Shaun Parker & Company has announced the establishment of a new annual $100,000 choreographic fellowship, supported by the Denise and Michael Kellen Foundation in New York.
The Shaun Parker & Company Choreographic Fellowship will support the development of significant new dance works by leading choreographic artists. The company describes the fellowship as a rare American-funded initiative in the Australian arts and dance sector, notable both for the scale of the support and for its commitment to the creation of a specific artistic outcome.
The inaugural recipient is Beau Dean Riley Smith, a Wiradjuri and Gamillaraay man from Dubbo, New South Wales, raised on Yuin Country in Culburra Beach, Nowra, and now living on Gadigal land.
Riley Smith will receive the fellowship across two to three years, with the process culminating in the world premiere of a major new work created with Shaun Parker & Company’s nine dancers.
Riley Smith is an award-winning dancer, choreographer and actor. He performed with Bangarra Dance Theatre from 2013 to 2022, appearing in more than 22 major productions during his decade with the company. His choreographic work includes Miyagan, from Bangarra’s OUR land people stories, which was later returned to Country as part of Bangarra’s 2018 regional tour. That tour received the Helpmann Award for Best Regional Touring Program. More recently, Riley Smith made his musical theatre debut as Dave Daylight in Queensland Theatre’s The Sunshine Club, directed by Wesley Enoch.
Announcing the fellowship, Artistic Director Shaun Parker said the initiative had grown from a long relationship with the Denise and Michael Kellen Foundation.
“This fellowship is the result of a relationship built slowly, and with great care,” Parker said. “I remember sitting with the Denise and Michael Kellen Foundation in New York and a discussion about my dreams for our company and what Australian dance could become. I couldn’t have imagined back then what we are announcing today.”
Parker said the support would have a substantial impact not only on Riley Smith, but on the company and the wider sector.
“To have this very significant support from the Denise and Michael Kellen Foundation is genuinely life changing; for Beau, whose talent and vision I have long admired, for our nine outstanding dancers who will be transformed by this process and for the Australian dance sector as a whole.”
He added that he hoped the fellowship would encourage further philanthropic investment in dance.
“We hope this act of remarkable generosity opens a door. That it says to other philanthropists: the arts are worthy of your boldest investment.”
For Riley Smith, the fellowship offers something increasingly scarce in contemporary arts practice: time. The multi-year structure will allow him to develop a substantial new work without the pressure of compressed creative timelines.
“I am thrilled and humbled to be chosen as the inaugural recipient of the Shaun Parker & Company Choreographic Fellowship,” Riley Smith said. “This opportunity will give me the room to go deep, without cutting corners and allows me the time to explore all facets of the work, to create a really thought-provoking piece.”
He said the two-year development period would allow the creative process to be handled with proper care.
“Having two years to develop a work is an incredibly rare opportunity and one I am endlessly thankful for. It allows us to respect the creative process, having this time, to respect and honour the work. Particularly, when the works I create are pulled from the lived history of this country.”
Riley Smith also pointed to the importance of working with the Shaun Parker & Company dancers over an extended period.
“Getting to work with Shaun Parker & Company’s nine outstanding dancers is a dream,” he said. “There is a real feeling of commitment from everyone, which bonds and connect us, creating ‘Miyagan’ as we all become the caretakers for this story.”
The Denise and Michael Kellen Foundation is a private foundation based in New York. Its philanthropic work supports education, voluntarism, philanthropy and human services, primarily in New York, Connecticut and New Jersey.
In a statement, the Foundation said its relationship with Parker had developed over many years.
“Our relationship with Shaun Parker is one that has grown organically, and with great warmth, over many years,” the Foundation said. “We have seen that Shaun has a rare gift for making one see the world through a different lens. Shaun’s capacity to design intricate movement, engaging full length work and highly conceptual frameworks is what drew us to his company in the first place.”
The Foundation said it had followed Parker’s vision for the company with confidence.
“We have watched and supported Shaun’s vision for his company with admiration, and when the opportunity arose to support this fellowship, we felt wholly confident that he could steer his Fellows in the creation of groundbreaking new work.”
It also framed the gift as part of a wider conversation about international support for Australian dance.
“We hope this contribution paves the way for the extraordinary artists who will benefit from it, for a broader conversation about what Australian dance can be and sets a precedent for who can support it.”
The Shaun Parker & Company Board said Riley Smith’s appointment as the inaugural fellow reflected the company’s commitment to artistic leadership and First Nations storytelling.
“By awarding Beau Dean Riley Smith this inaugural fellowship, Shaun Parker & Company is proudly investing in one of the most distinctive and compelling First Nations voices in Australian performance today,” the Board said. “Supporting the creation of a major new work, this fellowship reflects our commitment to bold artistic leadership, the strength of Australian dance, and the ongoing power of culture, connection and reconciliation.”
The Board also acknowledged the significance of the philanthropic partnership.
“The generosity of the Denise and Michael Kellen Foundation in making this fellowship possible is something the Board holds with enormous gratitude. It is the kind of philanthropic partnership that allows a company to dream beyond its means; a place from which Shaun Parker & Company has always done its best work. Patient, ambitious giving of this kind is the partnership Australian arts needs more of.”
Shaun Parker & Company was founded in Sydney in 2010 by Shaun Parker. The company has toured across Australia and to 25 countries internationally, including a sold-out season at Sadler’s Wells in London. Its works are known for combining choreographic invention, theatricality and distinctive musical scores.
For an Australian dance sector in which sustained development time remains rare, the new fellowship represents a significant investment in choreographic process as much as production. In naming Riley Smith as its first recipient, Shaun Parker & Company has placed both cultural authorship and long-form artistic development at the centre of the initiative.