In 2013 I was invited by the then CEO Lynne Williams to come to NIDA as Senior Lecturer in Acting to lead with intracultural practice and look at diversity across the whole school. This was a very unusual, bold and innovative invitation from Lynne and she was good to her word and allowed me to lead with a practice which plays with difference. In so doing she also asked me to look at the effect this practice had more widely on the culture of the institution. I worked for three years ground up with the students and in those three years was part of a team which enhanced the diversity of the acting student cohorts tenfold. To be able to work consistently with this practice over three years with student groups was a joy. I saw an equity beginning to emerge in every aspect of training and very importantly the canon of work began to offer all students roles big and small where meaningful representations were being made. With students growing the sense of themselves rather that a sense of what is was to be the perfect NIDA student, they became politicized and looked forward to the moment on graduation when they could begin to make their own work, starting from their own communities. It was a rare opportunity and one that I will always be grateful for. For the whole three years, I was learning alongside my students and that was the greatest gift.
Life Can Change in a Heartbeat, The Australian Film Theatre and Television School 2023
The Season at Sarsparilla by Patrick White, RADA
Capricornia by Louis Nowra, RADA
Applied Theatre Elective at NIDA with students in their second year of study., RADA
Blood Wedding by Federico Garíca Lorca, adaptation Ted Hughes, RADA
Caravan Serail - devised & scripted by Theatre du Soleil, RADA
The Serpents Teeth by Daniel Keene, RADA
Intracultural practice in the classroom
