About

Felicity has 20 years’ experience at the helm of five different not-for profit dance organisations with mixed income streams inclusive of multi-year local, state and federal funding from the arts, education and health sectors. Four in Western Australia (1998-2015), and most recently in Tasmania (2015-18). In both Tasmania and Western Australia she has worked with teams to enliven cities, towns and communities through a wide range of cultural activities: performance, music, visual art, installation design and public art.

Principally, Felicity has worked in professional contemporary dance since 1989 as company dancer, independent artist, commissioned choreographer, Artistic Director and CEO. Before relocating to Tasmania Felicity directed Ausdance WA 2013 – 2015, Buzz Dance Theatre 2003 to 2009, STEPS Youth Dance Company 2000–2003, and the Contemporary Dance Centre 1998-2002.

National nominations and awards during this period included 6 Helpmann Award nominations and an Australian Dance Award for Outstanding Achievement in Dance Education. She is a 2007/8 Churchill Fellow and in 2009 was the recipient of the Department of Culture and the Arts’ prestigious Creative Development Fellowship in Western Australia. In January 2015, Felicity was selected for the Australia Council for the Arts’ Emerging Leaders Development Program in Sydney. She is profiled in both editions of Rachel Power’s Creativity & Motherhood: The Divided Heart, a series of interviews with successful female artist-mothers (2008 & 2015).

Behind her also are 25 years of interdisciplinary practice that values new performance forms and settings as well as the commissioning of original music and sound. Felicity has long-standing practice in community settings as a freelance choreographer and facilitator; as a dance educator of students of all ages and abilities ranging from pre-school age through to tertiary students majoring in dance, inclusive dance and disability; and as an arts/dance advocate and speaker in public forums.

She has worked in the Tasmanian arts and cultural sector since October 2015, when she commenced as Artistic Director at Tasdance until April 2018. Whilst Artistic Director at Tasdance she engaged actively with the performing arts and broader cultural sector via projects, presentations and consultation throughout Tasmania in Launceston, Hobart, Burnie, Devonport, Wynyard, Franklin, Margate, Exeter, Bruny Island. These myriad opportunities fostered awareness of issues at the heart of Tasmania’s regional cultural sector, facilitating comparative knowledge of Tasmanian communities and their events, art projects and artists. Also during her time at Tasdance, Felicity initiated a refreshed approach to the nature of the Tasdance’s professional contemporary dance ensemble, engaging professional dance artists equally immersed in both performing and choreography to work with the company over three years with a view to coupling deeper community engagement with the creation of new contemporary dance, across time.

She has also been actively involved in projects with: Mona Foma, Dark Mofo, Ten Days on the Island, MONA, Design Tasmania, Salamanca Arts Centre, Moonah Arts Centre, University of Tasmania, Junction Arts, Stompin, Drill, Second Echo, City of Launceston, South Hobart Living Arts Centre, Tasmanian Chapter of Australian Institute of Architects, Creative Island Tasmanian Creative Industries.

Most recently she has been working independently as a dance artist (choreography, performance, film); dance educator with DRILL and at Fahan School; as festival artist liaison for MONA FOMA; and consultant for Asialink Arts, University of Melbourne. Since November 2018, her studio base Deep Room has been at 65 Murray Street, Hobart, a developing inner-city hub for designers, architects, music producers, performing artists and physical therapists.   Independently, in her choreographic ‘sandbox’ and culture-catalyst Dance Will Save The World Felicity wrangles with her preposterous and foolhardy love of dance.

March 2019