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Erin Brannigan

Erin Brannigan works in dance and film as a journalist, academic and curator. She completed a Bachelor of Arts, Honours (Class 1) at the Sydney University in 1996, and a PhD at the University of New South Wales in 2005.

Brannigan was the founding Director of ReelDance International Dance on Screen Festival and has curated dance screen programs and exhibitions for Sydney Festival 2008, Melbourne International Arts Festival 2003 and international dance screen festivals. Brannigan writes on dance for the Australian arts newspaper, RealTime and lectures in the School of English, Media and Performing Arts at the University of New South Wales.

Brannigan says she first started curating video:

"because of a research interest in dancefilm. I was beginning a PhD on the form and because of this was asked to curate a program of dancefilm for One Extra Company in Sydney in 1999. There was a new interest in video and film coming mostly from choreographers but also filmmakers collaborating with dance artists, mainly in Sydney and Melbourne but also Perth and Brisbane."

Of the first places she presented video she says:

"The first ReelDance festival was in 2000 and this was held in the Reading Cinema complex at Broadway (Sydney), and it has continued to run biennially since then. The Festival began touring capital cities and regional centres in 2002 and the full itinerary in still online at: I also curated a program for Dancehouse that year which was screened at the Cinema organisation in Melbourne that preceded ACMI. Since then I have also curated projects for Melbourne Festival (ACMI and public screens) and Sydney Festival (Sydney Opera House foyer)."

Author 
Scanlines email interview with Erin Brannigan, 2010.