Dr Rachael Swain is an ARC Future Fellow and research artist. She is a director and dramaturg of collaborative intermedial and intercultural dance and theatre and a performance researcher and scholar.

I have co-conceived and directed twelve competitively-funded major creative works that have been presented at over 150 top tier festivals and venues world wide including Venice Biennale Danza, Venice; Tanz Im August, Berlin; Centre Jean Marie Tjibaou, Nouméa; Harborfront Centre, Toronto and all Australian major performing arts festivals. The works have attracted national and international commissions from top-tier venues including the European Capital of Culture (2007); Théâtre de la Ville, Luxembourg; KVS, Brussels; Chaillot National Centre for Dance, Paris; Sydney Opera House; the OzAsia Festival and Kampnagel, Hamburg. My first monograph Dance in Contested Land —new intercultural dramaturgies (Palgrave Macmillian, 2020) situated methodologies for choreographic truth-telling, identified neo-expressive and uncanny aesthetics in Indigenous-intercultural dance and established 'contested land' and as inclusive framework for Indigenous and diverse settler dramaturgies. It is held in 174 libraries worldwide and on the syllabus of all Australia's leading dance training institutions with impact on a generation of emerging Australian choreographers. 

Born on the lands of the Ngāi Tahu, Aotearoa, I have lived, studied and worked as an Anglo-Pākehā, industry based research artist in Aotearoa, so-called Australia and the Netherlands. The projects I co-conceive and collaborate on research, rehearse and stage a meeting of diverse Indigenous and settler/diasporic artists conducted within a frame work of contested land. Together with artistic and cultural collaborators I convene artistic research platforms featuring intersectional and trans-Indigenous collaboration and exchange.

Industry research and experience

I was a co-founder and Artistic Director of Stalker Theatre (1989-2014). The productions I conceived and directed for Stalker were commissioned and presented by Australian major festivals, combining large scale site specific installations, physical theatre, improvisational dance, new circus and video art, and toured worldwide. I am one of the co-founders of Marrugeku (1994-), Australia's leading intercultural movement theatre company. I have co-conceived each of Marrugeku's productions with Yawuru/ Bardi/Filipina/Malay movement artist Dalisa Pigram and work as either director or dramaturg of the productions in collaboration with large interdisciplinary teams of diverse Indigenous and settler/diasporic artists. Within these projects I specialise in facilitating collaborative concept development and directing devised dance and theatre, convening multi-modal performance research laboratories and initiating co-authored, multi-vocal publications. 

Training and research fellowships

After initially completing a Diploma in ‘the theatre of movement and gesture’ of Jacques Lecoq I trained in postmodern improvisational techniques at the European Dance Development Centre, Arnhem, the Netherlands (1995), undertook a MA in Performance Studies at Sydney University (1998-2000), completed a Diploma in Advanced Theatre and Dance Research at Das Arts, Amsterdam (1999-2001) and studied post graduate Film and Video Production at UTS Sydney (2001-2002). My Doctorate in Theatre Studies from Melbourne University (2010) titled Ways of Listening— dramaturgy as deep mapping in intercultural-Indigenous performance won the Australasian Drama Studies Association (ADSA) Phillip Parsons Prize for Excellence in Performance as Research. My DECRA fellowship at Melbourne University (2013-17) was a 'first in field' in FoR Theatre and Performance and the first ARC performance led research project. I have worked as an independent, industry based researcher alongside my work with Marrugeku, publishing solo and co-authored journal articles and book chapters. I held an Adjunct Senior Lecturer position at UNSW, Sydney from 2022-2024 where I was awarded the Future fellowship which I undertake part time.