Dance organisation Shaun Parker & Company has today announced the launch of a “landmark” new fellowship, which will award a leading Australian artist $100,000 per year for the development and premiere of a significant new dance work.

The inaugural recipient of the Shaun Parker & Company Choreographic Fellowship is Wiradjuri and Gamillaraay dancer, choreographer and actor Beau Dean Riley Smith.

Beau Dean Riley Smith performing in Bennelong by Bangarra Dance Theatre. Photo © Daniel Boud

Riley Smith will develop a major new work over two to three years to be premiered by Shaun Parker & Company’s nine dancers.

From 2013–2022, Riley Smith performed with Bangarra Dance Theatre, where he performed in over 22 major productions. He was awarded a Helpmann Award and Australian Dance Award for his performance in Bennelong, and also choreographed Miyagan for Bangarra’s OUR land people stories program, which earned a 2019 Helpmann Award for Best Regional Touring Program. In 2022, he made his musical theatre debut in Queensland Theatre’s The Sunshine Club, and in 2023, he made his Sydney Theatre Company debut in Jane Harrison’s The Visitors. He was also one of the choreographers selected to develop a new work for Sydney Dance Company’s 2023 New Breed program.

“I am thrilled and humbled to be chosen as the inaugural recipient of the Shaun Parker & Company Choreographic Fellowship. This opportunity will give me the room to go deep, without cutting corners, and allows me the time to explore all facets of the work, to create a really thought-provoking piece,” said Riley Smith.

“Having two years to develop a work is an incredibly rare opportunity and one I am endlessly thankful for. It allows us to respect the creative process, having this time, to respect and honour the work. Particularly, when the works I create are pulled from the lived history of this country.”

Supported by the Denise and Michael Kellen Foundation in New York, this fellowship stands as one of the only American-funded fellowships in the Australian arts sector. Artistic Director Shaun Parker called it a “life-changing” show of support for Australian dance.

“This fellowship is the result of a relationship built slowly and with great care. I remember sitting with the Denise and Michael Kellen Foundation in New York and [having] a discussion about my dreams for our company and what Australian dance could become,” he said.

“We hope this act of remarkable generosity opens a door; that it says to other philanthropists the arts are worthy of your boldest investment.”

More about Shaun Parker & Company can be found here.