Brian is a veteran teacher here at the Sydney Dance Company Studios and is one of Australia’s most respected contemporary technique teachers. He has taught company classes for Australian Dance Theatre, Chunky Move, Bangarra Dance Theatre as well as several terms at NIDA, NAISDA, Brent Street and the UNITEC Performing Arts School in New Zealand where he was instrumental in the development of their degree program.
Born in the United States, Brian earned a Bachelor of Arts Degree from the University of Connecticut in 1979. He moved to New Zealand in 1981 to join Limbs, where he created two major works, Disturbing the Peace and Parts Unknown. In 1991, he founded his own company, the Jump Giants and produced Heaven, Hell and Hamilton and Bedrock. He choreographed the hit musicals West Side Story and Peter Pan for the Mercury Theatre and Cabaret at the Watershed Theatre. He danced with Douglas Wright Dance in Sydney production of Forever and in Commotion Company’s stage and film productions of The Dark Forest.
Based in Sydney for nearly 10 years, Brian recently toured New Zealand and Sydney in Black Milk with Douglas Wright Dance. He also regularly tours overseas in Tense Dave with Melbourne based Chunky Move. He won a 2005 Australian Dance Award for best choreography for In the Dark, directed by Wendy Houstoun and won a Special Festival Award for his production of Stretching It Wider at the 2001 Mardi Gras Gay and Lesbian Arts Festival. Brian’s 1997 solo work In Search of Mike was adapted into a short dramatic film, which has won ten international short film awards including third place in the world’s best short film competition in Paris.