Restless was established in 1991 by UK dance artist Sally Chance after she visited Adelaide for a project supported by Carclew Youth Arts. Sally set up Restless as a place where it is an advantage to have a disability. She established the basic working method where disabled and non disabled dancers create high quality work together out of their movement responses to creative challenges. Since its beginnings Restless has worked predominantly (but not exclusively) with dancers with intellectual disabilities.

In earlier years Restless operated on a two part model:

• The first part was the dancers: Impulse and Junction (formerly the Youth Ensemble and the Senior Ensemble). Impulse did at least one major production a year, sometimes two and always a range of other projects. Membership of Impulse continues to be by invitation only and has members in the age range 15 – 26, with the majority being disabled. It is a stable group with highly committed members. The Junction group was added in 2013 for members who have graduated from Impulse.
• The second part of the model has been the Workshop Program. There is constant crossover between these two parts with new Impulse participants being sourced from the Workshop Programs and new tutors being sourced from long-term Impulse and Junction

Artistic Director Michelle Ryan was appointed in 2013, and has transformed the organisation by establishing the company a core performance ensemble: The Company, which consists of 7 professional dancers. When not in training, The Company perform the major touring works of the repertoire in festivals and arts centres across the globe. Restless pays full LPA rates to the dancers for all its works and when required, dancers are drawn from other company programs.