Rosie Dennis

Artistic Statement/Policy
ROSIE DENNIS is a Sydney-based performance-maker, writer, teacher and curator. She mixes movement and text to create deceptively simple and evocative live performance installations.
    Recent commissions include:
    • Arnolfini (UK), bluecoat Theatre Liverpool and Performance Space, Sydney to make the new work Fraudulent Behaviour.
    • Kunstlerhaus MousonTurm Frankfurt for The Plateaux Festival to make the companion work No Entry.
    • ABC TV and Channel 4 UK to make the short dance film Quietly Collapsed.
    • The Strand Ephemera Festival (Townsville) to make the short work The Woman And The Sea with Vic McEwan

Image by Heidrun Lohr 

She is a classically trained musician in piano and flute - which informs her current live-art practice. Since 2004 Rosie has self-produced four performance installations – Polish, Access All Areas/No Entry, Love Song Dedication and Hitting A Brick Wall. All four works have toured internationally to festivals in Europe and the United Kingdom.
Rosie co-curates NightTime a twice yearly 1-day festival of live art at Performance Space in Sydney with Lara Thoms. She also curates Unco-cordinated which is an evening of short works held 4-times per year at FraserStudios in Chippendale.
She is an occasional writer for RealTime Arts magazine and is the author of The Bold And The Beautiful Bible, which is based on the daytime TV soap of the same name and guarantees to be a fine companion for any lonely heart. Fortunatley, it is no longer in print!

Works and Reviews
ACCESS ALL AREAS/NO ENTRY
“Rosie Dennis was a revelation; an Australian artist who found a fascinating niche between performance poetry, dance and physical theatre.” The Scotsman

Colliding dance, performance poetry and theatre, No Entry is an electrifying exploration of the rapacious and demanding nature of the corporate workplace. It draws on themes of greed, exposure and escape to create two very different personas, both trapped in a world of unrelenting deadlines and white noise.
Sound and movement collide to create an intensely evocative performance, and a compelling insight into the emotional fragility of the human psyche.

LOVE SONG DEDICATION
“The performance is electric, its tautness sustaining our focus; there is no time or space to detach...Dennis is funny, the audience appreciating the ridiculous fragments spilling forth—bright evocative one-line pictures keep coming at breathtaking speed. Forlorn images express the failure to maintain a state of love.” RealTime

Interweaving third party conversations, everyday interactions between lovers and observed habitual relationship patterns Love Song Dedication is a fragile and raw exploration of the ordinariness of love.
Working with the themes of inconsistency and regret Rosie Dennis evokes a compelling meditation about being and falling in and out of love.

Mentoring history
Rosie has taught contemporary performance making strategies at the following universities: Lancaster University, Lancaster (UK), Kuopio University (Finland), Salford University Manchester (UK), Hope University, Liverpool (UK) and Glamorgan University, Cardiff (Wales). She has facilitated writing for contemporary performance workshops for Arnolfini, Bristol (UK), Battersea Arts Centre, Battersea (UK), Apples and Snakes, (UK) and at the bluecoat, Liverpool (UK). Locally she has taught emerging artists at PACT Theatre and Shopfront Theatre for Young people.