Max Burgess
About
Max is a queer freelance contemporary dance artist currently based in Ngunnawal and Ngambri Country (Canberra, ACT). Max grew up training in commercial choreography inspired by street styles through the Tuggeranong Art Centre’s Fresh Funk dance program before pursuing training in contemporary dance through Ev & Bow in Dharawal Country (Kirrawee, NSW), and the New Zealand School of Dance in Te Whanganui-a-Tara Aotearoa (Wellington, New Zealand).
Max feels very blessed to have met some beautiful, empowering and generative mentors and friends through their journey thus far. Max’s connections to individuals within contemporary dance has cultivated a deep sense of community that is inherent to their practice. These relationships have embolden notions omnipresent in Max’s approach to their form, such as a profound affinity for queer experience and decolonisation within dance practice.
Upon graduating at the end of 2021, Max has been focused on further defining their artistic practice, cultivating a new sense of community in their hometown, and broadening their informal advocacy practice.
At the beginning of 2022 Max completed an Artist in Residence through Canberra Dance Theatre were they had their first development of a solo work entitled synthesise me. synthesise me deals with notions of identity in abstraction from community, converging identities within one flesh, antiquity of the individual dancing body, and frivolous queer movement to connect with joy.
QUEER DEVELOPMENT PROGRAM, 2022
QUEER NU WERK, 2022
Instagram: @max.burgess
Past Programs