DANIELLE O'KEEFE
Danielle is creative entrepreneur. Founder and CEO of The House that Dan Built, the joyous company that does. Danielle consistently confounds contemporary expectations and understating of what potential pursued by young women can sound like. Passionate about passion, Danielle is an interdisciplinary contemporary artist whose site-responsive work with young female singers is being recognised and awarded internationally. Her work has been featured in collaborations through Melbourne Festival, Dark Mofo, and Sydney Festival. In 2014, the House ensemble was established with 12 creatively distinct young women who are gaining recognition as an extraordinary multidisciplinary performance collective. Most recently the ensemble performed with Sydney Chamber Opera in their acclaimed production The Howling Girls and in 2019 the ensemble were featured at the Venice Biennale in renowned Australian video artist Angelica Mesiti’s work Assembly.
It is the diamonds of artistic success that gains the spotlight with Danielle’s work, but it is the visionary magnetism of her inclusive processes that is shifting paradigms in the way that cross-generation female voices are being heard. A connector and collaborator, Danielle is a community muse.
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Danielle has worked in the Arts for over 18 years. Beginning her practice as a performer and vocalist. A driven and auto didactic continual student, Danielle has in recent years honed her skills of leading, establishing a reputation as one of the country’s leading youth arts creators. A trained conductor, Danielle finished her studies in 2003 in London, retuning to Sydney to conduct the Australian Youth Choir (AYC) and held that post until 2012 when she left to adventure the great Australian Outback as the Artistic Director of Outback Theatre for Young People.
Danielle is a sought after artist having worked with companies such as the Australian Theatre for Young People (ATYP), Sydney Chamber Opera (SCO), The Australian Institute of Performing Arts (AIPA), Brent Street and PACT to create exciting works for and with young people. Alongside her work with young people, Danielle has directed mainstage shows at the Seymour Centre, The Joan Sutherland Performing Arts Complex and Merrigong Theatre, to name a few.
It is through the positions Danielle identified a way of working that cultivate collisions between female artists and young people across Sydney and Outback Australia finding the intersection of Access and opportunity for all girls who put their hands. Education and Training at all levels of experience. Creativity and Experimentation at the forefront of everything you do. All the while in constant pursuit of Excellence. Danielle has a gang you want to be part of!
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