Ross McCormack

A 2001 graduate of the New Zealand School of Dance, Ross McCormack - °1977, Aotearoa (NZL) - went on to work with the Douglas Wright Dance Company and the Royal New Zealand Ballet, before joining the Australian Dance Theatre in 2003 where he worked closely with Garry Stewart on the creation of several works which toured the United States and Europe.

In 2005 he won the Sir Robert Helpmann Award for this performance in the work Held, a collaboration between Australian Dance Theatre and New York Dance photographer Lois Greenfield. He then joined les ballets C de la B, and performed and toured with the company for close to a decade: he danced in vsprs, Out of Context-for Pina and tauberbach (by Alain Platel) and Patchagonia (by Lisi Estaras).
Joining Australia’s Chunky Move in 2012, McCormack toured the United States and the following year he joined Melbourne-based company Lucy Guerin and Dancers to perform in the United States, United Kingdom and Europe.

He has been commissioned to choreograph numerous work for New Zealand and Australian companies, including Footnote Dance, the New Zealand School of Dance, Okareka Dance Company, Perth’s Link Dance Company and Townsville’s Dancenorth. He collaborated on Faultlines, a new dance work created in Sichuan Province of China which premiered at the 2012 Melbourne International Festival and the New Zealand Festival commissioned McCormack’s new multidisciplinary company, Muscle Mouth, to premiere AGE, a new work performed in 2014.

In 2016 Muscle Mouth presented McCormack’s Triumphs and Other Alternatives at the Hannah Playhouse and in Tempo Dance Festival, and his a solo work The Weight of Force at the Hong Kong Arts Festival. Followed in 2017 by Borderline -a double bill work to be presented at the Esplanade Theatre in Singapore. In 2018, Muscle Mouth premiered System and saw McCormack return to Seoul to co-create with long-time collaborator Hyo Seung to present new work inside the Best and First Festival.
In 2019 McCormack appeared on stage in Red Leap’s theatrical adaptation of Janet Frame’s Owls Do Cry, and he was choreographer for three new works, As It Stands for Muscle Mouth, The Clearing for Footnote Dance Company, which toured New Zealand and Method for the Vietnamese company H2Q Art.

Ross is the recipient of the 2015 Creative New Zealand Choreographic Fellowship and a 2017 New Zealand Arts Laureate.

update 2022