Twenty-five years, still curious.
Choreographer, producer and dance educator, with 25+ years in the arts. I direct The Dance Pad and TDP Productions in St Peters, South Australia.
Building the shows, leading the people.
The Dance Pad is my studio, and it's built around performance, not competition. Students learn across a wide range of styles, and they learn what it takes to put work on a stage.
TDP Productions is the producing side. I've produced Adelaide Fringe and cabaret seasons every year since 2015, taking each one from the first idea through casting, rehearsals, venues and budgets to opening night.
I'm also completing a Master of Arts & Cultural Management at Adelaide University, because I care as much about building something that lasts as I do about the work on stage.
Mum of two, happy wife, and still a lover of all things dance.
The business side matters as much as the art.
Running a studio taught me that. So I've turned the systems I use every day into templates for other studio owners: a class profit forecast and a show volunteer kit so far, with more on the way.
They're the real working documents from The Dance Pad, and they're collected in The Studio Owner's Toolkit.
It started with Sleeping Beauty.
I decided I wanted to dance at four, after my mum took me to see Sleeping Beauty. By nine I was being paid to perform, and I've been in the industry ever since.
The work has taken me to Havana, where I taught and choreographed for television, to Shanghai, Beijing and Los Angeles, and to the Edinburgh Fringe. Closer to home, I've taught for years in rural and regional South Australia, where access to dance is the exception rather than the rule. It's some of the work I'm proudest of.
"My job is to make the room work, for the dancers, for the producer, and for the idea. Restraint, mostly. Then the right risk at the right moment."
Warm in the room, clear about the outcome.
I've taught beginners and directed professionals, and the same principle carries across both: people do their best work when they feel safe, stretched and trusted. I bring structure without stiffness, and I'd rather say the honest thing early than smooth it over and pay for it on opening night.
For the record.
A Master of Arts & Cultural Management at Adelaide University is in progress. The rest:
- Bachelor of Arts, Dance Performance2000
- RAD Intermediate Classical Ballet1999
- Associate Diploma of Arts1998
- Cert IV, Training & Assessment2013
- Cert IV, Fitness Leadership1999
- Cert II, Small Business Management2000
- Vocational Education, Business1997
Current clearances
- Working With Children Check
- Child Safe Environments
- National Police Check
- First Aid
- Mental Health First Aid