2022 Programme
A citywide festival of innovative performance, music and creative technology presented over two weekends in March. Learn More
Dan Daw
Dan Daw
Proposing that “success” and “failure” could possibly be the same thing, Dan plays with audience expectations in connection to his body’s deviating functionality.
A Queer, Crip artist living in Manchester (UK), Dan works collaboratively with a growing network of companies and artists to develop new work for UK and international audiences.
Blurring the divide between theatre and dance, all work Dan makes becomes a part of a series of attempts. With his work proposing that “success” and “failure” could possibly be the same thing, he plays, in different ways, with audience expectation in connection to his body’s deviating functionality.
Dan launched Dan Daw Creative Projects in 2015 by commissioning two solo works – ‘Beast’ by Martin Forsberg and ‘On One Condition’ by Graham Adey, which received the Adelaide Fringe Best Theatre Award 2017.
Dan began working as a performer with Restless Dance Theatre in 2002, and since then Dan has gone on to work with Australian Dance Theatre (AUS), Force Majeure (AUS), FRONTLINEdance (UK), Scottish Dance Theatre (UK), balletLORENT (UK) and Skånes Dansteater (SWE).
Throughout his performance career, Dan has worked with Kat Worth, Garry Stewart, Kate Champion, Janet Smith, Adam Benjamin, Wendy Houstoun, Sarah Michelson, Rachid Ouramdane, Nigel Charnock, Matthias Sperling, Marc Brew, Claire Cunningham, Martin Forsberg, Carl Olof Berg, Fin Walker, Charlotte Spencer and Javier de Frutos.
A Sadler’s Wells Summer University Artist (2015 – 2018), Dan continues to work at the forefront of collaborative performance making in the UK. Dan is a recipient of the BBC/South East Dance Performing Arts Fund Fellowship, the Outlet Dance Award and the Russell Page Fellowship in Contemporary Dance amongst others.
Working as Associate Director of Murmuration (AUS), in partnership with Sarah-Vyne Vassallo, to commission, develop and produce new work and co-manages support and reflection for the company’s independent artists with disability, Dan plays an integral role in the development and delivery of Murmuration’s artistic programs and community activities.
In late 2019, he began making ‘The Dan Daw Show’ in collaboration with a larger creative team, which premiered in September 2021. The Dan Daw Show is the outcome of initial research supported by Jerwood Choreographic Research Project II in 2017.