Gabrielle Nankivell

Gabrielle Nankivell

Dramaturg & Rehearsal Director


Gabrielle Nankivell is a prominent Australian artist traversing dance, words, circumstance, and environment with an imaginative blend of fact and fiction. Her immersive projects and atmospheric performance work are known for their vivid choreography, attention to detail, and evocative combinations of the mundane and the bizarre. 

From choreographic strategies for collaboration and interdisciplinary portraits of place to full-length solos and main stage ensemble works, Gabrielle works independently and commissioned by major Australian and International dance companies.  Her work has been widely presented across Australia, Europe, and Asia by Adelaide Festival Centre, Arts House (Melbourne), Brisbane Powerhouse, Cankarjev Dom (Slovenia), Carriageworks (Sydney), Esplanade Theatres (Singapore), Festival d’automne (France), High Fest Yerevan (Armenia), Klapstuk (Belgium), Lyric Theatre (Hong Kong), Roslyn Packer Theatre (Sydney), Le Théâtre National de la Danse Chaillot (Paris), Theatre Royal Hobart, The Joyce (NYC), The Place (London) & Vitalstatistix (Port Adelaide) amongst others. 

In 2022 Gabrielle created two new works for Australasian Dance Collective, The Incandescent Dark for THREE 2.0 and Welcome to Galactica for Brisbane Festival’s Art Boat. 2021/22 independent works include Sightings, an interdisciplinary, immersive performance experience, commissioned by Vitalstatistix, Future History, a full-length solo performance, and Wonder Grit, commissioned by The Mill & Adelaide Festival Centre for The Move.  
Notable commissions include Neon Aether, for Sydney Dance Company’s 50th Anniversary Season 1 and 2019 National Tour, Ava, a bespoke solo for Samantha Hines in Dancenorth’s Communal Table, Carbon Field with 40 dancers of the Queensland Ballet and ADC, SURGE for Dancenorth as part of Festival 2018 for the Commonwealth Games and Order of Things and Focus for Frontier Danceland Singapore. In 2017 her work Wildebeest, for Sydney Dance Company, was nominated for a Helpmann Award ‘Best Choreography in a Ballet, Dance or Physical Theatre Production’. 

As a performer, Gabrielle has worked for a wide-ranging assortment of big-name companies, autonomous trailblazers, collective ventures, and independent artists across Europe and Australia. Gabrielle is also engaged as a dramaturg for live performance projects and provides choreography and movement consultancy across stage and film productions. 

Gabrielle is the recipient of multiple European scholarships, the inaugural Keith Bain Choreographic Travel Fellowship, the 2015 Tanja Liedtke Fellowship, and a 2019 Arts South Australia Fellowship. She was the 2017 Artist in Residence at the Hong Kong Academy of Performing Arts and Sydney Dance Company’s inaugural Training Associate in 2021. She is currently part of the Artistic Team at Australasian Dance Collective.


We acknowledge the First Nations people as the Traditional Owners of Meanjin (Brisbane).

Australasian Dance Collective acknowledges the Traditional Custodians of country throughout Australia and their deep connections to land, sea and community. We pay our respect to their elders past and present and extend that respect to all Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples today.

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