Catapult Dance founder and director Cadi McCarthy has won a $50,000 Create NSW Regional Arts Fellowship.
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The choreographer has been building her not-for-profit dance organisation in Newcastle West for the past four years since relocating from Perth.
A passionate arts educator, Ms McCarthy will use the money to expand her skill base and connections within the industry.
She eventually hopes to make Newcastle – and Catapult – an international centre for choreography by building an artist exchange system.
"The fellowship has a couple of different arms to it," McCarthy said. "One of them is for me to up-skill in dance film and dance photography.
"I’ve got funding to travel to Sweden and Scotland, and other places in Europe, to go and visit choreography hubs similar to this one.
"I get to go and see how other structures are working to get to build Catapult even larger, but also to build exchanges.”
Catapult Dance was established in 2014 and is made up of three tiers, all focused on the creation of contemporary dance and collaborations across artistic disciplines.
Its lead program, titled Propel, hosts short to mid-term residencies for professional interdisciplinary artists from across Australia and overseas.
Catapult was recently recognised at the 2017 Australian Dance Awards, receiving an Outstanding Achievement in Youth Dance award for its Flipside Project – a program which links resident artists with NSW school students.
NSW Minister for the Arts Don Harwin credited Ms McCarthy’s dedicated input to regional arts.
“I am delighted to be able to offer Cadi McCarthy this opportunity to further develop her career,” he said.
‘’As well as providing even more great art for NSW, I know that her intended program of development will prove a great inspiration to many other artists.
The work of Cadi and the other Fellowship recipients contribute a great deal to the combined strength of arts and culture across the state.
- NSW Minister for the Arts - Don Harwin
McCarthy’s $50,000 Regional Arts Fellowship was one of three awarded across the state and is part of Create NSW’s wider Artform and Priority Fellowships which offer over $500,000 in funding.
“They [Create NSW] are really aware of what I'm trying to do here and the artists that are coming here,” Ms McCarthy said.
“Also what's being achieved, and what has been achieved here in such a short amount of time.”
