de Quincey, Tess (1954 - )

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Tess de Quincey was born in Wales and learnt ballet as a child in London. She studied graphics and sculpture in Copenhagen where she trained and worked in contemporary theatre with Teatergruppen Fair Play and in modern dance with The Ladies Dance Theatre led by choreographer Rhea Leman. Her studies of Topeng mask dance in Bali with Imade Pasek Tempo and of Noh Theatre in France with Yoshi Oida contributed to her decision to pursue oriental performance perspectives.

From 1985 to 1991, De Quincey was based in Japan. There she performed in Tatsumi Hijikata's theatres, studied with Kazuo Ohno, and danced with Min Tanaka's Mai-Juku performance company for six years. Embracing the Body Weather philosophy and methodology developed by Tanaka, de Quincey introduced Body Weather into Australia in 1988 and in 2000 established De Quincey Co, which is grounded in the Body Weather practice.

De Quincey has worked extensively in Europe, Japan and Australia as a performer, choreographer, teacher and director. She engages in improvisational work with musicians and visual artists, and her main emphasis is on intercultural, site-specific performances, often concerned with 'inhabitation' and the 'nature of place'. Her major solo productions Movement on the Edge (1988-89), Another Dust (1989-92), is and is.2 (1994-95) and Nerve 9 (2001 onwards) toured extensively in both Europe and Australia, with Nerve 9 representing Australia at the Biennale Nationale de Danse en Val-de-Marne, Paris in 2002.

A particular interest in the Australian outback has resulted in de Quincey's creation of a series of performance works made over five years in the ancient dry lake bed of Mungo in far western New South Wales, and in her directorship of the 'Triple Alice Forum & Laboratories' which brings together interdisciplinary practices of artists, scientists and thinkers in relation to the central desert of Australia. Other projects de Quincey has initiated include a long term exchange entitled EMBRACE between Indian and Australian artists and a collaboration with writer Jane Goodall to create a solo piece about the writings of de Quincey's ancestor, renowned opium-eater Thomas De Quincey (1785-1859).

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