As Shaun Parker prepares to audition dancers for his company’s 2013 program, he is basking in the achievement of having won the 2012 Australian Dance Award for Outstanding Achievement in Youth or Community Dance, for The Yard.
“It was a honour for us to receive this award,” he exclaims. “Then the day after the ceremony in Perth, we flew to Lismore to continue the coastal NSW tour of The Yard. The teenage performers that I was working with jumped for joy when we turned up with the award!”
Parker has been running Shaun Parker & Company since 2010. Since producing its first major work, Happy as Larry, this independent dance ensemble has toured nationally and internationally. While Parker generally works with adult professional artists, The Yard is a piece for young people.
“I started working on The Yard four years ago in high schools in Western Sydney,” recalls Parker. “It actually began as a series of dance and theatre workshops with no intention to create a mid-scale production. However, after working with the students for some time, I realised that I just had to make a full-length work with these teenage dancers and artists. The highlight of the project has been seeing the teenagers develop over this four-year period into disciplined, talented and accomplished artists.”
The company’s 2013 program promises to be a busy one. “In 2013 we’re touring Happy as Larry to fifteen venues in Western Australia, Victoria, South Australia, Northern Territory, and New South Wales. We’ve also got international tours lined up,” says Parker.
“We have new projects bubbling away too, which is also exciting. It was fantastic for us to tour Happy as Larry to eleven cities overseas last year - from these tours the work keeps getting invited places. Happy as Larry has nine dancers and one understudy on tour so that means we can offer a lot of work for dancers.”
Applications to audition for Shaun Parker & Company close Thursday 27 September at 5pm. Auditions will be held in Sydney.
More info: https://www.facebook.com/Shaun.Parker.Company?ref=ts or email Katrina Dunn-Jones at admin@shaunparkercompany.com
The Yard by Shaun Parker & Company, Photo: Heidrun Lohr.