Gavin Webber joins Dance Integrated Australia’s Creative Director, Philip Channells for The Corner Dance Lab 2014. Situated just 30 minutes inland from Byron Bay on the New South Wales stunning North Coast region, the Federal Community Hall & Church provide the backdrop for this exciting new collaboration in Australian contemporary dance.

Through his investigations of ‘The Subtle Body’, Webber will lead daily workshops that will allow the dancer to tread across many boundaries and amalgamate many different forms and techniques, including Chi Gung, contemporary dance, floor work, yoga and theatre. The workshop will be a vibrant exchange of information with the desire to find the individual in the performer.

BIOGRAPHY

Gavin Webber is a choreographer, teacher and performer based in Coolangatta, Queensland and works between Australia and Europe. He started dancing relatively late after many lost years spent hitch-hiking, skiing, writing, camping and studying. In 1993 he joined Meryl Tankard Australian Dance Theatre after training as a dancer for three years at the Centre for the Performing Arts in his hometown, Adelaide, South Australia. He stayed with Meryl until 1998 when he left a tour in Europe to buy his first (but not last!) kombi van. After another lost period he joined Wim Vandekeybus and Ultima Vez in Belgium.

He returned to Australia in 2001 where he started teaching and choreographing. He was Artistic Director of Dancenorth in Queensland for four years, creating and touring seven works in this time. he was also co-founder of Splintergroup and Animal Farm Collective, based between Berlin and Australia and with these collectives created three international co-productions, lawn, roadkill and Food Chain, which have toured extensively throughout the world. In 2010 lawn and roadkill received 6 Greenroom awards in Melbourne.

As a teacher he has worked with many international companies including Ultima Vez, Sasha Waltz and Guests, Jan Fabre, Chunky Move, Les Ballets C de la B, Australian Dance Theatre and every year as part of Impulstanz in Austria. He has also worked with Australian universities, especially QUT in Brisbane. His classes range from contemporary technique to  Yoga Chi-Gung and include many of the possibilities that are woven between.

In 2009 he created Rock Show with one of Australia’s leading rock bands, Regurgitator, commissioned by QPAC. Recently he performed again with Ultima Vez, choreographed for Stalker and Perth Theatre Company, created a bar brawl for Berlin film maker, Julian Rosefeldt and worked with PVC in Freiburg, Germany. He created Food Chain with Grayson Millwood, Little Pig and Someone Else, produced by PVC, and co-directed Letze Welten with theatre director Christoph Frick. In the beginning of 2013 Grayson Millwood, Jeff Wood and Webber created Frontier, an experimental film about dirt.

Animal Farm Collective currently have two shows being bred, Cut Away and Be a Good Little Soldier.