Staff Profiles
Full time teaching faculty staff
Sally Gardner
has a background as a dancer-choreographer in companies in London (Dancework), New York (Robert Kovich and Dancers, Sara and Jerry Pearson, and Judith Moss and dancers), Sydney (Russell Dumas's Dance Exchange) and Melbourne (Dance Works). Sally is involved in presenting, publishing and reviewing and she is co-editor of Writings on Dance journal. Her research interests lie in the areas of dancing experience, modern/post-modern and contemporary dance concepts, values and processes, philosophy of the body, and the historically and culturally specific modes of dance training. Awards include Australia Council Awards for individual dance development and production; Centre National du Livre, France translator's grant for her translation of 'Poetics of Contemporary Dance' by Laurence Louppe.
Shaun McLeod
comes from a background as a dance practitioner and as a dancer he danced with Australian Dance Theatre, Danceworks, One Extra and Company in Space, as well as dancing in various independent projects. He has also choreographed in Melbourne over many years creating or collaborating on works such as In Visible Ink (1995 Green Room award nomination), Cowboy Songs (1997), Fallow (for Danceworks in 1997) and Chamber (2002 winner of Green Room award for best video). Recent work has focused on improvisation and he has maintained a performance improvisation practice as a regular performer at events such as The Little Con, Conundrum and The Dance Card. He was invited to perform at the 2005 Seoul International Crossover Improvisation Festival in South Korea, was a participant/researcher in the improvisation event Precipice 2006 at the Australian Choreographic Centre, Canberra and performed in john cage’s musicircus for the 2008 Melbourne International Festival of the Arts. In April 2009 he 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 particularly enjoys the qualities of attention and the presence that manifest in improvisation. His publications include the monograph Chamber. Dance improvisation, masculine embodiment and subjectivity and a chapter in the book Practice as Research. Approaches to Creative Arts Enquiry (Eds - Barbara Bolt & Estelle Barret). He is committed to the idea that arts practice constitutes a form of knowledge and is a rich research methodology.
Sessional teaching staff
In addition to the above full-time members of the dance faculty, members of the broader professional dance community contribute to dance teaching at Deakin. The participation of these artists is vital in giving students access at first hand to current professional contemporary dance practice, its networks and orientations. The following artists contribute to the dance program on a recurring basis:
Sophia Cowen
is an independent dance artist and dance teacher based in Melbourne. She holds a B.A in Dance Choreography from the School for New Dance Development (Amsterdam 2004) after initially obtaining dance qualifications from the Northern Rivers Conservatory for the Arts (N.S.W. 1996). Sophia has worked as a performer for N.O.R.P.A Dance Theatre (N.S.W.), Janis Claxton (N.S.W.), and Martin Butler (Amsterdam) as well as collaborating with artists from various disciplines for numerous performances and events. Her artistic process has most recently been supported by Victoria University through the solo residency program.
Ann-Maree Ellis
Ann-Maree's dance and movement training stems principally from training in Contact Improvisation and related practices such as Body Mind Centering and Alexander Technique for the past 12 years. In 2005 she studied with Nancy Stark Smith and KJ Holmes in the USA. She is one half of the performance duo 'Gravitate' with Josef Lehrer and is a founding member of the monthly dance improvisation evening 'The Little Con'. She is currently undertaking the Solo Residency Program at VUT. She recently completed her Graduate Diploma in Experiential Creative Arts Therapy with Melbourne Institute of Experiential Creative Arts Therapy.
Sheridan Lang
Sheridan completed her Bachelor of Arts with first class Honours at Deakin University in 2000 and a postgraduate Bachelor of Education (Primary and Secondary). She has recently completed her PhD in dance practice for which she created three public performances, Roomphase (2006), Icemilk (2007-8) and The Frailty of the Human Heart (2008). She is a choreographer, dancer and educator, who continues to engage in an ongoing practice of dancing to develop herself as an artist and academic. Sheridan is a registered teacher with the Victorian Institute of Teaching and has taught students from P-12 in Dance education in many schools in Melbourne.
Olivia Millard
Olivia has worked with dance companies ‘2 Dance Plus’ (now ‘Buzz Dance Theatre’) and Melbourne based ‘Danceworks’, performing works by Sandra Parker, Rebecca Hilton, Ros Warby and Trevor Patrick. She has received grants from ArtsWA for dance creationand has been commissioned to create works for Buzz Dance, STEPS Youth Dance Company, Link Dance Company, WAAPA and the Asia Young Choreographers’ Project. In 2003 Olivia received a Creative Development Fellowship from ArtsWA.Olivia has worked with independent choreographers, Sue Peacock, Paul O’Sullivan, Danielle Micich, Phillippa Clarke, Paul Gazzola, Paea Leach, Shaun McLeod and Rosalind Crisp. Olivia worked as a lecturer in contemporary dance at WAAPA from 1999-2006. She is a PhD candidate in the School of Communication and Creative Arts at Deakin.
