Adams, Neil (1955 - )

Scambler, Paul: Portrait of Neil Adams, 2002

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Melbourne-born Neil Adams graduated from Rusden College (now Deakin University) in 1980 with a Bachelor of Education (Dance and Drama). The following year he joined TasDance as a foundation member. In his career with Tasdance, which included a role as rehearsal director from 1985, Adams choreographed many works for the company. They included Naught Beside (1981), Go 1234 (1981), Colours (1984), Interface (1984), Sextet (1985), Sports Shorts (1986), Sights and Settings (1986), Mountain Clear Morning (1987), Intersection (1987), Stillness Falls (1988), Lunar Return (1989), Nocturnus (1990), Superheroes (1990), Gotta Go (1991) and Metta Terra (1992). He also performed in over 50 works in this company's repertoire between 1981 and 1990, and in 1983, while in New York on an Australia Council funded travel/study tour, Stephen Petronio created the solo Apollo Object on him.

Adams has worked extensively as a freelance choreographer and has made works for the Western Australian Academy of Performing Arts, Hong Kong Academy of Performing Arts, Two Dance Plus, Dance Works, Dance North, the Sutra Dance Company in Kuala Lumpur, and the Shanghai Theatre Academy. In 1994 he produced 'Solo Flight', a performance project featuring the work of independent Tasmanian dance artists.

In 1999 and 2000 Adams worked as a lecturer in contemporary dance at the Western Australian Academy of Performing Arts, Edith Cowan University. During that time he made Triptych (2000), a full-length work which won the Puc award for outstanding choreography from Arts Alliance, Western Australia. In 2002 he returned to work with TasDance and made The Darkling for the company's twenty-first birthday season.

Adams was the winner of the professional category (the Robert Helpmann Award) of the 2004 Dance Creation competition, a choreographic award established by the Australian Institute of Classical Dance, for his work Vapour Trail. He holds a practice-based PhD from the Victorian College of the Arts, where his choreographic research project INCARNA was presented in 2005 and where he currently lectures in contemporary dance. In 2006 he was the choreographer selected for the Australia/Korea Foundation Arts promotional delegation to South Korea. In 2008 he choreographed Paper on Water, a solo work for Delia Silvan.

Bibliography:

Neil Adams, 'Triptych: a beautiful multiplicity', Brolga 14 (June 2001), pp. 36-44. A list of Neil Adams' choreographic work for TasDance is in The Ausdance Guide to Australian Dance Companies 1994 (Canberra: AGPS, 1994), pp. 228-243.

See also: Dance North ; Dance Works ; Smith, Anna ; TasDance

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