Sydney Dance Company Dancer Bios

WHO'S WHO IN THE COMPANY TIMMY BLANKENSHIP, originally from the United States, completed his early training in contemporary performance and choreography at Artistic Fusion in Thornton, CO and Dance Town in Miami, FL, performing works by Loni Landon, Dana Foglia, and Emma Portner. He continued his training at the prestigious University of Southern California’s Glorya Kaufman School of Dance on scholarship, graduating with a BFA in 2023. There, he performed works by William Forsythe, Jiří Kylián, Merce Cunningham, and Yue Yin. Alongside performing, he premiered his choreography at Dance Town Miami’s annual contemporary gala of 2021, and he internationally debuted Intergenerational Traffic at the Trinity Laban School of Dance in London of February 2023 as a collaboration with composer Tom Bradbury and dancer Xavier Williams. In August of 2023, he performed in the world premiere of Wanderers by Dimo Milev at the Nederland’s Dans Theatre Summer Intensive. Soon after, Timmy moved to Sydney for his professional dance debut with Sydney Dance Company, performing in Riley Fitzgerald’s Everyb0dy’s G0t a B0mb and Tra Mi Dinh’s Somewhere between ten & fourteen as part of New Breed 2023. ANIKA BOET, raised in Christchurch, New Zealand, is of South African and Dutch descent. Moving to Sydney in 2020, Anika completed two years of fulltime training at Brent Street School of Performing arts, receiving her Diploma of Dance (focusing on Contemporary) with Honours. In her time at Brent Street, she had the pleasure of training with and performing works by Jessica Hesketh, Billy Keohavong, Georgette Sofatzis, Holly Doyle, Cass Mortimer Eipper, Craig Barry, and Talia Fowler. Shortly after, Anika made her professional debut in Sydney Festival in January 2022 performing the work Grey Rhino, choreographed by Charmene Yap and Cass Mortimer Eipper. In that same year, she performed Against All Logic choreographed by Brigitta Olderied, in Sydney Fringe Festival. In 2023, she spent some time in New York City at the GALLIM Winter Intensive, and then made the move to Naarm (Melbourne). Here, Anika completed a post-graduate course at Transit Dance, performing works by Chimene Steele Prior, Prue Lang, and Paul Malek. Anika joined Sydney Dance Company in October 2023. DEAN ELLIOTT was born in Auckland, New Zealand and started dancing at Norris Studios in Papakura. He moved to Sydney in 2017 to further his dance studies at Ev and Bow under the direction of Sarah Boulter and Lisa Bowmer. In 2018 Dean received the top prize winner at the first annual Brisbane International Contemporary Dance Prix which initiated his first engagement with Sydney Dance Company. Dean joined the Theatre of Image in 2019 for their production of Brett and Wendy… a love story bound by art choreographed by Lucas Jervies and directed by Kim Carpenter, in which he danced the role of Young Brett Whitely. Dean has been a dancer with Sydney Dance Company since 2019 and has worked with and performed the repertoire of a range of choreographers, including Rafael Bonachela, Marina Mascarell, Ohad Naharin, and Melanie Lane.