Detour – Dance Makers Collective

Detour is a biennial fellowship program that launched in 2023, the second Detour Fellowship EOI for 2025 closed on 25 October 2024.

Detour has been assisted by the Australian Government through Creative Australia, its principal arts investment and advisory body.

2025 Detour Fellows

We are excited to announce that the 2025 Detour fellows are Bella Waru and Feras Shaheen.

Bella Waru (Ngāti Tukorehe, Taranaki Tūturu, Celtic) is a takatāpui choreographer/dancer, musician & eternal student of the Māori healing, weaving & martial arts. Living and listening on sacred, unceded Wurundjeri lands, they are a foreign Sovereign navigating life, lore & culture from, between & towards Indigenous lands & peoples. Waru seeks to draw connections, highlight relationality & kinship; articulating new-ancient possibilities honouring Indigenous knowledges & worldviews as means for communal wellbeing & futurity. They create stories & spaces emerging from and returning to the communities, contexts, lands & peoples who have made them who they are, with reverence and acknowledgement of those that came before them, and those that will follow after.

Feras Shaheen is an artist curious in letting his conceptual interests lead him across a variety of mediums. Working with choreography, installation work, film, performance, design, and street dance to communicate his ideas, the core of Feras’ practice is to connect and engage audiences. He seeks to bring activism into his art practice, with outcomes that are accessible and community centred. Holding a Bachelor of Design from Western Sydney University (2014), Feras often subverts traditional relationships between mediums to challenge audiences’ perspectives, specifically to disrupt colonial discourses and reduce western reliance on neutrality and apathy.

Born in Dubai to Palestinian parents (Gaza/Al Lid), and moving to Western Sydney at age 11, Feras engages with his practice as a way to reflect and examine how he views the world, addressing local and global issues. Winner of The Australian Ballet’s Telstra Emerging Choreographer (TEC) in 2021, Feras has performed and exhibited at Carriageworks, Venice Biennale, Pari, Kampnagel, AGNSW, Campbelltown Arts Centre, and Théâtre de la Ville. Recent works include ‘Art Festival’, ‘The Bop’, ongoing collaboration ‘Klapping’, and ‘Forum Q’.

About Detour

Detour is a major opportunity, investing in two independent dance artists in 2025, to mobilise and engage in a sustained program for their personal creative development, in a spirit of reciprocity, with six Australian dance organisations.

Dance Makers Collective (Darug Country, Western Sydney, NSW), Dancenorth (Gurambilbarra and Yunbenun Country, Townsville, QLD), GUTS (Arrernte Country, Alice Springs, NT), Tasdance (Palawa Country, Launceston, TAS), Tracks (Larrakia Country, Darwin, NT) and STRUT Dance (Nyoongar Country, Perth, WA) invite two dance practitioners to spend ten weeks across Australia, in self-directed residencies, to explore their practice, connect with new landscapes and share with the communities we serve.

The Rationale

In a spirit of mutuality and reciprocity, six leading Australian dance organisations will host two Australian dance artists through an interconnected residency program. By working together, we will provide 12 weeks of paid work (ten weeks in residence, two weeks of additional preparatory fees) for an artist to spend time with us, engage with our communities, with no prescribed ‘outcome’ in mind; to free an artist to develop in the context of our unique environs.

The companies will host the selected artists for two or three weeks each, providing space and relationships (through a Community Connector, an active artist/arts-worker trusted locally) to facilitate their work.

As companies, we ask that the artist connect with our communities, in the spirit of exchange, on their terms. This would be negotiated with the selected artists based on their proposed activity and set of skills, and might for example result in forums, talks, sharings, classes, skills exchanges or workshops delivered by the artist.

Key information

The Detour Fellowship is negotiated between the selected artists in response to their proposed activity, their availability, and the availability of each organisation. Residencies can be taken in consecutive periods or spread throughout the year as is most feasible.

Company Profiles

In 2025, two fellowships are on offer and are structured in the following way:

Both fellows will undertake two-week residencies with Tasdance and Dance Makers Collective;

The two fellows will undertake two three-week residencies with two of the remaining partner organisations: STRUT Dance, Dancenorth, Tracks and GUTS.

(for example: Fellow 1 undertakes two-week residencies at DMC and Tasdance and three-week residencies at Tracks and Dancenorth, and Fellow 2 undertakes two-week residencies at DMC and Tasdance and three-week residencies at GUTS and STRUT).

