Bonnie curtis

Artistic Director, Choreographer and Performer

Bonnie Curtis is a multi-faceted artist, driven by a curious imagination and a desire to discover. Born and bred in Sydney, Bonnie trained at the Academy of Music and Performing Arts before moving to Europe to further her artistic development.

During her career, Bonnie has worked as an independent artist, producer, director, choreographer and performer in film, installation and live performance.

Her creations and collaborations have been featured internationally at ImPulsTanz, MuMoK (AT), Girona Film Festival (ES), Quadstock Music Festival (US), CinéWomen – Womenartconnect (EU), Asia International Youth Short Film Exhibition (CN), Lift-Off Festival (UK) and NZ Fringe (NZ), Biennale of Sydney, Sydney World Film Festival, Sydney Fringe, Melbourne Fringe and DirtyFeet’s The Choreographic Lab (AU).

As an artist, Bonnie’s fascination with darker themes of life is prevalent in her work. Dark elements of our human existence inspire her. Her creations share the emotions and experiences that have formed our modern society.

At heart, Bonnie is a rebel bun-head who discovered her love of dance theatre while living in Berlin. Bonnie’s artistic discipline fuses technical elements of dance with creative and somatic practices.

Kay Armstrong

Mentor

Kay lives and works on Dharug country, Western Sydney. Kay has been a professional dance maker/ performer for the last 35 years taking her own work to festivals both interstate and overseas, she has taken on a variety of lead management and directorial roles, as well as creating her own dance company for emerging dance artists between 2009 -2012. Along the way, she picked up a couple of awards, Robert Helpmann Scholarship 2004 and the 2013 Dame Peggy Van Praagh Fellowship. Seeking new horizons she has most recently expanded her practice into visual arts.

Tandem to her creative practice Kay also continues to mentor in the dance community working with both established and emerging dance artists and she continues her creative facilitation work in the community arts sector.

Bonnie first began working with Kay during her DirtyFeet’s The Choreographic Lab residency in 2020.

Lucia Haddad

Lighting Design

Lucia Haddad is an emerging Lighting Designer and Theatre Technician.
Living and working on Bidjigal and Gadigal land, Lucia is a graduate of NIDA’s BFA Technical Theatre and Stage Management degree.

Lucia’s recent production credits include; Not Today (Rogue Projects, Lighting Designer), Yellow Face (Dinosaurus Productions, Lighting Designer), The Lovers of Apollo and Daphne (Pinchgut Opera, Lighting Operator), The Rehearsal (Danza Del Arte, Lighting Designer), The Government Inspector (NIDA, Lighting Designer), Make It Count Moments: Jaguar Jonze – Astronaut (Pedestrian TV, Lighting Designer), Pleasuredome (Griffin Theatre Company, Company and Broadcast Manager), 44 Sex Acts in One Week (Belvoir, Sound Operator/Mixer), Beethoven and Bridgetower (Australian Chamber Orchestra, Sound Operator/Mixer), Eurovision Australia Decides 2020 (Lighting Intern), and The Lighthouse (Patch Theatre, Production Technical Assistant).

Fiona Lloyd Harding

Sound Design

Fiona (or Fi) is Sydney based Sound Designer and Stage Manager.

Beginning their creative life at the age of 10 with the national youth circus company, Fi shifted interests to behind-the-scenes work after training as a performer for a number of years. First building an interest in Stage Management, before broadening their interests to Sound Design. Now working across a range of works and performance styles, Fi is excited to explore as much theatre as they can.

Working as a Sound Designer, Fiona enjoys exploring how the world is perceived through a character’s ears. Playing with life-like noises of the world around us, verses the emotive music and ambience tracks, utilizing a mix of both to convey the mental frame of a scene.

This collaborative exchange was made possible by Arts on Tour Artist in Residence Program. AOT’s program allowed Bonnie and Fiona to work in Bonnie’s local area in Regional NSW.

Being able to spend time in the studio with Fiona in an interdisciplinary exchange has been invaluable to both Bonnie’s artistic process and the creation of Limits.

For more info on Fi, visit their website.

