Dan Daw - Working with my messy body

Join Touch Compass on Tuesday 4 October for an insightful and lively kōrero with boundary-pushing British/Australian Crip and queer artist Dan Daw. Dan and TC's Suzanne Cowan, Lusi Faiva and Rodney Bell will explore intersections of disability and queerness, kink and sexuality, and how Dan finds freedom in self creation while leading a small group (as Dan Daw Creative Projects) with an aligned vision. Don't miss this awesome conversation!

The Dan Daw Show ****
"Dan's artistic projects focus on bringing disabled people into the spotlight. On stage he is very much master of his domain, although in life he says he rarely feels safe or relaxed." - The Scotsman, on The Dan Daw Show, Edinburgh Festival Fringe.

“After years of hating my body and rejecting my body, with this show I’m celebrating my body for the first time,” he says, “and it’s liberating in the most spectacular way.” - Dan Daw, on The Dan Daw Show

About Dan Daw:
A British/Australian queer, Crip (disabled) artist now living in Manchester (UK), Dan works collaboratively with a growing network of companies and artists to develop new work for UK and international audiences.

Blurring the divide between theatre and dance, Dan makes work under the banner of Dan Daw Creative Projects that exploits his deviating functionality to examine what it means for his, and other, queer, Crip (disabled) bodies to occupy, take up space, and be unapologetic in non-disabled spaces

Dan Daw began working as a performer with Restless Dance Theatre (AUS) in 2002, and since then has gone on to work with Australian Dance Theatre (AUS), Force Majeure (AUS), FRONTLINEdance (UK), Scottish Dance Theatre (UK), balletLORENT (UK), Candoco Dance Company (UK), Skånes Dansteater (SWE) and National Theatre Scotland (UK).

As Internationale Tanzmesse NRW Associate Curator (2021 – 2024), Associate Artistic Director of Candoco Dance Company (2021), Sadler’s Wells Summer University Artist (2015 – 2018) and Associate Director of Murmuration (2015 – 2022), Dan continues to take his place at the forefront of international performance programming and disability-led performance making.

In late 2019, he began making ‘The Dan Daw Show’ in collaboration with theatre director Mark Maughan and a larger creative team, which premiered in September 2021 and is currently available to tour. The Dan Daw Show is the outcome of initial research supported by Jerwood Choreographic Research Project II in 2017.

Throughout his performance career, Dan has worked with Kat Worth, Garry Stewart, Kate Champion, Janet Smith, Adam Benjamin, Wendy Houstoun, Sarah Michelson, Rachid Ouramdane, Nigel Charnock, Matthias Sperling, Marc Brew, Claire Cunningham, Martin Forsberg, Carl Olof Berg, Charlotte Spencer and Javier de Frutos.