2022 Telstra Emerging Choreographer announced
Dancer and choreographer Erin O’Rourke from Melbourne has been named as the winner of the 2022 Telstra Emerging Choreographer (TEC) award.
O'Rourke is the second winner of this new initiative, which was established by the Australian Ballet (AB), in partnership with Telstra, in 2021. The TEC provides young creators with a platform to share their work and the chance to develop their talent and nurture their potential. For winning, Erin O’Rourke will receive a cash prize of AU$10,000, courtesy of the AB’s Principal Partner, Telstra. The prize money will go towards supporting the development of her choreographic practice and allow her to connect with the broader dance community.
More than 70 choreographers applied for the award, from across Australia and covering all genres of dance. Participants were asked to submit applications responding to the 2022 theme ”Identity”. Three TEC finalists - Amber McCartney, Ko Yamada and O'Rourke - were then selected to vie for first prize and each was provided with a budget of $3000 to create a work which was reviewed by a panel of judges comprising David Hallberg, the AB's Artistic Director; Stephanie Lake, director of Stephanie Lake Company, and Josh Wright, creative producer, curator, and CEO/ Artistic Director of Dancehouse, Melbourne.
The 2021 winner of the inaugural TEC award was Western Sydney dancer and choreographer Feras Shaheen. Since receiving the award, Shaheen has been working with the AB to create a piece for the company's Bodytorque Digital season in 2023.
The TEC award has been spearheaded by Hallberg, who says he saw enormous potential in all of the 2022 finalists, but in particular the winner: “I'm thrilled that this initiative allows us to connect with emerging independent artists of Erin's calibre,” he says. “Erin is a talented and thoughtful multi-disciplinary artist. In her impressive work across dance, writing, and photography she considers not only the world we live in and our place in it, but often turns her gaze inward exploring the intangible things that make us unique. Her final submission, while joyous and eccentric, beats with an underlying melancholy, perfectly examining the complexities we all feel as we shape and reshape our own identities.”
O'Rourke has an honours degree from the Victorian College of the Arts. Her new work for the AB is called Yellow Mellow and “will capture the essence of how identity is constantly and inevitable tarnished by external factors,” she says. “Not limited to the stark scams of gender conformity, capitalism, and the patriarchy, I strive to divulge my relationship with identity constricted and formed within these bounds of modern society. One dancer. One camera. One location. The simplicity will highlight the inner dialogue that exists as one traverses the intricacies of self-discovery. . . “
Watch O'Rourke's 'Yellow Mellow' below.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h9E9KkzoSlQ
https://youtu.be/h9E9KkzoSlQ