Nell Ranney

Dramaturg

Nell Ranney is a director and producer of original and multi-disciplinary theatre work.

Most recently she co-created and directed Maureen: Harbinger of Death (Sydney Festival), directed the Sydney premiers of TUESDAY (25A Belvoir) and She Rode Horses Like the Stock Exchange (KXT) and was associate director for Is There Something Wrong with That Lady? (Griffin).

In 2018 she was appointed the Baylis Assistant Director at the Old Vic in London for SYLVIA (Old Vic/ ZooNation), a hip-hop, soul and funk musical about the life of Sylvia Pankhurst.

Nell has previously worked in programming for The Garden of Unearthly Delights as program manager and for Belvoir as their artistic associate.

This collaborative exchange was made possible by Arts on Tour Artist in Residence Program. AOT’s program allowed Bonnie and Nell to work in Bonnie’s local area in Regional NSW.

Group Development

Bonnie began developing material which was used to create a group work.

The 5-minute group work, titled Animal, was presented as an Alumni piece at the Academy of Music and Performing Arts’ showcase in 2020.

Bonnie worked with BCP company dancers and AMPA students completing their internship with BCP during a residency at Annandale Creative Arts Centre.

Development Dance Artists: Bonnie Curtis, Olivia Hadley, Kate Garrett, Bernadett Lorincz, Bridget McAllister, Sara Moad, Sabrina Muszynski, Kara Peake, Reina Takeuchi and Steph Wyburn.

Performance Cast: Courtney Allerton, Bonnie Curtis, Kate Garrett, Sabrina Muszynski, Kara Peake, Ella Power, Reina Takeuchi and Steph Wyburn.

This project was supported by Annandale Creative Arts Centre and the Academy of Music and Performing Arts.

DirtyFeet’s The Choreographic Lab

Bonnie began developing Limits during DirtyFeet’s Choreographic Lab Program in 2020.

The research questions Bonnie entered the studio with were:

– What are the limitations of my female body?

– What are society’s limitations of the female body?

– How do I embody these limitations placed on me by society?

– Are these limitations physical or psychological manifestations?

Bonnie worked with 3 dancers and a mentor during her 2-week residency at Readymade in Sydney.

Dance Artists: Tammy Bouman, Holly Craig and Aroha Pehi.

Mentor: Kay Armstrong

This project is supported by DirtyFeet; the Australian Government’s Regional Arts Fund, provided through Regional Arts Australia, and in NSW through Regional Arts NSW; and the NSW Government through Create NSW.

Arts on Tour Regional Artist in Residence in Picton, NSW.

During her residency, Bonnie worked with dramaturg/director Nell Ranney to develop spoken text, ideas for movement material, theatrical elements. Bonnie also worked with sound designer and composer Fiona Lloyd Harding to develop a soundscape incorporating the spoken text.

This was used as part of a short excerpt titled Monster that was presented at March Dance 2021, part of the mixed bill (un)bound.

March Dance Residency at Critical Path.

During her time as Artist in Residence at Critical Path, Bonnie undertook a choreographic exploration of the limitations of the female body and continued to develop material from her Choreographic Lab residency.

This was used as part of a short excerpt that was presented at March Dance 2021, part of the mixed bill (un)bound.

Bonnie continued to work with mentor Kay Armstrong on how familiar movement could be transformed into something that was unfamiliar to the viewer.

Bonnie also worked with sound designer Fiona Lloyd Harding on developing sound to accompany the movement phrase.

They developed a track using a phrase of spoken text that was used as part of the movement phrase.

The Flying Nun by Brand X Residency

Bonnie worked with mentor Kay Armstrong, sound designer Fiona Lloyd Harding and lighting designer Lucia Haddad to create the 55-minute performance of Limits.

Limits premiered to an audience on June 18 and 19, 2021 as part of Brand X‘s The Flying Nun Season 6.

Artistic Director: Bonnie Curtis

Choreographer and Performer: Bonnie Curtis

Mentor: Kay Armstrong

Sound Designer: Fiona Lloyd Harding

Dramaturg: Nell Ranney

Lighting Designer: Lucia Haddad

Assistant to Artistic Director: Steph Wyburn