Dance and Business in Practice

Sammie is an independent artist based in Meanjin working as a choreographer, performer, educator and movement director. Her practice ranges from working within theatre to schools and community contexts. Sammie began her career touring children’s dance theatre works for Expressions Dance Company igniting her passion for working in arts education. Later in her career going on to deliver the community dance program Street Dreams, work as a High School dance teacher and now as a VET dance coordinator.

Alongside her educational endeavours Sammie has helped carry the torch for cultural innovation in the hip hop dance community, exploring the blurring lines of genre and style and bringing the techniques of hip hop and contemporary dance together. She was privileged to be an artist in residence at Metro Arts in 2016 and was the inaugural recipient of the Mad Dance and La Boite grant in 2017 resulting in further development and presentation of her hip hop dance theatre work One Way. Sammie paired up with Elements Collective for the creation of her kids show ‘Goldie and the 3 B-bears’ which toured Logan, North QLD and the NT.

Sammie has worked with other esteemed performing artists and choreographers such as Hot Brown Honey, Phuluxus Dance Collective, Jeremy Neideck, Liesel Zink, Joe Lau & Bridget Fiske performing at various festivals and seasons throughout Brisbane, Melbourne & Seoul. Sammie’s commercial work includes film clips for Tara Simmons & Foals, various gigs including the Australian Dance Festival, Rebel Sport & numerous others with Mad Dance House & Elements Collective.

Most recently Sammie has worked as a movement director with the Brothers Book Club and participated in a community development project with Vulcana women’s circus. Sammie’s experience also includes leading panel discussions, artist Q&A’s, various MC roles and participating as selection panellist for La Boites’ Mad Dance House Grant, Metro Arts’ Mad Dance Festival and Dancehouses’ Street Dance Commission’s.

A proud Kullilli woman, Trudy is passionate about advocating for and driving the success of First Nations creators, particularly in the arts and contemporary dance.

Throughout her career, Trudy has worked extensively in the independent theatre and arts sectors, with esteemed organisations including BlakDance, Bamaga Productions and QMusic. Her proudest professional roles include Program Coordinator for BlakForm; Tour Coordinator for the Karul Projects SILENCE Queensland and National Tours and delivering First Nations Programming for the QMusic BIGSOUND 2022 event as the First Nations Liaison. Trudy is currently an Arts Peer Assessor with Arts Queensland, reviewing and recommending grant funding applications and providing advice on programs and policy.

Trudy is the Operations Manager at BlakDance.

Proudly a queer wiradyuri yinaa, Nicole Reilly’s work spans the roles of creative producer, director, performer, and teaching artist. She is the recipient of the Enoch Scholarship from the Queensland University of Technology and is the inaugural Wandima Fellow in partnership with The Brisbane Powerhouse. After graduating from an innovative practice-led post-graduate program at the University of Sunshine Coast in 2018, Nicole has produced sold-out seasons for Zen Zen Zo Physical Theatre, and over 65 independent productions.

Highlights include a touring multicultural music conversation “Songs of Gaia” directed by Linsey Pollak, a theatrical EP release “The Bigger Picture” at both RPAC and QPAC for celebrated Quandamookan musician Sachém, and a site-specific contemporary First Nations ceremony “Dawn Awakening” for Horizon Festival. She has presented at Drama Queensland, Drama Territory, Drama Australia, Stage Queensland, and Newcastle’s StageCon. She is now Senior Producer at BlakDance, the national industry organisation for First Nations contemporary dancers and choreographers.

Nicole is the Senior Producer at BlakDance.

Wanida is a Creative Director, Choreographer and Performance artist. Professionally working for over a decade, Wanida has become an industry leader in the dance scene by producing work, educating, hosting events, judging battles, performing internationally/nationally and continually pushing boundaries through movement and action.

Through her collective, Pink Matter, she works on platforming dance as an art form, creating work for local artists and breaking down barriers for dancers from all different backgrounds. Some of her highlights include creating show’s ‘Betwixt’ and ‘The Type’ and choreographing campaigns for Bonds, Adidas and more.

Nerida Matthaei is an award-winning choreographer, performer and the Artistic Director of Phluxus2 Dance Collective. The underlying pulse of her work comes from an ingrained passion for contemporary choreographic practice as a beautifully planned anarchy of mind-body collaboration. Driven by challenging socio-political orthodoxy and breaking conventions through physical performance, she is a much sought-after collaborator across the dance and performance sectors internationally.

She is extremely generous with her skills and time, not only collaborating and leading arts projects around the world, but investing in grassroots programs benefiting the local independent and community sectors and sitting on boards such as Ausdance Queensland. Nerida has recently returned from a tour to Melbourne with her work Angel Monster, creating a new work Bottari with South Korean company Sadari Movement Lab and guest choreographer for Polytoxic’s latest creation Dangerous Goods.

Lisa Wilson is an award-winning artist with an international career as director, choreographer, producer, performer, educator and mentor. Her body of work moves across genres having created for theatre companies, large-scale instillation work, intermedia performances, opera, major company commissions and full- length independent work.

Lisa’s work has been nominated in numerous critics’ choice awards, and finalist/awarded at The Helpmann Awards, the Matilda Awards and the Australian Dance awards. Her works have toured nationally in Australia to critical acclaim and showcased at national performing arts markets. As a choreographer Lisa has been awarded numerous fellowships, grants and residencies both in Australia and internationally.

In 2021 Lisa’s vision launched Studio1 – a new creative arts space, which houses

Artists – Events – Community in a micro-arts precinct, in Meanjin|Brisbane. Studio1 is a choreographic hub, supporting the day-to-day practice and on-going development of Independent Dance and Physical Theatre.

www.lisawilson.com.au

www.studio1.org.au