Larissa McGowan
Born in Brisbane, Larissa began her dance training at the Queensland Dance School of Excellence (QDSE), where she won the Queensland Ballet Scholarship to the Victorian College of the Arts (VCA), as well as the prize for Most Outstanding Dancer. In her graduating year at VCA, Larissa was awarded Most Outstanding Talent.
Larissa joined Australian Dance Theatre (ADT) in 2000 and has since toured extensively throughout Europe, Canada, America, Asia and Australia performing in Be Yourself, G, Devolution, HELD, Vocabulary, Nothing, The Age of Unbeauty, Birdbrain and Attention Deficit Therapy.
In 2008, Garry Stewart named Larissa as the ADT Assistant Choreographer. As a performer Larissa has won multiple awards, including Green Room Award for Best Female Dancer (2003), Best Female Dancer in a Ballet or Dance Work at the Helpmann Awards (2004) and the Australian Dance Award for Outstanding Performance by a Female Dancer (2004).
Moving into independent choreography, Larissa’s work Zero-sum made its world premiere at WOMADelaide in 2009. Larissa followed this with a highly successful appearance as a guest choreographer on two seasons of So You Think You Can Dance. Her work Slack was part of the Sydney Opera House’s inaugural New Breed season and in 2012 Link Dance Company toured this work to France and Holland. She has created Transducer as part of Tasdance’s double bill Voltage. Larissa was also choreographer on MASS by Leonard Bernstein, presented by Adelaide Festival and State Opera of South Australia in 2012.
Larissa has provided additional movement direction for Slingsby Theatre Company’s Wolf, State Theatre Company of South Australia’s Romeo & Juliet and Mneumoni and Brink Theatre Company’s Harbinger. In 2012, Larissa’s short piece Fanatic premiered for Sydney Dance Company to rave reviews as part of the Sydney Opera House’s Spring Dance Festival Contemporary Women program. This work returned to the main stage in 2013 as part of the Sydney Dance Company’s triple bill De Novo at Sydney Theatre, which has since toured Australia.
Larissa choreographed ‘Transducer’ as part of Co3 Contemporary Dance’s re:Loaded (2016).