Wiradjuri and Gamilaraay man Beau Dean Riley Smith has been awarded Australia's biggest dance fellowship, which he'll use to premiere a major new work.
He will receive $100,000 a year for the next two to three years to work as a choreographer for the Sydney based Shaun Parker Dance Company.
The fellowship has been funded by United States based-philanthropic organisation, the Denise and Michael Kellen Foundation.
Smith says it's a groundbreaking investment in Australia arts that will allow him to focus on being creative rather than chasing work.
“It allows me to just be an artist, it allows me to relax a little bit," he said.
It allows me to enjoy the process without the hustle and grind of being an independent artistBeau Dean Riley Smith
Smith is the first choreographer to benefit from the fellowship at Shaun Parker.
The eponymous founder of the dance company said it is an amount of money that Australians rarely see donated to develop dance works.
“Its such a generous life changing donation - it changes the lives in real terms of our dancers and our choreographers," said Shaun Parker.
"There's nothing else like it in Australia at the moment."
Smith is using the fellowship to create a work called STAIN, which will tell a story of convicts who arrived on the First Fleet.
He said not much is known about individual convicts, but the performance will attempt to share their stories.
"They treated the lower class in that country just as bad as they treated us, there wasn't too much of a difference," he said.
Smith hopes his work will spark conversations about the suffering of convicts.
“If we don't acknowledge it, how can you heal? How can this country ever move forward unless we have those conversations, unless we share these stories?”
The Wiradjuri and Gamilaraay dancer, actor and choreographer already has an illustrious career behind him.
He spent 10 years at Bangarra Dance company, performing in more than 22 major productions - including as the lead in 'Bennelong'.
Parker noticed Smith first as a dancer at Bangarra, then as a choreographer at the Sydney Dance Company.
“I remember thinking Beau's artistic vision was very singular," he said.
"When we were selecting the inaugural recipient, straight away Beau kept leaping into my mind and I thought 'here is an artist who has something to say' and I wanted to get behind that. ”
