Welcome to Inspire
In this workshop, you’ll explore the creative process of Amelia Jean O’Leary, through movement, interviews, and curriculum-ready resources designed to support respectful engagement with contemporary First Peoples dance in your classroom.
About Amelia Jean O’Leary
Amelia is a proud First Nations Gamilaroi Yinarr from Northern New South Wales currently living in Naarm (Melbourne). Her dance practice is about human and spiritual experiencing. Through complexity and adversity, she finds ways to tell coded and poetically rich stories. Her dances are personal and personified from her multidisciplinary skills in theatre, film and sound design.
After graduating with a Bachelor of Fine Arts (Dance) from the Victorian College of the Arts in 2021, O’Leary performed and created multiple works including Yinarr (Adelaide Fringe and Dancehouse); A Certain Mumble (Darebin Arts Speakeasy) and STAUNCH ASF (Melbourne Fringe), for which she was awarded Best Emerging Indigenous Artist at Melbourne Fringe 2023, and nominated for a Green Room Award for Pioneering Artistry: Breaking Ground. Amelia also choreographed One Day as part of Melbourne Theatre Company’s First Peoples Young Artists Program at Yirramboi Festival. O’Leary is the artist in residence at Abbotsford Convent and is currently developing multiple new works.
View the workshop
Download your resources
Artist information & curriculum links
Big Heart Story introduction
Embedding First Nations Perspectives in Dance Education
About the Big Heart Story Education Resource
The Big Heart Story Education Resource offers students unique insight into Contemporary First Peoples dance and culture. Developed by Ausdance VIC/NSW in 2018 and updated in 2024, the education resource builds on the themes, stories and issues that lay within the choreography of Big Dance [BIG HEART STORY], choreographed by renowned choreographers Frances Rings and Craig Bary.
The comprehensive education package includes:
- An introduction and general advice
- Detailed unit plan aligned to the Curriculum
- 8-10 lesson plans per unit
- Teaching tips on inclusion and access, safe spaces, warming up and down, working to the strengths of your students, and protocols for Indigenous dance
Acknowledgements
This program was presented in partnership with Dancehouse with the supported of the Department of Education, Victoria, through the Strategic Partnerships Program.
