Lucy Marinkovich is a New Zealand based contemporary dancer, choreographer and the Artistic Director of dance theatre company Borderline Arts Ensemble. A former member of New Zealand’s esteemed Footnote New Zealand Dance Company and Guest Artist for The New Zealand Dance Company, Lucy’s dancing has been described by critics as “mesmerising...completely captivating. She attacks her role with incredible energy, focus and a real presence.” Lucy has been awarded Tempo Dance Festival’s “Best Emerging Artist” and “Best Female Dancer” awards, the Eileen May Norris Dance Trust Scholarship and the Creative New Zealand Tup Lang Choreographic Award. Lucy holds a BA in English Literature, graduating as a Massey Scholar and the Outstanding Achiever Award from Massey’s College of Humanities and Social Sciences and in 2017 was invited to join the Leadership Network of the Asia New Zealand Foundation. In 2021 Lucy was an Arts Fellow of the University of Otago. As the Caroline Plummer Fellow in Community Dance Lucy established InMotion, a programme of dance classes with live music for people living with Parkinson’s Disease.

Lucy’s choreographic work investigates the realm of the subconscious, positioning the performer as an intermediary between dreams and reality. Borderline creates visceral performance experiences, likened by critics as “beautiful wizardry … weaving music, image, light, and movement together to reveal surreal truths about how we live and love” (Theatreview). The art of the Borderline Arts Ensemble has become known as the electric marriage of composer Lucien Johnson’s exquisite and delirious sonic landscapes and the lush, generous choreography and direction from Lucy Marinkovich whose “sense of the dramatic is unerring as her dancers deliver dance beyond imagining” (Theatreview).

In 2015 Lucy founded dance company Borderline Arts Ensemble with partner Lucien Johnson, who composes and writes for Borderline projects. Lucy is a Choreographer, Director, Dance Artist and Designer for Borderline, whose significant works include the multi-award winning Surrealist-inspired “Lobsters” (2017), “Thursday” (2019), the romantic dance duet performed in railway stations, and the dance theatre epic “Strasbourg 1518” (2020). Inspired by a medieval dancing plague, Strasbourg 1518 was a major commission from the New Zealand Festival of the Arts, presciently premiering in 2020, and was subsequently performed at the Auckland Arts Festival and in a sold-out return Wellington season.

Lucy has performed as a Guest Artist with the New Zealand Dance Company, Good Company Arts, Movement of the Human and Taki Rua, as well as performance appearances with the World of Wearable Arts (NZ, Hong Kong), multiple film and sculpture collaborations with Sir Richard Taylor and Weta Workshop since 2010, and a brief appearance as a vampire succubus in Taika Waititi’s film “What We Do In The Shadows”.

Lucy has choreographic and teaching relationships with Footnote NZ Dance Company, the Royal New Zealand Ballet, the New Zealand Dance Company, Borderline and the New Zealand School of Dance. She is a former Dance Educator for the Royal New Zealand Ballet, implementing the company’s education and community events throughout Aotearoa, including Touch Tours and Audio Described Performances and delivering school workshops. Aotearoa teaching residencies include the Caselberg Trust Creative Connections Residency (Broad Bay School, Otago) and a Ministry of Education Creatives in Schools project (Kahurangi School, Wellington). Lucy’s Footnote works have toured throughout Aotearoa, across Auckland schools for The New Zealand Dance Company’s Tamaki Tour, and her independent works for Borderline have been presented at festivals, galleries, schools, inside a shipping container, at railway stations, and at outdoor site-responsive performance events. Internationally her choreographic and performance installation works have been presented in Spain, Singapore, Japan, Malaysia and Croatia. As a contemporary dancer Lucy has performed and undertaken research projects in Germany, Spain, Austria, Singapore, Hong Kong, China, the United States, Palestine, and Israel, as well as participating in international Choreolabs in France and Malaysia.

In 2018 Lucy received the Arts Foundation of New Zealand’s prestigious  Harriet Friedlander New York Residency.