Based in Narrm-Melbourne, Luke was born in Tasmania and is of English, Irish, Scottish and Syrian descent. Luke's ancestors arrived to the island in the first waves of colonisation, and have lived on the lands of the Palawa Peoples for seven generations.
Luke creates and performs work locally and internationally/culturally, through experimental processes with collaborating artists and the public.
A graduate of the Victorian College of the Arts, Luke George has been creating and performing under 'Luke George and Collaborators’ since 2007 and in collaboration with producer Alison Halit since 2012. Luke George and Collaborators has instigated various projects, engaging different artists and public across multiple platforms and communities in Australia (Melbourne, Sydney, Perth, Launceston, Hobart, Adelaide, Brisbane) and internationally, including Japan, Singapore, Taiwan, France, Spain, Italy, Belgium, Germany, Austria, Norway, Finland, Netherlands, Canada and USA, often being the first Australian artist to perform and collaborate in certain communities.
Luke George and Daniel Kok, Bunny. Photo by Chris Frape.
George’s major works include the seminal ‘NOW NOW NOW’ (2011) and critically acclaimed ‘Bunny’, a co-creation with Daniel Kok (Singapore, 2016). He has been awarded many national and international commissions, including ‘Not About Face’ for The Chocolate Factory Theater (New York City, 2014), ‘Erotic Dance’ for Rencontres Chorégraphiques Internationales de Seine-Saint-Denis (Paris, 2015) and ‘Public Actions’ for the Keir Choreographic Awards (2018) and Dance Massive (2019). Luke was the recipient of the Russell Page Fellowship (2007) and Greenroom Award for Best Male Dancer (2011), his works have received several nominations for Greenroom and Australian Dance Awards. He was the inaugural Resident Artist at the Abbotsford Convent Foundation (2018).
As one of Australia's most significant choreographers, George is committed to experimentation and innovative methods to explore the intersubjective connections between the artist and the public. He sees dance less as spectacle than as reflexive practice, in which people examine themselves and their values through movement and interaction. He is concerned with relational politics, examining the dynamics of intimacy, collectivity and risk. In his recent work ‘Public Actions’, he proposed alternative formulations to the idea of community in response to a shared sense of crisis today in a three-part work highlights situations where bodies and objects, the artist and the public negotiate the social codes behind their collective actions.
In George’s artistic history, the convergence of his different roles - as performer, collaborator and creator - has increasingly led him to take on positions of leadership in the field of performance in Australia. He is a forerunner continually shaping and redefining choreographic praxis and envisioning new possibilities for dance.
All of Luke’s work has been grounded in critical cultural dialogue. For over a 15 years, he has developed relationships with artists, curators and audiences through intercultural exchange and collaborations. One of such examples is his ongoing collaboration with artist Daniel Kok (Singapore, 2014-current), which has resulted in the highly successful ‘Bunny’, a performance work that exploits the physical properties of rope and knots to unpick the boundaries of desire, trust, consent and communion between artist and audience. ‘Bunny’ continues to tour to numerous cities internationally and was most recently presented at the Venice Biennale in 2019. George and Kok are developing several other projects and initiatives as part of a long term intercultural artistic partnership across the Australia-Asia region which include a durational performance installation ‘Still Lives’ in which they recently tied a Gondola and Gondolier in 1km of Venetian made rope for the Venice Biennale and their upcoming next work ‘Hundreds+Thousands’ which will premiere in late 2020.
Luke George and Daniel Kok, Still Lives (Venice). Photo by Luca Spettacolo.