WESTERN SYDNEY PERFORMER RECEIVES ARTS FELLOWSHIP 

14 September 2007

State Plan Priority E8: More people participating in the arts and cultural activities

Sydney choreographer and dancer Bernadette Walong has been awarded the $30,000 NSW Women and Arts Fellowship, Minister for the Arts Frank Sartor announced today.

Mr Sartor congratulated Ms Walong who will use the fellowship funding to research indigenous dance forms overseas and explore other creative media. “This fellowship recognises the important, often internationally acclaimed work being done by female artists in NSW,” Mr Sartor said.

“With the help of this fellowship Ms Walong has the opportunity to embark on an ambitious professional development program that will take her to West Africa, Europe, the United States, India and the Pacific. “The skills and experience she gains will be invaluable and will inform the work she does when she returns. “Ms Walong is a performance educator in western Sydney and I expect that this fellowship will not only benefit her, but also her students.”

As part of the fellowship, Ms Walong will travel to Senegal in West Africa, Kerala in India and Fiji and Samoa in the Pacific to research indigenous dance forms.

She will also explore a range of other creative mediums by working with a filmmaker, photographer and architect in Philadelphia, Palermo and Hamburg respectively, to investigate how these forms might inform her choreography. Ms Walong’s experience in contemporary and indigenous dance spans 22 years. She has created works for leading national and international companies, including the Bangarra Dance Theatre, The Flying Fruit Fly Circus and the Cuban Combinatorial Danza Company.

The NSW Women and Arts Fellowship is a biennial Fellowship that has been offered since 1985. Previous recipients include composer Andree Greenwell and photographic artist Cherine Fahd.

The selection committee for the 2007 Fellowship was Lisa Havilah (Chair), Sally Blakeney, Jane Powles and Penny Stannard.

The Hon Frank Sartor MP
Minister for Planning
Minister for Redfern Waterloo
Minister for the Arts

Media contact: Alex Walker 9228 4700 / 0401 088 155

Click here for a copy of the media release.