Australian contemporary dance’.

Anny Mokotow studied dance at the Theatreschool Amsterdam and worked as dancer/performer and artistic director from 1982 until 1996. She studied film at the Victorian College of the Arts and was production designer and art director until 2001. She is a PhD candidate at the University of Melbourne from where she holds an MA in Creative Arts with a study on dance and multimedia. Anny currently lives in Paris where she is writing her thesis on dance, dramaturgy and the dance dramaturg.

Andrew Montana is a senior lecturer and researcher in art history at the Australian National University. A PhD graduate of Melbourne University, he is the author of many articles on art and design, most recently the chapter ‘Exhibiting art for ballet and theatre: a cultural legacy’ for the interdisciplinary, illustrated anthology The Ballet Russes in Australia and Beyond (2011). He is currently preparing a cultural biography of the lives and work of Loudon Sainthill and Harry Tatlock Miller.

After drama and movement classes at the National Theatre, Moreland began his dance training at the Borovansky Ballet Academy and was a foundation member of The Australian Ballet. During the 60s & 70s he performed in Londons West End and choreographed his first work for the London Contemporary Dance School, and then many works for the London Festival Ballet. He worked as a freelance choreographer in England, Europe and the United States, returning periodically to Australia to create works for The Australian Ballet and for Sydney Dance Company. In 1983 he was appointed artistic director of West Australian Ballet in 1983 and led the company until 1997. He has been a freelance choreographer since then and in 2012 was the recipient of an Australian Dance Award, along with collaborator, Daryl Brandwood, for Outstanding Achievement in Independent Dance

Ffion Murphy was a lectures at Edith Cowan University in Western Australia and has a PhD in Creative Writing from the University of Queensland.

Skye Murtagh is the director of SDM Communications, an Adelaide-based consultancy specialising in the preparation of written collateral for individuals and businesses as well as the development/execution of public relations campaigns. A qualified journalist, Skye has been engaged as a freelance writer for several publications and has worked closely with a range of South Australian artistic companies across the fields of contemporary dance, film and music.