Associate Professor Jenny Kinder is a leading figure in Australian contemporary dance, and since her retirement at the end of 2020, an Honorary Principal Fellow at the Victorian College of the Arts (VCA), Faculty of Fine Arts and Music, University of Melbourne.
Prior to her role as Head VCA Dance, Jenny was the founding Artistic Director of Tasdance, Australia’s first dance-in-education company. She led the company from 1981 until 1995, delivering a School Residency Program to primary, secondary and district high schools throughout Tasmania, presenting a highly innovative repertoire of contemporary dance works to schools and regional communities. In 1991 and 1993, in collaboration with director Tim Newth, Tasdance presented Illuminations, a large-scale community performance at Launceston’s Cataract Gorge.
From 1977-1981, after 3 years working at Rusden State College (now Deakin University) in the Physical Education Department, Jenny joined Shirley McKechnie in the Department of Drama and Dance where she contributed to the development of the first dance-major in a Bachelor of Education course in Australia.
In the 1960s Jenny performed with the Contemporary Dance Theatre under Shirley McKechnie’s artistic direction in Sketches on Themes of Paul Klee, Sea Interlude, Earth Song, The Lonely World Part 2, The Other Generation, The Finding of the Moon, Canon for Four Dancers as well as Graeme Murphy’s Ecco Le Diavole and Ian Spink’s Starship, and many other works.
In recognition of her work as Artistic Director of Tasdance and as Head of VCA Dance, Jenny was awarded Outstanding Achievement in Dance Education at the Australian Dance Awards in 2005.