About - Biography

By uncovering this desire to express and interpret emotions and worldviews through movement, Natalie began exploring a range of interdisciplinary artistic possibilities throughout their secondary schooling, such as visual arts, public art design, architecture, and creative writing. Acknowledging their passion and achievements in the fine arts, Natalie felt challenged on ways to express their thoughts with more rigour and still felt drawn towards movements of the human body and its connection to improving mental states. With this internal discovery, Natalie began actively researching contemporary dance performances and attended one of QL2 Dance’s Quantum Leap Ensemble Performance seasons at the Playhouse, Canberra Theatre Centre in 2021. The performance in question titled ‘REBEL’ explored the theme of freedom of speech, while hinting at issues around civil rights, climate change, and wars. After watching this performance, Natalie felt drawn towards the way movement was able to capture and convey powerful messages where each dancer moved with attentive gaze, determination, and purpose. Taking the inspired mindset from this performance, Natalie began actively attending classes at QL2 Dance in early 2022 and auditioned for all the available performance seasons. During their time at QL2 Dance, Natalie collaborated with and performed in works by Melanie Lane, Ruth Osborne, and Lilah and Steve Gow (Synergy Styles). In addition to performing choreographed works, under the guidance of Ruth Osbourne, Natalie choreographed a trio work titled “Vulnerability of the Individual,” which was recognised in Catapult Dance’s 2022 Hunter Choreographic Awards, and awarded “Excellent Creativity”. These experiences led Natalie to become interested in the collaborative nature of contemporary dance while embellishing in the way young people could come together and express difficult topics through the physicality of movement.