About

The Keir Choreographic Award (KCA) was a prestigious biennial program showcasing new, choreographic short works by Australian artists. Launched in 2014, KCA was held biannually over five editions, until 2022 in Melbourne, Sydney, and online. A unique and innovative public-private initiative dedicated to the commissioning, presentation, and promotion of new Australian choreography, KCA was a partnership between Dancehouse (Melbourne), The Keir Foundation and Creative Australia, with Sydney-based presenting partner Carriageworks. KCA offered two prizes: a $50,000 cash prize awarded by the KCA Jury, and a $10,000 people’s choice award. The Award looked to identify and illuminate the most urgent and experimental choreographic practices occurring in the Australian context. It represented a prominent and significant commissioning and presentation context for independent Australian choreography, contributing a total of 40 new choreographic works since the its inception, an incredible legacy which has influenced the scale and vibrancy of Australian dance over a decade.

KCA invited Australian artists with a professional practice from across the career spectrum, from established to emerging, were invited to propose a choreographic idea for an original live performance work. Eight applicants would be selected to develop and present a completed live 20-minute work (max. 5 performers) in two cities in professionally supported conditions. Either the applicant OR one of the main collaborators was required to be a choreographer. To enter, artists were asked to make a video (maximum 5 minutes) outlining the new choreographic idea. Each submitted application was assessed by a jury of national and international artists, presenters or scholars. The artists were asked to complete the work within a five-month period; each artist involved received a $12,000AUD all-inclusive commissioning fee, for development and production costs and 100 hours of free rehearsal space in the city or region in which they resides. Each of the eight commissioned works was presented by Dancehouse, Melbourne, and four semi-finalists works in Carriageworks, Sydney, before one is selected as a recipient of the $50,000 Keir Choreographic Award 2022. Additionally, audiences will vote for the recipient of the $10,000 Keir Choreographic 2022 Audience Award.

Alongside the competition program, KCA also offered a Public Program as part of its ongoing commitment to promote dialogue, reflection, accessibility and criticality for the art form, its makers and its audiences. It aimed to cross-pollinate an array of outstanding thinkers and practitioners from the dance field and other communities of thought  in order to provide a unique context in which to consider the deep, subtle ways that dance, with its multiplicity of choreographed and embodied practices, connects to the social, the ethical and the political.