Phillip Adams
Phillip Adams’ career in dance and performance spans over 25 years as a vital contributor to the richness of Australian performing arts. Adams’ process draws on collaboration through hybrid mediums of music, design, fashion, architecture, cinema, visual arts, and photography engaging with the unorthodox, queer, and popular culture. Phillip’s process defines a model and a psychologically generative, collaborative environment that continually extends the parameters of dance and visual art-based practise to produce bold artistic choreography and art works.
Adams graduated from the VCA in 1988 and thereafter spent a decade performing and working in New York with many companies and independent choreographers. He returned to Australia in 1997 and established his company, Phillip Adams BalletLab. Adams has created 18 major works for BalletLab, which have been presented internationally, at leading festivals and venues in the USA, Europe, and Asia. Commissions include: The Australian Ballet, Chunky Move, Back to Back Theatre, Lux Boreal (Mexico), Guongdong Modern Dance Company (China), Dance Works Rotterdam (Nederlands), City Contemporary Dance Company (Hong Kong), and Niteroi City Ballet (Brazil). A highlight of his career was the invitation to present a trilogy of works at the opening of the Museum of Old and New Art (Tasmania) in 2011. Adams has presented performance intervention at the Heide Museum of Modern Art and NGV and was awarded a design for the Melbourne Art Tram series.
In 2016 Adams established his artistic director’s position at Melbourne Temperance Hall, a new dance performance and art space. He is the recipient of the 2018 Australia Council Award for Dance.