Choreographers

Twyla Tharp

Since graduating from Barnard College in 1963, Ms. Tharp has choreographed more than one hundred thirty-five dances, five Hollywood movies, directed and choreographed four Broadway shows.  She received one Tony Award, two Emmy Awards, nineteen honorary doctorates, the Vietnam Veterans of America President’s Award, the 2004 National Medal of the Arts, the 2008 Jerome Robbins Prize, and a 2008 Kennedy Center Honor.  Her many grants include the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Fellowship.  She is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and an Honorary Member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters.

In 1965, Ms. Tharp founded her dance company, Twyla Tharp Dance.  Her dances are known for creativity, wit and technical precision coupled with a streetwise nonchalance.  By combining different forms of movement – such as jazz, ballet, boxing and inventions of her own – Ms. Tharp’s work expands the boundaries of American ballet and modern dance.  In addition to choreographing for her own company, she has created dances for The Joffrey Ballet, American Ballet Theatre, The Paris Opera Ballet, The Royal Ballet, New York City Ballet, The Boston Ballet, Hubbard Street Dance Chicago, The Martha Graham Dance Company, Miami City Ballet and Pacific Northwest Ballet.  Many of Ms. Tharp’s works, some from as early as 1971, continue to be performed by ballet and dance companies around the world.

Ms. Tharp’s work first appeared on Broadway in 1980 with WHEN WE WERE VERY YOUNG, followed by her collaboration with David Byrne on THE CATHERINE WHEEL and then SINGIN’ IN THE RAIN.  In 2002, Ms. Tharp’s dance musical MOVIN’ OUT, set to the music and lyrics of Billy Joel, received, among other awards, the 2003 Tony Award for Best Choreography.  Ms. Tharp later worked with Bob Dylan’s music and lyrics in THE TIMES THEY ARE A-CHANGIN’.  She next created COME FLY AWAY and SINATRA: DANCE WITH ME, set to songs sung by Frank Sinatra.

In film, Ms. Tharp has collaborated with director Milos Forman on HAIR, RAGTIME and AMADEUS.  She has also worked with Taylor Hackford on WHITE NIGHTS and James Brooks on I’LL DO ANYTHING. Her television credits include choreographing SUE’S LEG for the inaugural episode of PBS’ DANCE IN AMERICA, co-producing and directing MAKING TELEVISION DANCE, which won the Chicago International Film Festival Award; and directing THE CATHERINE WHEEL for BBC Television. Ms. Tharp co-directed the television special BARYSHNIKOV BY THARP, which won two Emmy Awards as well as the Director’s Guild of America Award for Outstanding Director Achievement. In 1992, Ms. Tharp wrote her autobiography PUSH COMES TO SHOVE. She went on to write THE CREATIVE HABIT: Learn it and Use it for Life, followed by THE COLLABORATIVE HABIT: Life Lessons for Working Together.

Today, Ms. Tharp continues to create.

Larissa McGowan

Larissa joined ADT in 2000 and has since toured extensively throughout Europe, North America, Asia and Australia performing in Be Yourself, G, Devolution, HELD, Vocabulary, Nothing, The Age of Unbeauty, Birdbrain and Attention Deficit Therapy. She has created nine works for Ignition including a half hour piece titled Slack for Ignition 08.Following winning the 2003 Green Room Award for Best Female Dancer, Larissa won multiple awards in 2004, including Best Female Dancer in a Ballet or Dance Work at the Helpmann Awards and the Australian Dance Award for Outstanding Performance by a Female Dancer. She was also nominated for the 2008 Helpmann Award for Best Female Dancer and 2011 Australian Dance Awards for Outstanding Performance by a Female Dancer.Larissa has also performed her own choreographic pieces at the SALA Festival and Adelaide Cabaret Festival. In 2008 Garry Stewart named Larissa as the ADT Assistant Choreographer through to 2010. Her work, Zero-sum, made its world premiere at WOMADelaide 2009. She followed this up with a highly successful appearance as a guest choreographer on two seasons of So You Think You Can Dance. Her work Slack was part of the Sydney Opera House’s inaugural New Breed season. She has also done movement direction for Slingsby Theatre Company’s Wolf, State Theatre Company of SA’s Romeo & Juliet and Mneumonic, Brink Theatre Company’s Harbinger.

Larissa is currently working on her first full length production through the ArtSA triennial grant fund, that will premier in 2013. She works independently as a dancer, choreographer and teacher.

Jo Pollitt

Jo Pollitt is a dancer, choreographer and writer whose practice draws heavily on improvisation-driven processes.

As the director of the response project – a process-based project initiated in 2000, Jo works with dancers/ performers as authorities in revealing traces of lived experience and physical imagination through movement. The response project slips between physical, conceptual, sensorial and imaginative worlds to accentuate ‘live-ness’, positioning improvisation as performance.

Jo has worked with various companies and artists over her career including Tasdance, Terrapin andRosalind Crisp, and holds a Masters in Creative Arts (WAAPA, 2000). She was the Co-director of the 1999Hobart Fringe Festival and curator of Boiler Room, a National improvisation festival in 2002-03. As a choreographer, Jo has created & co-created many works

including Room (Festival of Perth, 2004), Re-render for Chrissie Parrott at His Majesty’s Theatre (Perth, 2009), Check Point Solo for Rhiannon Newton (Judson Church, New York, 2011 and Under the Radar Festival, Brisbane, 2011) and Quiet Beast with Paea Leach (Venn Gallery, Perth, 2012).

