As part of IMPACT Dance Festival 2026, international artist Tara Jade Samaya returns for the second year with a featured work in the Triple Bill, Dance on Film and leading Dancer Workshops. The festival is a concept usually only found in Europe; we chat to Tara about the importance of this festival in providing opportunity and connection for the aspiring and professional Contemporary Dance Community.
Talk us through your introduction to Dance. Where did it all begin?
I was a very energetic child who wanted to do everything my sister did. She was a delicate, ballerina-type, and I simply followed along!
I started with ballet at a very young age and then moved into contemporary dance. I was always quite sporty and athletic, with a strong ambition and an aptitude for trying anything. Dance became something that really captured me.
Growing up in Newcastle, I had very little understanding of what a career in contemporary dance could actually look like. This was before Google and before information was so accessible. I didn't even realise there was a professional contemporary dance world in Australia beyond ballet school.
I was eventually dragged along to an audition in Sydney for Australian Dance Theatre. At the time, Sydney was the closest major city and Australian Dance Theatre felt like this huge possibility. That audition was my first real introduction to contemporary dance. It was four and a half hours of gruelling work!
Gary Stewart saw something in me and we developed a relationship that was incredibly important to my journey. He would encourage me to come to Sydney, take classes and seek further training. He introduced me to the idea that there was a much bigger world of dance out there.
From there, I went on to further training and eventually began working professionally for ADT. That really opened the door to everything that followed.
Was there a point where you moved from being a dancer to becoming a Choreographer?
I've always had a very strong relationship with music and visual imagery. Whenever I listened to classical music or different forms of music, I could see movement. I used to draw it as well, so I think that visual arts instinct was there from quite a young age.
Interestingly, I don't necessarily see myself as a choreographer. The word can feel quite codified to me — as though there is one person who makes the moves and everyone else follows them.
I'm much more interested in co-authorship. I think of myself more as a designer of experiences.
I love that idea of designing an experience rather than simply choreographing movement, particularly because contemporary dance is increasingly collaborative. It's about bringing together people, ideas, bodies, environments, music and different ways of seeing.
Your practice has also developed a strong relationship with film. Where did that come from?
I spent 5 and a half years with ADT and Garry as my first professional job, involving a lot of European tours, however when you spend that amount of time with somebody you continue to seek, what else? where to next? So I found myself in the back studio with a camcorder watching myself move. I'd film myself improvising and then watch the footage back, constantly analysing my habits and patterns.
This was before iMovie and all the easy editing technology we have now! I would literally stop, start, rewind and watch things in reverse. I was interested in seeing myself from the outside and understanding my own movement language.
That practice eventually developed into working with film.
Travelling also had a huge influence on me. When I travelled through Asia and experienced different cultures, environments and value systems, I was deeply moved by the relationship between people and place.
I became particularly interested in the idea that spaces hold memory — through architecture, nature, history and the people who have occupied them.
At one point, my partner and I were taking photographs while travelling, and I remember thinking: this isn't enough. A photograph can capture a moment, but it can't capture time passing, a sunset moving or the experience of a body moving through a place.
That led us towards dance film and experimenting with movement in environments such as rooftops and abandoned buildings. Film became a way of capturing something that exists across time rather than simply in a single moment.
You're returning to IMPACT Dance Festival for a second year. What does that mean to you?
It feels like a homecoming.
I've spent the past couple of weeks in Newcastle developing my work TONIC for the triple Bill, and there's something incredibly special about being here — the ocean air, the landscape and the memories attached to these places.
I also have a history with Catapult. I made an award-winning film here years ago, which feels like part of an origin story for my practice.
Coming back and being part of the festival for a second year, with the possibility of it becoming an annual event, means a lot to me personally.
Newcastle and Lake Macquarie have this incredible combination of being urban but also deeply immersed in nature. I think that creates a really exciting environment for contemporary and experimental art, music and performance. Its so immersed in nature.
If something like IMPACT had existed when I was growing up, I might have discovered contemporary dance much earlier and found that the training that I had to do when I became professional to undo some of the ways I was taught would have been so much more natural.
I have had the luckiness to have had a career in Contemporary Dance to be able to have opportunities but it took a lot of time and a lot of work for that to happen.
You're creating work for this year's opening triple bill. What can audiences expect?
Making stage work is actually quite a foreign space for me because so much of my practice has been developed through film. So I'm approaching it with a real sense of curiosity — and humility. IMPACT is ushering a space for me that I am so ready for and excited about and I am humbly bowing to the incredible artists I am working with.
I'm incredibly excited to be working with local artists that I've seen grow and develop through Catapult over the years. There's a beautiful sense of connection and continuity in that.
For me, the work is about creating an experience rather than simply presenting choreography. I'm interested in how the dancers, the space, the audience and the ideas all come together.
What does a festival like IMPACT mean for the Australian contemporary dance sector?
I think we're at a really interesting moment in Australian contemporary dance. IMPACT feels like a convergence of Contemporary Dance for Australia.
A lot of our major and small-to-medium contemporary dance institutions are going through significant change and, in many cases, changing leadership. That creates an opportunity to stop, listen and ask: What do we actually need? Where are we going? How do we support each other?
That's one of the things I find so exciting about a festival.
It creates a convergence point. Artists, choreographers, dancers, audiences and organisations can come together, share ideas, build networks and interrogate what's happening in the sector.
And dance goes far beyond language. You need to spend time together to really understand each other's practices and perspectives.
There is nothing better than a festival to bring us together.
Why do you think this kind of festival is important for Australia?
Because contemporary dance can sometimes feel difficult to access if you don't already know where to look.
When I was growing up, I didn't know where to find it. I didn't know what the pathways were or that there was a professional contemporary dance career available to me in Australia.
IMPACT creates that access.
It gives audiences the opportunity to experience contemporary dance, but it also gives young and emerging artists a place to meet established artists, participate in workshops, see performances and understand that there is a bigger artistic community beyond their immediate surroundings.
For me, that's incredibly important.
What are you most looking forward to about IMPACT 2026?
The convergence of people.
We've got incredible local artists, Australian choreographers, original works, dance on film, workshops, conversations and different perspectives coming together.
It's not just about the individual performances. It's about what happens when all of those people and ideas are in the same place.
I think that's where the real impact of a festival can happen — and I'm really excited to see where that leads in the years ahead.
Impact Dance Festival runs from 27th-30 AUG at Warners Bay Theatre, baramayiba
Tara Jade Samaya’s work TONIC features in the Triple Bill Thursday 27th and Friday 28th at 7:30pm
For more information on ticketing and Tara’s workshops and dance on film visit
https://www.catapultdance.com.au/the-impact-festival/
IMPACT Festival is proudly staged by Catapult Dance and supported by Creative Australia, Destination NSW and Lake Mac Arts.