Nina Veretennikova

Nina’s career spans the areas of Performance, Choreography, Direction and Teaching in both Dance and Film. A graduate of The Australian Ballet School (1976), Nina was a founding member of the Sydney Dance Company (SDC) under the direction of Graeme Murphy performing with the company for 13 years. A recipient of an Australia Council study grant to further training enabled the study of the Cunningham technique and composition with Merce Cunningham and Richard Alston in London in 1980. Nina rejoined the SDC following performances with the One Extra Company under the direction of Kai Tai Chan for the Sydney Festival and The Australian Ballet’s Cinderella season in the corps de ballet (1980). From 1981 - 1991 Nina performed in iconic Murphy works created during these years and was a nominee for two Green Room awards - Best Female Dancer in a principal role (After Venice), Best Female Dancer in a supporting role (Afterworlds). Nina also presented her choreographic work - Late Show, Radar, Annie Lennox for Murphy’s production of Sirens and sequences for Murphy’s Nearly Beloved and Michael Thornhill’s feature film The Everlasting Secret Family. From 1992 - 1994, Nina attended the Australian Film, Television and Radio School (AFTRS) gaining a BA degree specialising in Directing. Directing credits include 9 episodes for the documentary series Tales from a Suitcase produced by Look Films for SBS (1996). Nina has extensive Dance teaching experience with engagements to teach professional company classes for SDC, Aboriginal Islander Dance Theatre (AIDT), D’arc Swan, Opera Australia, Chunky Move and Bangarra Dance Theatre with whom she was Rehearsal Director for Stephen Page’s productions of Skin, The Dreaming, Corroboree and international tours to New York, Washington DC, Hawaii and Noumea. From 2002 - 2020 Nina was a Lecturer in Dance at the Victorian College of the Arts (VCA), Faculty of Fine Arts and Music, The University of Melbourne. Her role as an Academic Staff member involved contributing to the development of curriculum, 1st Year Coordination, Audition recruitment and the teaching of Classical Ballet technique for contemporary dance, Conditioning with Imagery Training (CI-Training), Gyrokinesis (R) methodology and Yoga. Nina maintained her interest in filmmaking by recording all VCA Dance productions for their archives. Nina is also a certified teacher in Gyrotonic (R) methodology. An Honorary member of the VCA Nina now resides in Coffs Harbour, NSW teaching body conditioning, coaching in Classical Ballet technique, and yoga.