Rhys Kosakowski

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ERinVA
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Re: Rhys Kosakowski gains professional dance contract

Post by ERinVA »

Thanks for the article and the link, andrewcraig. Nice to know that Rhys is advancing well in the profession of dance. That is a very nice photo of Rhys in the link.
Ellen



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Re: Rhys Kosakowski gains professional dance contract

Post by andrewcraig »

Some more info on the MOD Dance group who wish to follow """In the steps of the master Graeme Murphy"""

This article was published in the Australian 1 October 9 weks before the announcement posted two above.

In the dance steps of the master

* Valerie Lawson
* From: The Australian
* October 01, 2010 12:00AM



GRAEME Murphy's works are in familiar hands.

TEAGAN Lowe says when she lost her job at the Sydney Dance Company two years ago, it felt as if "my whole world was picked up and put upside down". She was one of seven SDC dancers not contracted by incoming artistic director Rafael Bonachela. Nor was rehearsal director Brett Morgan.

Out of the ashes has sprung a dance phoenix, the Mod Dance Company, soon to embark on a national tour with a work called Suite Synergy: an amalgam of Synergy and Free Radicals, both choreographed by former SDC artistic director Graeme Murphy, who is the patron of the new company. Michael Askill and three other percussionists will accompany the piece.

Mod Dance, with Morgan and Lowe as artistic directors, has offered contracts to 18 dancers, five of whom worked with Murphy at the SDC. Murphy will rehearse Suite Synergy, as will Bradley Chatfield, another former dancer with SDC who is now working at Dance North in Queensland.


One of the company's aims is to keep Murphy's body of work alive. When Murphy left SDC after 31 years, the then administrator of the company, Noel Staunton, said 90 per cent of its repertoire was choreographed by Murphy.

Murphy had "made his work available", said Staunton, "but we [the company] need airlock", which meant distancing itself from the past with new works by three guest choreographers.

They included Bonachela, who took up the artistic directorship on a three-year contract early last year. The Spanish-born choreographer, who controls his own small contemporary dance company in London, has made three works for SDC. Next year, the last of his three contracted years, he will choreograph a fourth in collaboration with his favourite composer, Italian Ezio Bosso. The pair has previously collaborated on 360, We Unfold and 6 Breaths.

When he won the SDC job, Bonachela said: "I believe that Sydney Dance should be a repertory company that gives work to Australian choreographers and from all places."

So far there has been little Australian work and none by Murphy, which is understandable, given that most artistic directors of contemporary dance companies - such as Garry Stewart, Leigh Warren and Gideon Obarzanek - are choreographers who program their own work.

SDC's repertoire has now taken on a European sensibility, but that is not entirely due to Bonachela. Staunton had commissioned new works by Finland's Kenneth Kvarnstrom and Emmanuel Gat, an Israeli choreographer who now runs his own company in France. Gat's new piece, Satisfying Musical Moments, is the main element of the SDC program opening on October 12. Bonachela's only mainstage commission so far is this year's Are We that We Are, from the Europe-based Adam Linder.

Next year the company will tour Britain, and while it will wave the flag for Australian dance once again, much of the emphasis is away from home. Why does this matter? Because contemporary dance is so fragile in Australia, with freelance Australian choreographers and dancers often forced to find work overseas.

This fragility is underscored by a recent report by Carin Mistry, director of the Australia Council's dance board, who wrote in August that small dance companies have "very lean staffing structures", they need more management support and, as every dancer knows, "maintaining a career as an independent dance artist is still challenging".

Even at established companies such as SDC, jobs are scarce. SDC employs 14 dancers, compared with 17 two years ago. Two dancers, Fiona Jopp and Cameron McMillan, maintain London connections as part of the Bonachela Dance Company, and British dancer Alexander Whitley has returned home. Although Whitley's position has been filled, another SDC dancer, Adam Blanch, is leaving to take a position at Australian Dance Theatre, which means there are up to three vacancies at SDC, all for men. A spokeswoman says "we always keep a couple of fluid spaces".

Meanwhile, it's a case of don't give up your day job for many of those involved in the Mod Dance troupe. Morgan, who will remain in his job as artistic director of the National College of Dance in Newcastle, says the company's firm dates for next year include only Melbourne, Sydney and Perth, while negotiations are continuing for seasons in the Gold Coast, Darwin, and Adelaide.

