Erin Brannigan

I started dancing very early, as many kids do, and have managed to keep my working life close to this special interest. My teaching in a university context, research, and other interests all involve dance, whether it’s a special spot in a performance course on social dance forms, an emphasis on description in a reviewing course, research into the various ways dance interfaces with the other contemporary arts (film, visual art, music, writing) or creative writing projects invested in the moving body that will probably never see the light of day. I’ve written for RealTime since the 1990s and have collaborated with Keith and Virginia on other publications and exhibitions such as Bodies of Thought: 12 Australian Choreographers and In Response: Dialogues with RealTime.

I have also written a book on Dancefilm and many articles for academic and non-academic journals.

My primary motivation in writing about dance and choreography in its many forms is to help it persist into the future. And I am a huge fan… I want our dance artists to be as valued and celebrated as Australian artists working in other fields are. My work with archives and collections is an extension of this. RealTime has played an important role in both generating and securing the future of writing about Australian dance. I’m also interested in what happens next — teaching reviewing for the arts at university seems important given the seismic shifts in the journalistic landscape this past 20 years.