Associate Professor Erin Brannigan
BAHons Sydney University
PhD UNSW
Erin Brannigan is Associate Professor in Theatre and Performance at the University of New South Wales.听She is of Irish and Danish political exile, convict, and settler descent. Her publications include Dancefilm: Choreography and the Moving Image听(New York: Oxford University Press, 2011), Choreography, Visual Art and Experimental Composition 1950s -1970s听(London: Routledge, 2022) and a companion monograph to the latter, The Persistence of Dance: Choreography as Concept and Material in Contemporary Art (Ann Arbor: Michigan University Press, 2023).听She has published various chapters and articles in film, performance and dance journals and anthologies and regularly presents on dance for ABC Radio National.听Her research project Precarious Movements: Dance and the Museum (2020-2024) with Tate UK, National Gallery of Victoria, Art Gallery of NSW, Monash University Museum of Art, Perth Institute of Contemporary Art, Shelley Lasica and Zoe Theodore produced an online sector resource, precariousmovements.com, and an anthology Precarious Movements (Melbourne: NGV, 2024).
- Publications
- Media
- Grants
- Awards
- Research Activities
- Engagement
- Teaching and Supervision
SELECTED GRANTS
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- Australian Linkage Grant 2021-2023, LP200100009, Precarious Movements: Choreography and the Museum, with Dr. Rochelle Hayley UNSW, Art Gallery of NSW (Carolyn Murphy Head of Conservation and Lisa Catt, Curator of International Art), Monash University Museum of Art (Hannah Mathews, Senior Curator), National Gallery of Victoria (Pip Wallis, Curator of Contemporary Art), Tate UK (Louise Lawson, Conservation Manager of Time-Based Media Conservation), and independent choreographer, Shelley Lasica. ($392, 181)
- UNSW Learning and Teaching Innovation Grant, 鈥楴ew Paradigms for Performance Pedagogies,鈥 with Dr. Bryoni Trezise, 2015. ($28 000)
- ARC Grant, 2013-2016 for DP13010457 The Experimental Humanities with Assoc. Prof Edward Scheer and Professor Stephen Muecke ($224, 000)
- UNSW Goldstar Grant 2011 for The Experimental Humanities with Assoc. Prof Edward Scheer and Professor Stephen Muecke ($30 000).
- Australia Council Artform Development Grant for 12 Australian Choreographers, 2011, auspiced by RealTime. ($15 000)
- Australia Council out-of-round funding for 12 Australian Choreographers, 2010, auspiced by RealTime. ($10 000)
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- 'Dance in the Public Sphere Award 2025,' Dance Studies Association, for 听online industry resource. 'The committee was wowed by what you've put together, and by its promise of enduring contributions to our field.'
- 鈥楤est Designed Catalogue/Exhibition Book 2025鈥 at the 73rd听Australian Book Designers Association awards for Precarious Movements: Choreography and the Museum (NGV, 2024).
- , Erin Brannigan, 听(Routledge, 2022). $2400US prize money.
Erin Brannigan works in the fields of dance, film and the visual arts as an academic. She is of Irish and Danish political exile, convict, and settler descent. Erin was named the national 鈥楩ield Leader of Theatre and Performance Studies鈥 by The Australian newspaper in the September 2019 special report, Her research explores the condition of dance through its relationship with other art forms in interdisciplinary practices. Generated by specific works of art and art practices, her research covers: dance and the screen arts; gesture as a cross-disciplinary conceptual framework; interdisciplinary compositional strategies of the avant-garde (historic and contemporary); minimalism as a site of disciplinary assertion; and the experiment-experience nexus through a research-workshop practice with local artists. Her first monography from her thesis, Dancefilm: Choreography and the Moving Image was published by Oxford University Press in 2010. Early in her academic career she was part of an Australian Research Council Discovery Project Grant, The Experimental Humanities (2013-2016), with Professor Stephen Muecke and Professor Edward Scheer. New Paradigms for Performance Pedagogies was an education-focused research project in partnership with Dr. Bryoni Trezise (2014-2016) exploring the decolonization of UNSW鈥檚 Performing Arts curriculum. She co-founded a Faculty Research Hub in 2015, Intermedial Composition Network, with she continues to convene and co-founded an industry-based group, Writing Dancing, in 2010 with Professor Stephen Muecke which involves artists, students and academics and continues to meet bi-monthly. In 2020, Erin co-founded Dance Research Australia with her postgraduate students which continues to operate and grow under new convenorship.
