Dance board members

Dominique Fisher (chair), Vic.

From her days as a student at the Australian Ballet School through five years as a board member of the Sydney Opera House Trust, to her last six years as a director of the Malthouse Theatre, Dominique has been able to blend and enhance her business skills with her love of the arts. Dominique is currently chairman of ASX-listed biotech company, Circadian Technologies Limited, and is one of few Australian women chairing listed public companies. She is also chair of two other technology companies; a director of a Malaysian property company operating in Malaysia and Australia; director of several private companies and principal and managing director of her own business which undertakes substantial commercial transactions in communications, telecommunications and information technology industries. Previously, Dominique had nine years experience as a non-executive director on the board of Australia’s largest general insurer, IAG Limited and largest motoring organization, the NRMA.

Claudia Alessi, WA

Claudia’s 20-year dance career has been interwoven with acrobatics, aerial work, physical theatre, puppetry and film. She is lecturer at WAAPA and has curated Artrage’s Crossfire event. She has toured nationally and internationally with Chrissie Parrott Dance Company, Thwack, Sydney Theatre Co, skadada, Spare Parts Puppet Theatre, STRUT, Co. Loaded, Plasticien Volant of France, Foundation Jean-Pierre Perrault of Canada, and Australian Dance Theatre. As a dance independent, Claudia has produced and performed in solo works Point of Entry  and 4by2: A Series of Encounters. Claudia is a three time finalist for ‘Outstanding Female Performer’ for the Australian Dance Awards. She is also a board member for both STRUT and Ausdance WA and the rehearsal director with Buzz Dance Theatre.

Julie Anne Long, NSW

Julie-Anne Long is an award winning independent dance artist based in Sydney. Since the mid 1980s she has performed and choreographed on a wide range of projects, with companies such as One Extra, Open City, Theatre of Image, Legs on the Wall, Flying Fruit Fly Circus, Bell Shakespeare Company and Dance Works. From 1991-1996 Julie-Anne was Associate Artistic Director of One Extra Company with Artistic Director Graeme Watson. During 2006/2007 Julie-Anne was Acting Director of Critical Path, a dance research organisation. In recent years Julie-Anne's dance practice has focused on solo work and dance films including MissXL: Let the Dance Speak for Itself, Boxing Baby Jane, Trust and Try! and Nuns Night Out. Julie-Anne is interested in making performances, which have a personal and often intimate voice, in unexpected places. The Nun's Picnic was a site-specific response to the village of Hill End, NSW, incorporating a collection of activities ranging from solo work, ensemble performances, video installation and writing, around a central theme, as a response to the time and people involved. In February 2007 Julie-Anne Long was awarded an Australia Council dance fellowship and begins her two-year program in October 2007.

Jeff Khan, Vic.

Jeff Khan is a curator, writer and arts administrator and is Next Wave's new artistic director. Originally from Western Australia, Jeff moved to Melbourne in 2003 to take up the role of communications manager at Gertrude Contemporary Art Spaces. Prior to this, he held positions at the Perth Institute of Contemporary Arts (PICA) and the John Curtin Gallery, and in 2002 undertook a six month internship athe Guggenheim R. Museum in New York. Jeff has developed numerous exhibitions, performance events and special projects, both at Gertrude and other organisations.

Jeff was a curatorial advisor for Rapt!, a major cultural exchange project between Australia and Japan in 2005-6. He is also a founding editorial committee member of un Magazine, was a member of the Midsumma Festival's visual arts working group from 2003 - 2006 and currently sits
on the City of Yarra's arts advisory committee. As a writer he has contributed to numerous magazines and journals including Artlink, Photofile, RealTime and un Magazine as well as catalogue essays for the Australian Centre for Contemporary Art, the Adelaide Biennial of Australian Art and numerous other galleries and artists' projects. Jeff was a member of Next Wave's curatorial advisory committee for the 2006 Next Wave Festival.

Elizabeth Walsh (community interest representative), Tas.

Elizabeth Walsh took up the appointment of artistic director, Ten Days on the Island (2007 & 2009), she was previously executive producer of Tasmania’s premier cultural event, since its inception in 2001 after a distinguished arts career spanning more than two decades. A graduate of the Victorian College of the Arts, Ms Walsh has worked in a host of roles in the performing and visual arts, in small to medium-sized companies such as the Flying Fruit Fly Circus, in major centres for the creative arts such as the Sydney Opera House (program manager), Footscray Community Arts Centre (director) and on international arts festivals, including as programmanager of Sydney Festival and on various projects for the Adelaide and Melbourne Comedy Festivals.

Brian Lucas, Qld

Brian Lucas is a Brisbane-based performer and choreographer. Trained in both dance and acting, he has worked with many of Australia's most interesting performing arts companies and ensembles including Chunky Move, Rock’n’Roll Circus, Chamber Made Opera, QUT Creative Industries, Dancenorth, Extensions Youth Dance Company, Queensland Ballet, Queensland Theatre Company, La Boite Theatre, The Lyric Opera, KAGE Theatre and for almost 8 years with Expressions Dance Company (4 of those as assistant artistic director). He has established a national reputation for creating and presenting provocative and intelligent choreographies, and is renowned for his powerful and commanding performances.

Over the past 25 years, Brian has been involved in an extensive range of performance and creative development projects, and has initiated a wide variety of independent and fringe projects, including the Crab Room Performance Space, the Cherry Herring Collective, and the EMERGENCY peer-mentoring project.

Since 2001, Brian has held the position of artist-in-residence at Brisbane Powerhouse, where many of his highly acclaimed solo performance pieces - including monster, the book of revelation(s) and Underbelly - have premiered. In 1996, Brian was awarded a two-year Fellowship from the Australia Council for the Arts in 2005 to reflect on and further refine his creative processes within his primary field of practice - solo work.