Add Listing

WAAPA launches 2016 performance program

admin 15/03/2016 Dance News No Comment

Western Australian Academy of Performing Arts dancers in Unleash 2015The Western Australian Academy of Performing Arts (WAAPA) launches its epic 2016 performance program this weekend with two theatrical productions –Coriolanus and The Three Sisters. The 2016 dance season will include three performance series, Vortex, Verge and Hatch.

 

The first, Vortex, will be presented April 30-May 6 and tickets are already available. This series will draw into its powerful current four outstanding Australian choreographers whose works encompass neoclassical and contemporary dance – Gareth Belling, James O’Hara, Paulina Quinteros and Justin Rutzou.

 

Gareth Belling, a former Queensland Ballet member, has choreographed 26 works since 2005. Last September, he presented a work that united dance, music and animation at the Judith Wright Centre for the Brisbane Festival.

 

Award-winning WAAPA alumnus Paulina Quinteros has had a long and varied career dancing for Paul Mercurio’s Australian Choreographic Ensemble Dance Company (ACE), Joanne Endicott (of Tanztheatre of Wuppertal) and Celestine Hennermann, the dramaturge for Ballett Frankfurt. She’s received the AICD’s Peggy van Praagh Award for Choreography, the AICD’s Sir Robert Helpmann Award for Professional Choreography, an Emerging Artist award from The Australia Council and many choreographic fellowships.

 

James O’Hara splits his time between Australia and Belgium where he works with renowned choreographer Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui. O’Hara has performed internationally and was choreographic assistant to Marina Mascarell for Mongrel (Gothenburg Opera) and is currently assisting Michael Keagan Dolan on his creation In Nocentes for the British Youth Dance Company.

 

Lastly, WAAPA Dance Lecturer Justin Rutzou has danced in some of the country’s most prestigious companies, including Expressions, Sydney Dance Company and Queensland Ballet.

 

With these four choreographers combined, this performance series performed by second and third year dance students will prove to be very enticing. Learn more about WAAPA’s 2016 performance program, especially its dance presentations, at www.waapa.ecu.edu.au.

 

Photo: Western Australian Academy of Performing Arts dancers in Unleash in 2015. Photo by Jon Green.