Arts Direction · Choreography · Production
Emma
Dawson
Choreographer, producer and dance educator. Twenty-five years making work for the stage, the studio and the street, across Adelaide, Asia, the Americas and Havana.
A career built on the floor, then around it.
I direct, choreograph and produce, and I run two companies from St Peters: The Dance Pad, a studio with deep roots in its community, and TDP Productions, the producing arm behind a long run of Fringe and cabaret seasons.
The work has taken me from secondments with Australian Dance Theatre and Leigh Warren Dancers to teaching in Havana, touring Taiwan, and choreographing in Shanghai, Beijing and Los Angeles. These days my focus is direction, making and mentoring. I'm also completing a Master of Arts & Cultural Management at Adelaide University.
What holds it together is a way of working: warm in the room, clear about the outcome, and unwilling to waste a dancer's time or a producer's budget.
Three ways I tend to be useful.
Arts Direction
Shaping the vision for a show, a season or a company, and holding it steady from concept through to opening night.
Choreography
Movement for stage, screen and event, classical to commercial, built for the bodies and the brief in front of me.
Production
Producing live work end to end: budgets, casts, venues and timelines, with more than a decade of Fringe and cabaret behind it.
The Studio Owner's Toolkit.
The systems I use to run The Dance Pad, made into templates you can pick up and use in your own school: a class profit forecast, a festival and open day kit, and a show volunteer kit.
They're the real working documents, tested over years of terms, shows and open days.
Got a season, a show or a studio that needs direction?
I take on a small number of directing, choreography and producing projects each year. Tell me what you're making and I'll tell you straight whether I'm the right person for it.