Full-time training: Victorian College of the Arts, University of Melbourne, Southbank campus.
Presently: First Nations Trainee with The Australian Ballet’s Education and Outreach team; freelance artist.
What is your best memory of your full-time dance studies?
In my second year, I was fortunate enough to travel with five of my peers as part of our 2024 travelling studio subject. This trip involved a week-long cultural exchange with students at the Indonesian Institute of Arts (ISI) Surakarta, as well as a performance tour in the 2024 SIPA and ARTJOG festivals.
At ISI, we learnt traditional Javanese dance alongside the students, learning from masters Wirastuti Susilaningtyas and Eko Supriyanto. This was a life-changing experience, broadening my love for non-Western art forms of dance and expression. I remember sitting with the ISI students every lunch and teaching each other our favourite dance moves. There’s something beautiful about being able to communicate with one another through the non-verbal language of dance, understanding and learning from each other despite the language barrier. I’ll never forget the friends I made on that trip and how they supported us on our first international stage in front of thousands of people.
How has your understanding of dance as an art form evolved during your full-time studies? Were there any particular moments or experiences that shifted your perspective?
My parents always told me, “The only person who can stop you is you,” when it came to achieving my goals, and they were right. I don’t know when it happened, but in third year something clicked for me in terms of motivation. I became hungry for the career I had been training for my whole life, taking classes not just for the sake of it but because I wanted to improve. My teacher Julie Minaai made me realise I had switched into a “growth mindset”, no longer approaching class as just a student but rather as an artist refining their practice. I pushed myself further than I ever had before, practising my stage presence and embodying every little detail of choreography that I could. I graduated, applied for my dream company and attended an in-person audition.
I started chasing my dreams again.