STEPS announces our new Artistic Director
STEPS announces our new Artistic Director
23.04.09Alice Lee Holland takes the great STEP from company member to Artistic Director!
Rapturous applause echoes throughout the theatre and into the office of STEPS Youth Dance Company, as we welcome our new Artistic Director, Alice Lee Holland.
The celebrations are not over. After flexing her muscles on numerous STEPS projects, most recently on the critically acclaimed production moonwebs & scorched thongs at the Playhouse Theatre, STEPS is delighted to announce, and warmly welcomes aboard our new Artistic Director, Alice Lee Holland.
Alice Lee Holland is no stranger to STEPS - from company member in 1992 at the tender age of 12, to emerging young choreographer for the Nexus season in 1997. Alice has collaborated on KissXX (2006), POWDERMONKEY - King of the Castle Kalgoorlie (2007) and the Boys Can Dance 10 year anniversary production dash, which won the 2007 West Australian Dance Award for Outstanding Achievement in Choreography.
Alice graduated from WAAPA in 1999 with a Bachelor of Arts in Dance and holds a Master of Fine Arts in Choreography and Performance from the University of North Carolina at Greensboro.
Alice’s work as an independent dance artist has seen her collaborate with some of the preeminent dance companies and organisations in the United States and Australia including, Labor Force Dances in New York, John Gamble Dance Theatre (North Carolina), The Yard (Massachusetts), Quantum Leap (Canberra), Strut Dance, WAAPA, Artrage and The Graduate College of Dance. Alice also lectures at WAAPA and The Graduate College of Dance and is the Secretary of the Board of Management at Strut Dance.
In 2008 Alice created and presented her first full-length work titled Preparing to be Beautiful, which premiered in a sell-out season in October 2008 at the Moore’s Building, Fremantle, as part of the Silver Artrage Festival. In the 2008 Dance Australia Critics’ Survey Preparing to be Beautiful was listed as “Best New Work” (Nina Levy) and Alice was recognised as “Most Interesting Australian Artist” (Rita Clarke). Preparing to be Beautiful has also been nominated for the 2009 Australian Dance Awards.
Alice’s passion and commitment to dance and working with young people is infectious, making her a great teacher and a genuine ambassador and leader.
Gabrielle Sullivan, Chairman of the Board of Directors of STEPS Youth Dance Company, says, “We’re thrilled to have Alice join the organisation and we’re very much looking forward to the new directions and developments that our new Artistic Director will bring to the company ”
STEPS new Artistic Director, Alice Lee Holland said she is incredibly excited to take on the role of AD with the company that was instrumental to her own development as a professional dance artist.
“There is a particular energy and passion that comes with STEPS; I remember it vividly as a young company member and am inspired to witness it still today in a whole new generation of young dancers”.
“I look forward to infusing the experience and knowledge I have gathered over the past 12 years into the STEPS program and growing with the company in its next phase, to lead relevant and energetic projects that assist to inspire and train young dancers and expand a whole new generation of dance audiences”, said Ms Holland.
Tim Balfour (The West Australian, ‘Today’, 7 April, pg 6) reviews moonwebs & scorched thongs and writes that Alice’s “highly structured work was full of clever imagery and choreography that challenged the dancers’ abilities. Time and again they delivered, often with a commitment and maturity that belied their years”.