Dawn Jackson

About Me

Dawn Jackson is an award-winning filmmaker and dancer passionate about social change through storytelling. Since completing her Masters’ at the WA Screen Academy specializing in Directing, Dawn has been developing feature documentary Pointe, dancing on the knife’s edge, recently winning the Inaugural Brian Beaton Award, an epic movie musical, Caves House – Place of Love, an innovative social history, documentary project and Hush, a new dance/film work born out of an arts residency in the Arctic Circle. Dawn directed and produced a short drama titled Fathom about men’s mental health issues that launched in Mental Health Week, October 2017 hosted by Youth Focus.
Dawn’s student documentary Zara’s World won the Channel 9 Judges Award for Best Documentary and her student drama Jennifer’s Coming Home was nominated for Best Student Film at the WA Screen Awards 2015. In 2013 Dawn was Directors Assistant on award winning I Want to Dance Better at Parties, with Adelaide based Closer Productions (Broadcast on ABC 1 June 24, 2014). Dawn wrote, produced and directed her first award winning 16mm dance film Industrial Angels in 1995. Dawn’s first career was in dance where she graduated from the WA Academy of Performing Arts in in 1987 with a Diploma in Dance and returned in 2006 to complete her BA. Dawn commenced her professional career with West Australian Ballet, then became a principal dancer with Kalika Dance Company in 1992 studying Indian Classical dance. After an intensive residency in Orissa, India in 2004, Dawn established her own intercultural choreographic practice. In 2009 Dawn was nominated for Most Outstanding Performance by a Female at the WA Dance Awards for her critically acclaimed intercultural solo work Kohl.
In 2010 Dawn was invited to undertake a choreo-lab with Sampad, Britain’s largest South Asian Contemporary Arts organization (Birmingham). As recipient of the 2011 WA Future Moves Mid-Career Fellowship, Dawn performed in and produced a body of intercultural dance works (intimate collaborations with South Asian and Aboriginal artists), Blush, Cotton and Hummingbird and performed in Canada, England and Singapore.
Dawn Jackson
Independent Artist & Film Maker