About Shared Spaces

Vision of Shared Spaces Incorporated

The vision of Shared Spaces Incorporated is to creatively express the power of dance as a tool of change and empowerment. Shared Spaces endeavours to present dance of the highest quality and fosters individual, social and community transformation through dance.

Objectives

• To create new dance languages by embracing a broad range of dance cultures
• To build the capacity of individuals and the wider community by forging relationships between dance and society and to build collaborations between dance and other artistic practices and social and cultural issues
• To access non-western dance forms as source material where the relationship between dance, life and spirituality intersect
• To build a sense of community amongst participants through creative inter-cultural dialogue which breaks down cultural barriers without negating them
• To enable conversations which make visible the languages of the body, including dance, as a way of interpreting and expressing social phenomena

About Shared Spaces Incorporated

Shared Spaces Incorporated is an arts organisation founded in February 2008 and incorporated in September 2008 in Canberra by a group of arts entrepreneurs.

Shared Spaces Incorporated explores the gaps and in-between spaces that position Australian dance in the community.

Inaugural Board of Shared Spaces Incorporated

President Dr Mary Varghese
Mary Varghese is former Assistant Director, International Development, Australian National University. She was a founding member of the board of Padma Menon's Kailash Dance Company in 1992. She was also President of Ausdance ACT and a member of the assessment panel of the ACT Cultural Council

Vice President Jennifer Kingma
Jennifer is an experienced arts administrator with a background in dance. She was the founding Executive Officer of Ausdance ACT and has initiated many large community and professional events, festivals, performances, workshops and forums. She was awarded an ACT Women's Award by the ACT government for services to the arts and was made an Honorary Ambassador for the ACT by the Carnell government. She is completing an MA in communication and professional writing and is an arts writer for The Canberra Times.

Board Members

Padma Menon
Padma Menon has been internationally acclaimed as a dancer and choreographer and has international experience in organising and creating events. She has worked in Canberra, Europe and India developing events and creating works for international festivals. In 2008 Padma Menon, an Australian citizen, returned to Canberra to live. She was artistic director of Utsav 2008 a week long international festival in Canberra with artists from Europe and India

Padma has won awards for her work including The Canberra Times Artist of the Year (1995) and has been on advisory panels of the Australia Council and the ACT Cultural Council. She was one of only three choreographers chosen to represent The Netherlands at the National Dance Summit in Pittsburgh, USA, in 2004. Padma is a published writer and has delivered policy papers on the arts at university and government levels in India and Australia

Dr Katerina Teaiwa (on leave from 15/9/2008- 1/11/2008)
Dr Teaiwa is Pacific Studies Convener and lecturer, Faculty of Asian Studies, College of Asia and the Pacific, Australian National University. She works on developing and promoting an undergraduate major and postgraduate specialization in Pacific Studies. Previously she worked as an Assistant Professor with the Centre for Pacific Islands Studies at the University of Hawai'i at Manoa where she convened the first international Pacific Dance Studies conference- Culture Moves. She is a founding member of the Oceania Dance Theatre in Fiji, and has worked as a consultant with UNESCO on policy regarding culture and dance in the region.

Deb Melaluca
Deb is the Visitor Services and Communication Officer in Parks, Conservation and Lands within the ACT Government. Deb has a passion for the environment and a keen interest in communication, diversity, and the sharing of cultures. She recently completed a certificate in Indigenous studies and works closely with her Aboriginal colleagues. Previously she has worked with children with special needs, families from non-English speaking backgrounds, designed and produced culturally diverse interpretative material for use in childcare and out-of-school-hours centres and worked in the Montessori education system.

Samantha Black

New Board Member from 14/9/2008.  Details will be updated shortly.