To be considered for this fellowship you must complete an expression of interest. The expression of interest form is a digital form, however, if this mode of response is not accessible to you, we accept video or audio responses. Please contact us if you wish to express interest in an alternative format.

Representatives from each host company will assess the expressions of interest, meet and create a shortlist of candidates. Shortlisted applicants will be notified and will be offered an interview to discuss their proposal. The final residency locations will be determined by the organisations during the selection process. Applicants who are not shortlisted will be notified separately.

Applications open on 2 September 2024
Applications close on 25 October 2024
Applicants shortlisted for interview will be notified after 11 November 2024
Interviews will be conducted in the week commencing 18 November 2024
The Detour fellows will be notified and the outcome announced in the week of 25 November 2024

What the Detour fellows receive

12 weeks of pay at $1,300 per week + superannuation.
Up to 10 weeks of living away from home allowance at the LPA rate.
Flights, transfers and accommodation to/from their home and each host company (the artist does not need to live in a major city to access this opportunity).
A local Community Connector in each region; a local artist to liaise with them and build local relationships for them (this may be an employee of the company or an independent artist/artsworker).
Studio space, administrative and technical support as relevant to their proposed activity.

What the companies are looking for

A ‘4WD’ artist – a proactive practitioner with a self-directed proposal, a holistic and self-motivated creative.
Someone who understands who the companies are and how they might align with them – this could be through engaging in their already existing programs or proposing activity that meets the values and aspirations of the host companies.
Someone new to us, an artist who we may not have an existing or prior professional working relationship with (such as an artist with a long history or current or recent major employment by one or more of the companies – if you are unsure whether this applies to you, please reach out to us).
Someone who can demonstrate why the community/geographical engagement will be beneficial to them, or what they can bring to these spaces that is meaningful and mutually beneficial.
An artist with the skills and capacity to be able to exchange, reciprocate, share with the communities we engage with, other artists and young people – ideally with a teaching or facilitating practice.

Our values in selecting the fellows

We commit to granting the fellowship to an artist who needs an opportunity like this right now, someone who isn’t to our knowledge in receipt of other major support, such as another fellowship, at this present time (this might mean early career, hibernating, late career, submerged, unfunded or any other form of lesser visibility).
Financial status and level of education are not prohibiting factors in access to this opportunity (having a degree from a major institution is not a prerequisite).
We will adapt to the needs of artists lives and champion flexibility with this fellowship – if you are a primary carer, have access needs, or other factors that would make an opportunity like this difficult for you, we will respond to them.
We encourage artists with diverse movement practices to approach us, such as cultural dance practices, suburban/regional/remote, dance artists embedded within communities of practice, queer, fringe, underground, not working in major institutions but creating work on the peripheries – fiercely independent artists.

Tips, questions and feedback from last time

Can I apply again if I applied last time?

Yes, most definitely you can! You can resubmit your previous application with any tweaks or start afresh. If you have lost your previous application and would like a copy of it please email [email protected] and Carl will email you the copy we have on file.

Am I able to apply with other artist/s (i.e. submit a proposal as a pair or more)?

Unfortunately we will only be accepting proposals from individuals for this program.

Is this an opportunity to audition for the companies?

This program is designed to support an independent practitioner and their own creative development, not an audition opportunity.

Is there any general feedback from last time that might be useful to me when applying this time?

Yes, there is! Here it is:

Applications that did well were those that:

Addressed the criteria, what the companies are looking for, which were in essence about having: a clear and self-directable proposal; something strong to offer the companies; something strong to gain from the companies; and the capacity to deliver on all fronts.

Clearly articulated their practice and/or provided strong support material that excited the companies.

Demonstrated a clear understanding of the companies and their contexts – some applicants’ proposals read either as a secondment or audition tour, others proposed working on one project in the same way across all the residencies, these applications weren’t considered as favourably as others who understood that not all the companies have the same structures or resources, such as a regular company of dancers.

Put forward proposals that were realistic given the timeframes and resources attached to the framework of Detour.

The applications that rose to the top of the list were those applications that really understood the reciprocity component of the offer. Applicants who spoke very clearly in equal measure about what they would get out of the residencies and what they could offer in return (how they genuinely could connect to our communities) were favoured highly. Many applicants spoke directly to the nuances of each company and their programs and contexts, this level of specificity demonstrated to us a genuine desire to connect with the companies, rather than simply utilising the opportunity to further an idea or a practice that could be developed in an extended isolated residency context.

Key contact: Carl Sciberras, General Manager, Dance Makers Collective
email: [email protected]
phone: 0415 400 409