Congratulations to NAISDA Graduate Thomas E.S. Kelly, who was recently awarded a prestigious Green Room Award for Outstanding Work by an Emerging Artist/Choreographer. Thomas won the Award for his 2016 work [MIS]CONCEIVE, which premiered at the Next Wave Festival in Melbourne last year.
The Green Room Awards are Melbourne’s performing arts awards and recognise the world-class Cabaret, Dance, Musical Theatre, Opera, Theatre and Alternative and Hybrid Performance productions that grace Melbourne’s stages each year. From artistic excellence to technical innovation, a Green Room Award is the most revered accolade an artist can receive in Australia’s cultural capital.
Here’s what Thomas had to say about what winning a Green Room Award means to him:
Winning a prestigious Green Room Award is incredible to say the least. Then to win for a work that I choreographed, composed music for, performed in, spent many hours inside and outside of the studio makes the achievement so much sweeter.
[MIS]CONCEIVE was my first major work and the feedback I got was amazing, the people who saw it would come up to me after the shows and say the most incredible things and being the creator of the show, I guess I would think that people are just being nice. Then to win something like this award, it’s been making me reflect on those comments of people saying how they related to the subject matter or how they got emotional in certain sections, how they were captivated by the choreography and music score.
That’s what this award has first and foremost done, it’s informed me that I told a story and people positively were engaged and responded. And that’s what I wanted to do with [MIS]CONCEIVE and hopefully all my future projects.
For the future, the award has helped identify that all this work that I’m doing isn’t for nothing. I am on the right path and I’ll now be moving forward and working harder. I always had goals to perform and make work, I have achieved both and have been rewarded for that but in no way have I reached the finish line if anything this award was just the starting gun.
From all of us here at NAISDA, we would like to congratulate Thomas on this outstanding achievement.