Ausdance National elects new board
Ausdance National has elected a new board to navigate the national organisation for the next two years.
Ausdance National board
Lizzie Vilmanis - President
Julie Dyson - Vice President
Sebastien Ananian-Cooper - Treasurer
Cathy Adamek - Director
Shyamla Eswaran - Director
Ella Havelka - Director
Sally Richardson - Director
Lauren Vassallo - Director
LIZZIE VILMANIS
Born in Tanzania, East Africa, Lizzie grew up on Kaurna country, supported by a family who valued arts and creativity and recognised the important role of culture in shaping identity.
Today Lizzie lives on Jagera and Turrbal country and works as an independent dance artist, often with Zaimon Vilmanis under the guise of ‘Prying Eye’, on a range of different projects in collaboration with other artists, project partners, and service providers.
Lizzie’s experience within, across and beyond the dance sector provides tacit and embodied knowledge to help comprehend complex interconnectivities of Australia’s dance ecology.
Spanning a dance career of more than 21 years, she’s worked locally, regionally, nationally and internationally with a broad range of companies, communities, festivals, schools and institutions; for private businesses; as an independent; with professionals and non-professionals; with people of diverse cultures, ages and capabilities and on new and established initiatives.
Lizzie has a Master of Arts (Research) from Queensland University of Technology (2017) and has held roles in performance, choreography, direction, collaboration, teaching, consultancy, research, management, production; producing, grant and residency peer assessment, disability and aged care, advocacy, administration and entrepreneurship.
Lizzie co-founded Brisbane Dance Artists Hub to connect the Brisbane independent contemporary dance community in 2012, then co-founded Pro-Dance Classes Brisbane soon after. In 2016 and 2017 she was Program Consultant and Professional Development Consultant for Ausdance Queensland. Seeing the inauguration of Supercell Dance Festival, she served on the festival’s management committee from 2015-2018.
Lizzie seeks to improve the state of the dance ecology and bring more people to experience and recognise the value of dance.
JULIE DYSON
Julie works in a voluntary capacity as an arts advocate across several national and international organisations, including as immediate past Chair of the National Advocates for Arts Education and a Global Executive member of the World Dance Alliance. She is the former national director of Ausdance, where her work included policy development, advice to funding bodies, government departments, companies and individual artists, and the initiation of innovative partnerships to promote and support contemporary dance, performers and educators.
Julie has worked as a volunteer on the dance collections of the National Library of Australia and Ausdance National and has edited many publications, including Dance Forum, Shaping the Landscape – Celebrating Dance in Australia and Shifting Sands: Dance in Asia and the Pacific. She was awarded the Sidney Myer Performing Arts Award for Administration in 1994, the Ausdance 21 Award for outstanding service to the organisation in 1998, the Australian Dance Award for Services to Dance in 2000 and the Lifetime Achievement Award in 2004. In 2007 Julie was made a Member of the Order of Australia (AM).
Julie continues her work with Ausdance National as Vice-President and remains particularly focused on dance advocacy at the federal level. She is also the nominations coordinator of the Australian Dance Awards.
SEASTIEN ANANIAN-COOPER
Sebastien Ananian-Cooper is one of the owners of QuickSteps Dance Club Studio, Adelaide.
QuickSteps is a social Latin & ballroom studio teaching more than 250 dance classes per week to adults in dance genres like Salsa, Tango, Rock ‘n Roll, Rumba, Cha-Cha.
Sebastien’s background is in finance, having worked in banking in Australia and London, then teaching at the University of Adelaide for more than 6 years.
Sebastien is also the treasurer for Ausdance South Australia, having joined the board in 2018.
He is passionate about a strong peak body for the dance industry that will advocate at both the state and federal levels for an ecosystem that encourages all of Australia’s diverse dance organisations to flourish.
Sebastien has seen first-hand through his own business the power of a dance organisation to bring ordinary adult Australians together and the powerful mental and physical health benefits that joining a dance community provides.
One of Sebastien’s career goals is to set up education pathways for dancers and dance teachers in other dance genres, such as Latin and ballroom. He believes that the education pathways currently established and working for ballet and contemporary dancers could be extended to all dance genres and would strengthen the foundations of Australia’s dance industry.
CATHY ADAMEK
Cathy received a PhD in 2017 for her thesis, Adelaide Dance Music Culture: Late 1980s– Early 1990s. She trained in acting at NIDA, has a BA (Hons) in English literature and studied ballet with Joanne Priest and Shelia Laing. Recent work includes touring with Australian Dance Theatre in Garry Stewart’s award-winning Be Yourself as the narrator. She works as an independent artist and creative producer and her award-winning dance theatre works have toured Australia.
Cathy was the choreographer on the feature Cargo (Adelaide Film Festival 2017, Tribeca 2018), working with Martin Freeman and Susie Porter. She acted in The Babadook, choreographed for The NIghtingale and has performed extensively as an actor and dancer with the State Theatre Company of SA, State Opera SA, Country Arts SA, and many independent companies. Other film and TV credits include Danger 5, Cut, McLeod’s Daughters, Here’s Humphrey, and guest chef on ABC’s Beat the Chef.
