Shaun Parker & Company is an exhilarating and bold new Australian dance company that has explod- ed on to the international dance scene - but its so much more than dance, or what people perceive as dance. It’s a company on a fast trajectory to international prominence, by focusing on delivering the highest quality performing art, integrating choreographic forms, story telling, diverse musical styles and theatrical invention, communicating strong, direct messages on big themes to the largest num- ber of people nationally and internationally.
Led by award winning Artistic Director and Choreographer Shaun Parker, The Daily Telegraph de- scribes his work as “so cutting edge it actually wanders off the edge of any single-word definition...”.
Based in Sydney and just three years old, the company has already toured to Teat Champ Fleuri’s Total Dance Festival, in La Reunion and taken festival hit Happy as Larry to eleven venues across the UK including a sold out season at London’s prestigious Sadler’s Wells. Last year, Shaun Parker created two new works for the London Cultural Olympiad, winning the Argus Angel Award for Best Work at the Brighton Festival.
To reference one of Parker’s hit shows of 2007, This Show is About People, this Company is about people: people of all cultures, linguistic backgrounds, talents, ages and environments, from all walks of life and locations around the world.
Parker’s commitment to education and community outreach is evident through his work in Western Sydney with culturally diverse and disadvantaged young people. The Yard, a work inspired by William Golding’s Lord of the Flies and featuring 33 immigrant teenagers, just received a Helpmann Award nomination for Best Presentation for Children, received the 2012 Australian Dance Award for Outstanding Achievement in Youth and Community Dance and featured in Foxtel’s STUDIO documentary series.

Shaun Parker is an award-winning choreographer whose work has toured the United Kingdom, France, Germany, Asia, New Zealand and across Australia.
A graduate of BA Dance at Victorian College of the Arts, his performing career spanned seventeen years with leading companies such as Meryl Tankard’s Australian Dance Theatre, Kate Champion’s Force Majeure, Sydney Theatre Company, Chunky Move, The Song Company, State Theatre Company (of SA), Compagnie ALIAS (Geneva), Meredith Monk (New York), and Sasha Waltz (Berlin).
Parker’s works include Happy as Larry, commissioned and presented by Sydney, Perth, Brisbane and the New Zealand International Arts Festivals, This Show Is About People, commissioned by the Melbourne International
Arts Festival and Sydney Festival. The Yard, commissioned by Captivate and Seymour Centre Sydney, Divine Harmonies (Tasdance), My Little Garden (Barossa International Music Festival), Blue Love (Sydney Opera House), VAMP (Meow Meow & Malthouse Theatre), Love Instalment (Sydney Dance Company), Tenebrae III (The Song Company), and the award winning short films ‘The Love Trilogy’ and ‘NO.’ Other work includes creative developments with Australian Theatre of the Deaf and the National Aboriginal & Islander College (NAISDA).
In 2012, Parker created two new outdoor works commissioned for London’s Cultural Olympiad: Spill for Dancexchange and the International Dance Festival of Birmingham and Trolleys for the Without Walls Consortium. Spill has played 46 locations across the West Midlands and featured as a ten-part series on BBC’s free to air digital channel THE SPACE. Trolleys won the Argus Angel award for Best Work at the Brighton Festival and Fringe 2012.
Happy as Larry won 12 Children’s Jury Awards in Perth, a Bansky Award in New Zealand and toured to eleven venues across the UK, including Sadler’s Wells, as part of the Dance Touring Partnership network. This Show is about People won an Australian Dance Award in 2008. In June 2013 The Yard, a work about survival and cultural divide in the school yard, was nominated for a Helpmann Award for Best Presentation for Children, following its win at the 2012 Australian Dance Awards for Most Outstanding Production in Youth or Community Dance.

Most recently, Parker has been nominated for the 2012 Australian Dance Awards Most Outstanding Production in Youth or Community Dance for his direction and choreography on The Yard.

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