PARTNERS IN COMPASSION

CAITLIN and Gabe Comerford are collaborators in every sense. Caitlin is the artistic director of Stompin, the Tasmanian youth dance company based in Launceston. Gabe is presently a dancer with Tasdance, also based in Launceston. Both are founding members of Brisbane-based Makeshift Dance Collective, with Gabe being artistic director. Stompin shares the same office building as Tasdance, and sometimes Stompin shares the pleasant, garden-view Tasdance rehearsal studios out the back. But more importantly, Caitlin and Gabe share passionate ideas and philosophies, and are united in their belief in the healing and empowering nature of dance.

The couple met when they were both Bachelor of Fine Arts students at Queensland University of Technology in Brisbane. Caitlin had arrived there from her home town of Canberra. Gabe had arrived from his home town of Toowoomba, west of Brisbane. They were part of a close-knit cohort of students, living the peripatetic life of young people finding their professional feet and crossing the continent to grab opportunities as they arose. On graduating, Caitlin moved to Perth