Contributors

For the past 25 years, Olivia has worked as a performer, maker and lecturer of dance. After graduating from the Victorian College of the Arts in 1992, Olivia performed with companies and independent choreographers/directors in Australia and overseas including Rosalind Crisp, Sue Peacock, and Peter Sellars (Salzburg Festival). Olivia has created over 20 dance works, both funded and commissioned, including for the Asian Young Choreographers Project in Kaohsuing, Taiwan, and was the recipient of a Creative Development Fellowship from Arts WA in 2003. Recent performance work includes dance generated in and for particular sites with About Now (Peter Fraser and Shaun McLeod). Olivia taught at WAAPA, Perth from 1999-2006 and has taught at Deakin University since 2007. Olivia’s PhD, from Deakin University, was conferred in April 2013.

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.

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

Shirley McKechnie AO (1926-2022) had a career in dance that spaned seven 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 continued as a consultant and a leading advocate for dance in Australia until her death in September 2022.

Vahri McKenzie is a Senior Lecturer in the School of Arts and Humanities at Edith Cowan University. She engages in practice-led research, and publishes traditional research with a creative arts focus. Vahri’s Early Career Researcher study of WA choreographers explored how complex dance vocabularies offer new ways of considering knowledge, informing perspectives on the links between memory, music and movement. Her article in Brolga—an Australian journal about dance #41, adds to the chapter that will appear in Pil Hansen (ed.), Performing the Remembered Present: the Cognition of Memory in Dance, Theatre, and Music, part of Bloomsbury’s 'Performance and Science: Interdisciplinary Dialogues' series. Vahri’s recent creative projects include Only the Envelope, a live art installation that combines research methodologies to investigate the ways we share personal information in the public sphere; and the forthcoming work of short fiction ‘Beer-n-Bubs’, which will appear in MidnightSun’sCrush: Stories About Love.

Shaun McLeod is a dancer, choreographer and academic who lectures at Deakin University, Melbourne. He is interested in the affective situation of dance improvisation and performance, as well as exploring alternative audience/performer relationships. As a dancer he danced with Australian Dance Theatre, Danceworks and One Extra Co. His work The weight of the thing left its mark was presented as part of Dance Massive 2011 (Melbourne). He recently completed a practice-led PhD on the engagement of Authentic Movement for performance. The performance component of this PhD, entitled Witness, will be presented by Dancehouse (Melbourne) in August 2016.

Jeff Meiners EdD is a lecturer and researcher 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 (2002–7), 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’.

Motohide Miyahara is the Director of the Movement Development Clinic at the School of Physical Education University of Otago. He trained as MA in dance movement therapy at Antioch University New England and PhD in Kinesiology at UCLA and incorporates dance into interventions for young people at the clinic. He has participated in dance and opera performances in Japan, USA, Germany and New Zealand. His last performance was in the opera Outrageous Fortune, choreographed by Shona Dunlop MacTavish in 1998.

Anny Mokotow worked as a dancer, performer and theatre-maker in the Netherlands and Europe. She completed a PhD at the University of Melbourne on dance and dramaturgy and has a Master of Creative Arts from the University of Melbourne which examines dance and interdisciplinary practice. Anny works as dramaturge and lectures in theatre and dance. Her interest in the historical developments of 20th century dance and its social and cultural implications in relation to interdisciplinary practice and postmodernity forms the basis of her academic research.

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.