Jo also lectures at WAAPA; works as a dramaturg; mentors several WA independent dance artists including Rhiannon Newton, Emma Sandall and JUMP mentee Emma Fishwick, and is the founder and co-director of BIG Kids Magazine with artist Lilly Blue.

Michael Whaites

Michael has been performing, choreographer and teaching for the past 25 years. He was a founding member of Dance North and danced with Australian Dance Theatre before moving to New York City in 1991. Over the following four years he was a member of Twyla Tharp and Dancers and Irene Hultman Dance. He performed in the Tharp/Baryshnikov Cutting up tour throughout Mexico and North America which was the highest grossing contemporary dance tour to date. In 1995 Michael joined the Tanztheater Wuppertal Pina Bausch in Germany, he made three new works with the company and toured throughout the America’s, Japan, and Europe until moving back to Australia in 2000. Michael has taught and made works on a variety of different companies and institutions across the globe. As a performer/collaborator he has worked with Company in Space, The Light Room Project, Wendy Houstoun In the Dark and Julie- Anne Longs’ The Nun’s Picnic. In 2005 he was Associate Director of Kim Carpenters’ Theatre of Image choreographing two works for the company. Michael is currently based in Perth and is the Artistic Director of LINK Dance Company and lectures at WAAPA.

Kim McCarthy

Kim was born in Perth, Australia, where he graduated from John Curtin Senior High School specializing in music, dance and theatre. In 1990 he joined the Hamburg Ballet School, and in 1991 was accepted into the Hamburg Ballet Company under the direction of John Neumeier. He was promoted to Soloist in 1993, and during his time with the Hamburg Ballet danced several Principal roles such as Armand in ‘Lady of the Camellias’, Blue Bird in “Sleeping Beauty”, and Mercutio in “Romoeo and Juliet”, as well as leading roles in ballets by Mats Ek, Lar Lubovitch and Balanchine.

He joined the Compañia Nacional de Danza as an invited Principle dancer in 1996, where he danced many works by Nacho Duato as well as pieces by Forsythe, Kylián, Naharin and Van Manen. In the year 2000 he opened a business in the heart of the commercial centre in Madrid and began staging works of Nacho Duato’s and guest teaching throughout Europe, Asia and America. In 2002 he was offered the position of Principal Lecturer at the Showa Academy of Performing Arts in Tokyo, Japan. In 2004 Kim was invited by Nacho Duato to be a full time ballet master for the Compañia Nacional de Danza 1 & 2. After working as a Senior Artist of the West Australian Ballet, he returned to freelance teaching, choreographing and staging Nacho Duato’s choreographies internationally.

Since 2000 Kim has choreographed several works throughout Australasia. His most recent works have been performed by the West Australian Ballet, Queensland Ballet, West Australian Academy of Performing Arts as part of the Asia-Pacific Dance Bridge, Singapore and in Tokyo, Japan. Since 2008 Kim has been in the role of Classical Ballet Coordinator and Lecturer at the West Australian Academy of Performing Arts.

Sue Peacock

Freelance choreographer, performer and teacher since 1991, Sue holds a Bachelor of Arts, (Women’s Studies) from Deakin University (VIC) and First-Class Honours in Dance from Edith Cowan University (WA). Sue has performed, taught and choreographed in most major cities in Australia. As a dancer, she has worked with many renowned choreographers, touring and performing nationally and internationally. Her choreographic credits include commissioned works for ADT, the One Extra Company, 2-Dance Plus, Chrissie Parrott Dance Company, Outlet (SA), WA Academy of Performing Arts, Steps, Dance North, LINK and DeckChair Theatre Company. Her works have been presented in WDA festivals in Hong Kong, Malaysia, Germany and New York.

Sue’s independent projects include: SPRUNG (2010) Questions Without Notice (2009), Hoofas (2006) Swallow, Pith, Crow, Paper Doll, Adrift (2005) Give up the Ghost (2004 Perth International Arts Festival)), Tempting Fate (Perth 2001), Near Enemies (Perth, 2000), Watershed – Perth and Melbourne (1998), Cantadora (1994), and Reel to Real (1993 Perth and 1992 Melbourne). She has been a “choreographic consultant” on numerous projects from youth to professional levels and was a SPARK mentor for Aisling Donovan.

Her awards include a 2002/03 Churchill Fellowship, and a 2004 ArtsWA Creative Development Fellowship. She received the West Australian Dance Awards for Best Female Dancer in 2005 and Services to Dance in 2006, in 2009 for Outstanding Achievement in Choreography and in 2010, the Ausdance National award for Outstanding Achievement in Independent Dance for her work Questions Without Notice. In 2012 her work SPRUNG, won  West Australian awards for Best Choreography and Best Design. Sue has recently been invited to perform in the Avignon Hivernales Festival with Compagnie Didier Théron. Sue is also an accredited Feldenkrais Practitioner.