About
Biography
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Alice is an independent choreographer based in Perth Western Australia, as well as the Artistic Director of STEPS Youth Dance Company. Alice completed her BA (Dance) at the West Australian Academy of Performing Arts (WAAPA) in 1999, and her Master of Fine Arts (Performance and Choreography) at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro in 2004.
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Since returning to Australia seven years ago, Alice has been building her practice primarily as a choreographer and an educator. She is now creating works regularly, both her own independent works as well as commissions with companies locally, nationally and internationally. Alice is also a sessional faculty member in contemporary dance at WAAPA.
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In 2008 Alice created and presented her first independent full-length work titled Preparing to be Beautiful, which held its premiere, sell-out season at the Moores Building in Fremantle as part of the Silver Artrage Festival. Currently, Alice is creating her second full-length work tiny little tragedies, co-produced by Strut Dance.
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Alice has created original dance works for Tasdance (Launceston), Quantum Leap (Canberra), Labor Forces Dances (New York), The Yard (Massachusetts) and locally for Buzz Dance Theatre, WAAPA, Strut Dance, Artrage and STEPS Youth Dance Company.
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Since her appointment as the Artistic Director of STEPS in 2009, Alice has made three full-length works for the company including critically acclaimed works PHOENIX (2010) and moonwebs & scorched thongs (2009). Alice has also worked as Movement Consultant for ThinIce and Perth Theatre Company productions.
News
November 7th 2011
Registration is now open for the Summer 2012 Infinity Interrupted workshop - see "Workshops" for further information.
Works
Since 2004, Alice has focused her practice on the development of her unique choreographic voice. Below is a list of works created since then, which includes her independent works, as well as those she has been commissioned to create for various companies and organisations.
Practice
Alice's movement practice stems from her training in Safety Release Technique (SRT) studied with creator B.J. Sullivan (USA), as well as earlier training in Bodenwieser technique with Ruth Osborne (Australia).
Alice is committed to a contemporary dance style that is seeded from the modern dance tradition. Over the past twelve years, Alice's class has developed to focus specifically on training contemporary dancers to be as grounded as they are buoyant, as fearless as they are precise and equally as strong in their movement as they are released.
Alice's class begins with SRT floor work as developed from the Bartenieff Fundamentals. The repetition of simple actions allows the dancer to 'enter' the class with a quiet and focused mind and body, as well as a conscious awareness of their own unique anatomical considerations. Following the warm up, the class focuses on less familiar floor-based movement sequences that are increasingly complicated musically, temporally and sequentially. Here, there is a focus on the core as the "command centre" for these physical challenges. The second part of the class focuses more equally on the incorporation of the vertical; yet maintains the key focus that the dancer is in command of their movement through their awareness of and reference through the core.
Alice is currently codifying her own movement practice/philosophy as "Infinity Interrupted", which includes both her focus as a choreographer and also as a dance teacher.
View a recent workshop (YouTube video). View upcoming classes & workshops.
Gallery
View works for more detailed info and video on the pieces below.
Each gallery opens up a full-screen slide show.
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Safety Release Workshop
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Tiny Little Tragedies 2010
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Tiny Little Tragedies 2009
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Preparing to be Beautiful
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Pillars NYC
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Transience
Contact
Alice is an independent director, choreographer and teacher based in Perth, Western Australia.
Workshops
Infinity Interrupted Summer 2012
The next Infinity Interrupted workshop will be held at the King Street Arts Centre in Perth, Western Australia, from Monday 2 - Friday 6 January 2012.
The workshop runs for two hours a day, for the five days. It begins slowly, to introduce basic information to new participants / review information for returning participants, then builds in speed and complexity throughout the week. The workshop is ideal for contemporary dancers at an intermediate level and beyond, with a good level of fitness.
If you'd like to attend this workshop, please complete the registration form and return to alice@aliceleeholland.com.au
Limited places available.
