Board

As a leader in the Australian performing arts and arts education sectors, Jacob has worked with a number of prominent Australian arts organisations including Sydney Dance Company, Bangarra Dance Theatre and Queensland Ballet; has served on a number of boards and committees across the country and worked as a consultant on national dance education programs.

Jacob has produced arts performances of scope and scale, managing teams of artists, and increasing company revenue through marketing, corporate partnerships and philanthropy. He has worked across the emerging, independent, small-to-medium and major performing arts sectors.

While working in the Australian arts industry, Jacob has seen first-hand the positive impact of arts experiences on individuals and communities, and its ability to transform lives and support societal change. In 2022, Jacob was appointed Executive Director at Moorambilla Voices which provides transformative arts experiences for children and youth living in regional and remote Australia, and has a deep commitment to people, land, community and culture.

Before coming to Canberra in October 2020 to take up the role of Director at Ausdance ACT, Dr Adamek was President of Ausdance SA and is currently Vice President at Ausdance National. Cathy has experience of governance prior in the not-for-profit sector.

For Ausdance SA, she was elected by member vote onto a new skills-based board in 2015 and then as secretary in 2016, to steer the organisation from the brink of collapse when federal and state funding ceased. As a voluntarily run defunded organisation this made Ausdance SA responsive to serving the needs and issues of the local dance community, running workshops and children’s events, auspicing Creative Gatherings for the Panpapanpalya World Dance Congress 2018, overseeing 12 dance leaders creating 12 site specific works performed in the RAH and SAHMRI, nominated for a Dept of Cabinet and Premier Ruby Award for Best Community Event.

Cathy worked on the aligned interdisciplinary health science research project at UniSA with Dr Jeff Meiners “How the creative process of dance teaching enables resilience and well-being across generations”. In 2020 she advocated for dance directly to State government, accelerating during the COVID outbreak for the Safe Return to Dance Guidelines to be accepted as a measure for the easing of restrictions for dance studios. Cathy also re-established programming of local independent work by the Adelaide Festival Theatre with local dance organisations The Mill and Dance HubSA where she was associate artist.

Cathy has had a 30-year career as an actor, dancer and choreographer across theatre, feature film, television and voiceover, (AACTA awarded and nominated features: The Nightingale, The Babadook (Essie Davis), Cargo (Martin Freeman), Cut (Kylie Minogue, Molly Ringwald). Recent highlights include choreographer on the Stan series The Tourist and live vision mixer on the 24-hour installation Second Woman for the Adelaide Festival. She’s performed with State Theatre SA, State Opera SA, Australian Dance Theatre and Country Arts SA. She produced and choreographed children’s television (Here’s Humphrey) and was a presenter for NWS Channel 9.

Cathy is a dance theatre maker and director, instigating many award-winning projects and events (Dance Australia Award for Innovation, The Advertiser Weekly Fringe Award for Best Show, Renew Adelaide award for Best Community Event), working on site specific as well as theatre projects and regional and national tours. She has taught screenwriting, media and communication at UniSA Creative for 15 years. She was awarded a doctorate for her thesis on Adelaide Dance Music Culture which is being published as a book by Routledge UK, and has presented seminars and lectures on the topic nationally and internationally.

Isla has broad experience in the dance industry as a performer, teacher and administrator. Originally from Perth, Western Australia, Isla attained a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Dance Performance from the Queensland University of Technology. She later spent six months training and performing in Israel with the Kibbutz Contemporary Dance Company International Dance Program.

Isla is a Basi Pilates instructor, and the director of a boutique Pilates studio in Perth. She is passionate about sharing the benefits of movement in a safe and inclusive environment.

Isla is also a Royal Academy of Dance classical ballet teacher, and was formerly a member of the Royal Academy of Dance Regional Advisory Panel, Perth. During this time she assisted the panel to continue to perform its functions through the COVID-19 pandemic, including the organisation and delivery of the Royal Academy of Dance Festival of Dance, WA.

Outside of the dance and fitness sector, Isla has diverse experience in the legal, not-for-profit and public sector, primarily in the area of industrial relations. She now works in the Western Australian public sector and is completing a Juris Doctor through the University of Western Australia.

Charl brings over 10 years of private client experience to the Ausdance National board. He has firmly established expertise in advising investors, high net wealth family groups, medical professionals, directors and private companies.

Charl provides taxation, accounting and business services. He seeks to understand his clients’ unique accounting and taxation needs in the broader context of their overall investment strategy, financial, family and personal goals. Charl has a particular interest and experience in advising multigenerational family groups on managing and protecting intergenerational wealth through tax effective legal structures.

Experienced in understanding and servicing complex family group investment and business structures, Charl also understands the crucial role that Self-managed super fund (SMSF) structures can play in his clients’ investment and asset protection strategies. He successfully advised his SMSF clients through the landmark changes to the Superannuation Industry (Supervision) Act enacted in July 2017.

Charl believes his key strengths include his detail-oriented and systematic approach, as well as his ability to explain complex financial and tax concepts in a simple, easy to understand manner.

Qualifications and affiliations:
• Bachelor of Economics – University of Sydney
• Member of Chartered Accountants Australia & New Zealand.

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 as Secretary of the World Dance Alliance Asia Pacific. 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 a board director, and remains particularly focused on dance advocacy at the federal level. She has also been nominations coordinator of the Australian Dance Awards, and currently mentors several Australian dance artists.

Natalie Allen is a Boorloo (Perth) based artist, with an extensive and award-winning professional dance career that embodies research, collaboration, performing and touring work by many leading choreographers and companies from Australia and internationally. Her own choreographic work has been performed locally in Perth, regional Western Australia, Adelaide, Taipei, Jakarta and Singapore.

Due to Covid, Natalie returned to Perth in 2020 from Shanghai where she was performing Lady Macbeth in Punchdrunk International’s Sleep No More. In 2021 Natalie premiered a solo show, ‘JULIA’, co-created with Sally Richardson. The same year she returned to Australian Dance Theatre to guest as a dancer in Garry Stewart’s ‘G’. She then returned to Sydney Dance Company to perform in Ohad Naharin’s, ‘Decadance’ for Sydney Festival 2022 and performed and toured ‘Ab Intra’ to France in 2022.

In 2022 Natalie was movement director for the WAAPA 3rd year actors in ‘Caress/Ache’, premiered her new immersive dance theatre work ‘IN CRIMSON’ at All Saints’ College, Bullcreek, WA and performed JULIA at Sydney Dance Company’s Inaugural Dance Festival INDance.

Jane has a long association with Ausdance since moving to Canberra as a dance teacher in the secondary school and private studio sectors. She has made significant contributions to the growth of dance in the ACT secondary College sector (Years 11 and 12) through curriculum development work. Jane has experience on arts boards including Ausdance ACT, the Arts Council of the ACT, Vis-à-vis, The Australian Choreographic Centre and currently, QL2 Dance as Deputy Chair. Her professional work is currently with the ACT Teacher Quality Institute in the area of teacher standards and recognition. Jane now returns to Ausdance National as the Public Officer, having previously held this role when Ausdance first became an Incorporated Association in the 1980s.