The artists, including ex-SDC dancers Emee Dillon, Chylie Cooper, Veronica Mahon and Kalman Warhaft, will be offered six-month contracts.

But Morgan has hopes for further seasons of existing works, such as Murphy's Tivoli and Stephen Petronio's Underland, along with new commissions.

"I always thought there was room for a Graeme-style company," he says. "I'm trying to get together a commercial product." With Suite Synergy, he says he wants the audience to "feel that they've been entertained. It has a commercial dance flavour."

Of course, it will all depend on money. The initial Suite Synergy tour is fully funded and there are hopes box office revenue will give investors a sufficient return to allow future tours. Mod Dance has a five-year exclusive licence to the piece. Investors include the directors of Mod Dance Company, Nadasha Zhang, Linda Alescio and Michelle Grace Hunder, who are also directors of Mod Management Agency, a Melbourne-based marketing, advertising and public relations company that doubles as a talent agency for actors and dancers.

Alescio, who has worked in the finance industry and came up with the idea of the new dance company, says she does not want to discuss the commercial arrangements of the company.

The dancers can only hope there is a safety net that will give them work beyond their six-month contracts.

For Lowe, the new venture is an opportunity to "keep Graeme's work alive", and to keep professional dancers employed in Australia. "We've got way too many dancers looking for work who end up going overseas."
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What are they doing now? - Rhys Kosakowski

Post by kport »

Rhys is now 16 and appearing in Graeme Murphy's Suite Synergy in Sydney:

http://www.smh.com.au/entertainment/dan ... 1d8eg.html (scroll down)

http://www.suitesynergy.com.au/latest
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Re: Rhys Kosakowski

Post by Billy Whiz »

Thanks for the updates on Rhys.
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Billy Whiz is the Gallery Admin. Please send your photos, articles etc to forum.gallery[at]billyelliottheforum.me.uk Please replace [at] with @

In the email can you also please let me know the date where and when the photo(s) was taken, who is in the photo(s) as well as your forum name.

When you send photos to the gallery can you also please PM me to let me know that you have sent them. If I don't receive them after a couple of days I can then chase them up.
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Re: Rhys Kosakowski

Post by BillyAddict »

I saw 'suite Synergy" A brilliant production and world class dancing. Rhys who is the youngest dancer in MOD I think certainly held his own.
167 Performances!

Lochie x 21.5; Nick x 11; Corey x 1; Rhys x 19; Rarmian x 17.75; Dayton x 24.75; Josh W-G x 18; Michael x 19; Josh D x 12; Daniel x 3; Tom x 1; Ollie G x 1; Fox x 1, Liam R x 2, Alex x 5, Cesar x 2, Tommy x 1, John Peter x 1, Peter x 4, Jacob x 2.
Scott x 30; Thomas x 28.25; Joel x 31; Landen x 33.75; Liam x 14; Jake x 1; Connor x 1; George x 1, Trevor x 4, Jake Evan x 3, Gabriel x 8, Keean x 2, Neil x 11.
Fiona x 18; Rosie x 25; Shannon x 23; Kelsi x 23; Prudence x 2; Lauren x 10; Cassandra x 15; Nina x 9; Isabelle x 12; Fleur x 2; Francesca x 1, Issy x 7, Maria x 4, Georgi x 17.
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Re: Rhys Kosakowski

Post by BEF »

Happy 17th Birthday ;)
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porschesrule
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Re: Rhys Kosakowski

Post by porschesrule »

Happy Birthday, Rhys!!!

Hope it's a great one.
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Re: Rhys Kosakowski

Post by kport »

Great news! Rhys has been accepted into the Houston Ballet Company:

http://www.theherald.com.au/news/local/ ... 52390.aspx
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Re: Rhys Kosakowski

Post by ERinVA »

Houston Ballet II sounds a bit like ABT II, from what I can gather.

Well done, Rhys. :D
Ellen



"I don't want people who want to dance; I want people who have to dance.”
-George Balanchine 1904 -1983


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Re: Rhys Kosakowski

Post by angelenroute »

I love that the other boy's last name is Wilkinson. ;)
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