#a11yArts International Creative Leadership Series with Choreographer Marc Brew

Join Touch Compass's kōrero with Marc Brew and the Touch Compass Artistic Direction Panel about Marc's incredible body of work as a choreographer and a dancer, how his collaboration and innovation with international dance organisations has altered perceptions about disability and performance.

Acclaimed International disabled choreographer, Artistic Director and dancer, Marc Brew trained as a professional dancer at the Victorian College of the Arts Secondary School and The Australian Ballet School. He has been working in the UK and Internationally for over 20 years as a director, choreographer, dancer, teacher and speaker; with the Australian Ballet Company, State Theatre Ballet Company of South Africa, Infinity Dance Theatre, CandoCo Dance Company and AXIS Dance Company. Marc was Associate Director with Scottish Dance Theatre, Associate Artistic Director with Ballet Cymru in Wales and was Associate Artist in 2015 at Tramway Theatre in Glasgow.

Since 2008 Marc has been dedicating time to his own choreography with Marc Brew Company and his recent choreographic commissions include San Francisco Ballet School, Dancing Wheels, Scottish Ballet, Ballet Cymru (Wales), YDance (Scotland), AXIS Dance Company (USA), Candoco Dance Company (UK), Touch Compass (NZ), Amy Seiwert’s Imagery (USA) and Scottish Dance Theatre (Scotland). Marc was presented with a Centenary Medal for Outstanding Contribution as a dancer and choreographer. His work Remember When was nominated for an Isadora Duncan Dance Award for Best Performance (individual) and his recent solo work For Now, I am… was listed in the Guardian's Top 10 Dance Shows for 2016.

Marc was Artistic Director of AXIS Dance Company 2017-2021 and is currently Associate Artistic Director at Ballet Cymru.

The Touch Compass Artistic Panel is comprised of Rodney Bell, Suzanne Cowan and Lusi Faiva. Please read their bios below for more information on their fantastic careers.

Rodney Bell has been dancing professionally since 1995, having started out as a founding member of Touch Compass. Proud to be a pioneer for inclusive
dance, Rodney has performed both nationally and internationally – winning an Isadora Dance Award while dancing in the US with Axis Dance Company. Rodney was also the winner of the Attitude Artistic Achievement Award, in 2016, and the Arts Access Aotearoa Artistic Achievement Award in 2017, 2018 The Grant Tilly Actor of the Year and the Creative New Zealand, Ngā Taonga Toi a Te Waka Toi - Te Tohu Iho Pūmanawa award 2020.

Suzanne Cowan is an artist/choreographer/researcher and has been an associate artist with Touch Compass since 1999. Her most recent work was performed at Auckland Arts Festival in 2021 with collaborator Rodney Bell, in 'He Owha Matarua’, a site specific performance at Piha that explores ecology and colonisation. She recently completed an independent film, ’Slippage’, to be screened in 2022, building on her solo autobiographical show ‘Manifesto of A Good Cripple’ which she produced and performed at the Basement Theatre in 2019.

Suzanne's performance, 'Knotty Entities', stems from her PhD research into rope and bodies as an expanded corporeality. Her PhD in Dance Studies, completed at the University of Auckland in 2018, brings a post humanist perspective to dis/abilty and performance and draws together her research into dance, disability, queer studies and feminist new materialism.

Lusi Faiva, of Samoan and European descent, is an award-winning dancer and founding member of Touch Compass who has been performing for over 30
years. She performed and toured New Zealand and Australia in the company’s major shows from 1997 to 2008 and starred in the highly acclaimed autobiographical performance Lusi’s Eden in 2001; in 2014, herDanceBox short film 'Mr and Mrs Jones' paid tribute to two key people in her life, her foster parents. Lusi has been a support dancer in Touch Compass’s community classes and represented Touch Compass at the Pacific CNZ Strategic conference at Te Papa, Wellington in 2018.

Lusi was awarded the High Commended award for her contribution to the dance community at the 2019 Arts Access Aotearoa Awards; Spirit of Attitude award at 2020 Attitude Awards; the Toa Artistic Achievement award at Pacific Arts CNZ 2020 Awards; and the Artistic Achievement award at the Arts Access Aotearoa 2021 awards.