In 2011 Olivia is teaching dance technique.
Dianne Reid
is an independent dance and video artist. She was a founding member of ‘Outlet Dance’ in Adelaide (1987–89), a member of ‘Danceworks’ from 1990–95 under the direction of Helen Herbertson and Beth Shelton. She was Associate Lecturer in contemporary dance, physical theatre and dance video at Deakin University (aka Rusden) from 1996–2004 and completed a Master of Arts in Dance on Screen in 2001. Her dance video works havescreened internationally, including ADF Dancing for the Camera (USA), Videodance (Greece), and on Channel 31 (Australia). From 2004-2006 she was Artistic Director of Dancehouse, Melbourne’s centre for independent contemporary dance. She received an Asialink Performing Arts residency to India in 2006 to collaborate with Darpana Academy of Performing Arts on the creation of the dance and video work ‘Unfixed’ which was presented as part of the Vikram Sarabhai Festival in Ahmedabad (Dec 06) and Mumbai (March 07). She has choreographed live dance works for Deakin University, West Australian Academy of Performing Arts, Adelaide University, Victorian College of the Arts and Room2Move Youth Dance Company. Her book chapter ‘Cutting choreography’ was published in 2007 in Practice as Research: Approaches to Creative Arts Enquiry edited by Estelle Barrett & Barbara Bolt. She video documents live dance and performance in Melbourne and performs regularly as part of The Little Con, a monthly improvisation event at Cecil Street Studio.
Paul Romano
Paul completed his training at W.A.A.P.A in 2000. He has since made about twelve works including solo and group ones and is currently working on a three evening, three part performance that moves from an enormous improvised group work to a choreographed solo to a reflective event as part of his PhD in performance studies (Victoria University) – to which he is unsuccessfully trying to attribute his ongoing confusion. He is intensely interested (read obsessed) with the creation and development of new movement languages and he likes dancing enormously.
In 2011 Paul is teaching dance technique at Deakin
Lisa Bolte
Originally from Sydney, Lisa studied RAD and CSTD at Caprice Dancing School in Brisbane. Subsequently she graduated from the Australian Ballet School, joined The Australian Ballet and was promoted to Principal Artist in 1993. She has toured with The Australian Ballet to London, the USA, Japan, Greece, Thailand, China and Russia. and has been a Guest Artist with The National Ballet of Canada, The Maryinsky Ballet, The Royal Danish Ballet performing ballets including Swan Lake, The Merry Widow, Giselle and Don Quixote. In 1998 she received a Mo award for best female dancer.
Having retired as Resident Guest Principal Artist of The Australian Ballet in 2007 Lisa is currently studying a Master of Arts (Creative Enterprise) at Deakin. She also teaches at The Victorian College of the Arts and St Catherine’s School and continues to mentor young dancers to fulfil their aspirations in dance.
Trudy Radburn
Trudy Radburn is a choreographer, performer and teacher. She studied dance at Queensland University of Technology, The London Contemporary Dance School and has Masters in Choreography from the Victorian College of the Arts. She has performed extensively in Australia, Europe and Asia. In Europe she has worked with chorographers and companies including Sean Tuan John (Belgium), Jasmin Vardimon (UK), Imlata (UK) and Dance Theatre of Ireland. In Australia she has worked with Strange Fruit (2001-07), Hallitmeuller, Louise Taube, Tamara Saulwick and Phillip Gleeson.
Her choreographic work includes 'inner sole' (UK), 'Cupidity' for Strange Fruit which premiered at the Vancouver International Children's Festival (2004), 'Absolute Pearl' for Strange Fruit which toured to Europe (2006-07), 'the petal waltz' (2005-06) presented in The Joker season for the Melbourne International Comedy Festival and her solo work 'a tad absolute' (2002) presented as part of the little Asia Project (Melbourne, Tokyo Taipei, Seoul, Hong Kong). Trudy's most recent work 'poupee' (2006-09) premiered at Fortyfive Downstairs in February. Trudy is a panel member for Arts Victoria. She is teaching dance technique at Deakin in 2011.
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