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Her more recent research project, Dance and the Visual Arts: Composition : Experiment : Sensation, involves academic and creative research associates nationally and internationally, publications including articles, books and an online industry resource, and creative commissions. She was Lead CI on an associated industry-based project, (ARC Linkage Grant 2021-2024), which included partners at Tate UK, the Art Gallery of New South Wales (AGNSW), the National Gallery of Victoria, Monash University Museum of Art, and Perth Institute of the Arts and attracted funding of nearly $400,000 and in-kind support of $600 000. This has lead to a new research network, Dance Archives and the Museum, with Tate, AGNSW, NAISDA, and independents Shelley Lasica and Zoe Theodore, and is currently supported through the UNSW Global Ventures grant program. This archival work dovetails with , an ongoing partnership since 2016 with colleagues at Sydney University, Macquarie University and the State Library of NSW, working to secure the legacy of NSW-based dance artists through innovative archiving strategies. An exhibition, (UNSW Library Exhibition Space, 25听Feb to 25 April 2019) is one outcome of this work alongside a new suite of commissioned by the State Library of NSW and a new dance reviewing platform, .
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Erin is on the editorial board of The International Journal of Screendance and is a member of the Dance Studies Association and the American Society for Aesthetics. She was the founding Director of ReelDance (1999-2008) and has curated dance screen programs and exhibitions for Sydney Festival 2008, Melbourne International Arts Festival 2003 and international dance screen festivals. Most recently she was commissioned to curate retrospectives of Australian dance films for Performance Space in Sydney, Bright City Lights on the Gold Coast, and Dancehouse in Melbourne (2024-2025).
My research has interfaced with the arts industry since my first monograph,听Dancefilm, which grew out of a festival I directed that toured Australia and New Zealand 2000-2008, ReelDance International Dance Screen Festival. My current research project听Precarious Movements听involves several art museums and artists, and my archival and curatorial work with the State Library and RealTime supports local dance artists. I also host artist panels regularly for Carriageworks and other arts organisations. My teaching areas also articulate to industry. I convene ARTS2126 Reviewing the Arts and work听with local venues and press outlets to produce published student reviews. Working in the Performing Arts ART3122 is our听industry facing course and has guest lectures from key staff at our industry partners Sydney Opera House, Griffin Theatre, Sydney Film Festival, Carriageworks, as well as dance and performance听artists. I convene industry and academic collectives听Writing Dancing with local artists, writers and academics, Dance Archives and the Museum听with AGNSW, Tate UK and NAISDA, and听Intermedial Composition Network听with peers at UNSW, NAS as well as independents.听听is a collective supporting local dance histories and current practices with a new review platform (from 2025),听.听I was also the founding convenor of Dance Research Australia.
My Research Supervision
Primary SupervisorPhD
Nalina Wait,听Western improvised dance practices: pedagogies and philosophy.听Completed 2022.
Lisa Synnott,听Choreography, Collaboration and Intellectual Property.
Susannah Keebler,听Embedded Dancer: Disruption and Continuity of Regional Dance Practice in the Context of Disaster and Climate Change.听
Zoe Theodore,听Lessons from Dancing: The Institutionalisation and Persistence of Choreographic Practice
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Primary Supervisor MPhil
Rhiannon Newton,听Embodying An Ecological Condition: Dance Practices and the Development of Embodied Ecological Awareness
Lexy Panetta,听Enacting (Re)Actions: A Study on Affect Theory and Embodied Resonance in Improvisational Practice in 鈥Contemporary Dance and Compositional Pedagogy
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My Teaching
Lecturer in Theatre and Performance and Dance Studies; Reviewing the Arts, Performing Arts Internships, Choreography, Performance and the Visual Arts, Musicals, Dance and Popular Culture, Program and Repertoire