DEAN WALSH



Dean Walsh was recently awarded the highly prestigious position of becoming the current Australia Council Dance Fellow 2011 - 2012. His Fellowship will deeply investigate and expand upon his developing choreographic scoring system Foreign Language and reinvigorate his conceptual environment, in both solo and group capacities, between Sydney, Brisbane, Adelaide, Edinburgh, London and the US. Since 1991 he has worked in the dance and contemporary performance / queer performance disciplines in performer / collaborator / choreographer / director / mentor & teacher capacities. Many of his 25 short (up to half an hour) and 3 full-length solo works have been critically acclaimed, many touring nationally and/or internationally. He has appeared in over 30 group / company works in Australia and overseas. His inventive large-scale dance and multi-media (Pure Data) group work, Back from Front, premiered at Performance Space in 2008 attracting an extremely diverse audience with talk of a potential remount within the next two years. In 2009/10 he toured the dance/aerial duet MirrorMirror twice to Holland (a collaboration with Stalker Theatre Co director, David Clarkson). Most recently, in 2010, he undertook a choreographic residency at Performance Space investigating ideas for a new full-length solo work, choreographed a 30 min work for WAAPA and worked with STC & London’s Frantic Assembly as assistant choreographer to their production Stockholm, touring nationally. In 2002 Dean was awarded the Robert Helpmann Scholarship leading to an engagement with DV8 Physical Theatre (London 2003 - 2005) and five month contract with Amsterdam-based choreographer, Paul Selwyn Norton and a group of ex-Ballet Frankfurt & Batsheva dancers constructing the acclaimed work Luxury Item. He won the Australian Dance Award for Most Outstanding Performance by a Male Dancer for his role in ADT’s Age Of Unbeauty and in 2005 was again nominated for his solo work Grounded on Air.