Vicki Van Hout is an independent dancer, choreographer and teacher. Originally from Dapto in regional NSW, she trained at the National Aboriginal and Islander Skills Development Association – now the NAISDA Dance College. In the early 90’s she moved to New York and trained with leading modern and post-modern dance artists before returning to Australia in 1996 to perform with Bangarra Dance Theatre.

Vicki creates contemporary dance layered with Indigenous cultural information and imagery, her works to date having explored matrilineal kinship systems and welcome to country protocols. She says of her first work presented at Performance Space in 2005,

“It gave me a platform to try something out… It opened a lot of doors for me, partly because I was performing in a line up that wasn’t totally Indigenous. It’s important to me to participate in the broader dance and performance arena. I want to be critiqued on par with everyone else and that’s possible at Performance Space.”

As an independent practitioner, she values the network of artists and audiences and the concrete production support on offer at Performance Space.

“As an artist, you’re supported through realising an idea into a performance… It’s that security and knowledge that comes with being part of a bigger machine. It’s invaluable.”