Stephanie Petersen

Australian dancer Stephanie Petersen, has been a member of the American Ballet Theatre, HET National Ballet and The Australian Ballet. Notable performances include the principal role of "Myrta" queen of the Wilis in American Ballet Theaters’ Giselle, Jerome Robbins’ “Afternoon of a Faun” and Christopher Wheeldon’s “After The Rain” with The Australian Ballet.
In 2009 Stephanie was a guest artist with Christopher Wheeldon’s Morphoses, performing principal roles in “Commedia” and “Fool’s Paradise” and in that same year she became the youngest ever winner of The Australian Telstra Ballet Dancer of the Year award and people’s choice award.
Stephanie won the Gold Medal at the 10th Asian Pacific International Ballet Competition in Tokyo (2005) and upon graduating from The Australian Ballet School performed Odette/Odile in Swan Lake.

Chimene Steele-Prior

Originally from Darkinjung Country, Chimene has worked as a performer with an array of independent artists and companies. Most recently, Chimene performed in Project Animo’s inaugural season in 2022 in works by Alice Topp, Cass Mortimer-Eipper, Izzac Thomas and in solo work In Real Life by Kristina Chan. Chimene joined Australasian Dance Collective in 2023 for Lucie in the sky, by Amy Hollingsworth and in 2024, she was engaged to perform Future Cargo by Requardt and Rosenberg (UK) throughout the Adelaide Fringe Festival. Chimene worked extensively with Opera Australia between 2011-2021, touring throughout Australia and China. Chimene’s choreographic work has been presented at the National Gallery of Australia, the National Gallery of Victoria, the Lawler Theatre, Dancehouse, Melbourne Fringe Festival Hub and the Winter in Banyule Festival. Her solo work INFORMATION II was nominated for a Green Room Award for Concept and Realisation in 2015. Recently, Chimene has been exploring larger scale choreographies on students at Transit Dance, NICA, and Albert Park College. Chimene is a Certified Counter Technique Teacher and is passionate about facilitating dancers’ connection to joy and trust in their own bodies.

Jessica Thompson

Jessica trained at the Australian Ballet School and holds an Advanced Diploma of Dance (2003). She has danced as a company artist with The Australian Ballet and Sydney Dance Company, touring extensively throughout Australia, Europe, the UK, the USA, South America and New Zealand. In 2011 she was awarded an Ian Potter Cultural Trust Grant to undertake artistic development in Europe and India. Her performance repertoire is vast and includes works by George Balanchine, Rudolph Nureyev, Krzysztof Pastor, Kenneth McMillan, Stanton Welsh, Rafael Bonachela, Graeme Murphy, Stephanie Lake, Alexander Ekman, Gideon Obarzanek, Lee Serle, Gabrielle Nankivell, Alice Topp and Jacopo Godani. In 2023 she performed as a guest artist with The Australian Ballet as part of their 60th birthday celebration seasons in Melbourne and Sydney. She also collaborated Yuiko Masukawa in creation and performance of her work “Yugen” for Frame festival in Melbourne. She is committed to honesty and sustainability in her relationship to environment, community and history through the expressive capacity the body and approaches dancing as medium for embodied presence offering endless possibilities for intimacy, freedom and human connection.