When I dance, I feel free as a bird. In fact, I am a bird. Once, in a dance context, I was asked to turn into a chicken. ‘That’s impossible,’ I thought. Then I decided to do it anyway. The dance experience was measured in love and something else. And it’s this ‘else’ that I dance for.
Thomas Bradley is a multidisciplinary artist. Most recently, from 2017 to 2023, he was a dancer, pedagogue and costume designer for Emanuel Gat Dance. He is co-founder of the performance collective Landbreakers with Ashley Wright and Konrad Ross. After studying at the New Zealand School of Dance, he danced with Sydney Dance Company in 2012 and then with Australian Dance Theatre. He has worked as a costume designer for Staatsballett Berlin and Scottish Dance Theatre and created choreographies for various dance institutions. His movement practice is strongly influenced by Japanese “butoh”. His encounter with the work of Yoshito Ohno, Seisaku and Yuri Nagaoka saved him from feeling alienated from the contemporary dance canon. His owes his feeling for rhythm, sound and musicality to Anne Jakes, with whom he studied baroque music for 12 years. In addition to his work in dance, he is a writer and music producer.