Her writing on Adelaide’s electronic dance music scene has been published in peer-reviewed journals and books and she has presented her work on this topic at Today’s Art Festival in The Hague, EMC conference Sydney (panel facilitator) and Cultural Studies conferences in Australia. She is in the pool of peers for the Australia Council.
SHYAMLA ESWARAN
Shyamla (she/they) is an independent dance artist/choreographer, educator, writer and presenter who advocates for cross-cultural experiences and anti-discrimination through the arts. She works with children, refugees and people from culturally and linguistically diverse backgrounds.
With 30+ years of dance experience, Shyamla founded BINDI BOSSES in 2019, a progressive South Asian fusion performing arts company that featured at TEDxSydney 2020 (TED talk and performance). She is also a Classical Indian (Kuchipudi) student of Guru Shri Raghavan Nair.
In 2020 Shyamla won the NSW Premier’s Multicultural Community Medal for Bollykids, one of five solo works she has toured around Australia since 2013. Choreography credits include Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week for CAMILLA (2018), Schools Spectacular (2018) and BINDI BOSSES for Sydney Kings/NBL at Qudos Bank Arena (2019).
Shyamla holds a Master of International Human Rights Law & Policy (UNSW, 2010), a Bachelor of Arts in Communication, Social Policy (UTS, 2004) and has worked at the Australian Human Rights Commission, ABC, NSW Aboriginal Land Council and Barnardos Australia. She is a mentor for the Australian Literacy & Numeracy Foundation and the Ambassador and Host of SSI’s New Beginnings Festival (2019-2021).
As a writer, spokesperson and panellist, Shyamla’s recent appearances include SBS, HuffPost Australia, ABC’s ‘Ladies We Need to Talk’, 4ESydney HipHop conference and ‘SSI Artist Voices’.
She is committed to supporting independent artists and making dance more safe, accessible, diverse and inclusive.
ELLA HAVELKA
Ella is the Creative Director of Eco Dancers and The Director of The ELLA Foundation, Ella was the first Aboriginal Dancer to be selected to join The Australian Ballet.
Born in Dubbo and a descendant of the Wiradjuri people, Ella trained in Melbourne at The Australian Ballet School. After graduation, Ella first appeared with Bangarra Dance Theatre in their 20th Anniversary program Fire – A Retrospective (2009). In 2013, Ella joined The Australian Ballet and was the subject of the documentary film ELLA, which premiered at the Melbourne International Film Festival in 2016.
Ella toured internationally with both Bangarra Dance Theatre and The Australian Ballet. In 2019, she leapt back into the Bangarra world to guest star in their 30th-anniversary program 30 Years of 65 Thousand (2019). Ella choreographed Wilaygu Ngainybula (2019) for The Australian Ballet Education and Outreach Team, watched by hundreds of primary school kids nationwide during the 2020 Covid19 lockdowns.
As a 2021 Atlantic Fellow for Social Equity, Ella is currently completing her Masters in Social Change Leadership through Melbourne University. Ella aspires to help mainstream dance institutions become more culturally safe and accessible to Australia’s First Peoples.
SALLY RICHARDSON
Sally is a director, writer, dramaturge and producer in the performing arts. She is committed to the development and creation; of new work, and developing collaborations with other artists in this region, championing the voice, artistry, vision and leadership of women in the performing arts. Sally has developed, produced and toured over 30 original works through her company Steamworks Arts and is also co-director of MAXIMA.
Sally has worked with companies such as Black Swan Theatre Company, Yirra Yaakin Theatre Company, Perth Theatre Company, Malthouse Theatre, Spare Parts Puppet Theatre, The Flying Fruitfly Circus, The National Institute of Circus Arts, Perth Institute of Contemporary Arts, WAAPA, CIRCA, Performing Lines. Productions of her work have been awarded Helpmann, Green Room, Blue Room, Ausdance WA Awards, Dance Australia Critics Choice.
Sally was a founding member of STRUT: National Choreographic Centre, and is a former member of The Australia Council Theatre Board, a current board director of CAN WA and a member of the Helpmann Awards theatre panel.
Recent credits include MEDEA for Black Swan Theatre Company, world premieres CATCH! (AWESOME Festival) & CONNECT, a sound & video installation for the Asialink/Taipei Artist Village tenth anniversary exhibition, Australian/Taiwan collaboration 歸屬GUI SHU (belong). Online digital dance International collaboration Feminism Has No Borders premiered at The Perth Festival in 2021.
LAUREN VASSALLO
Lauren is an experienced marketing professional, graphic designer, educator and producer with 20 years of involvement with the arts sector. She has a Bachelor of Design (Honours) and a Masters of Design (Research) from UNSW Art & Design, in which she received an Australian Postgraduate Award. Her area of research is the relationship between the performer and dress/costume. Lauren has 11 years of tutoring experience at UNSW as a sessional academic in the design department.
Lauren was the Marketing Coordinator for five years with Ausdance NSW, collaborating with key partners such as the Sydney Opera House, Sydney Dance Company, Accessible Arts, as well as independent dance companies Murmuration, DirtyFeet, ReadyMade and Critical Path. As a freelance artist, she has worked in film productions and has produced an array of live entertainment events.
Lauren recently joined Milk Crate Theatre in the role of Marketing & Business Development Manager and was appointed the program manager for March Dance.
Lauren is very passionate about supporting independent artists and highlighting the strong and original content from NSW and Australia.