Ballet became my passion when I was 7
but because I lived rurally I could only attend
class once a week.
and that included a 5hr round train trip,
and sometimes I wouldn't get home until 3am.
Because ballet is about form and physical appearance,
it became quite self absorbing.
The more I sought perfection the more I found myself
struggling with low self worth.
There were many times that I went home in tears,
there was many times I wanted to quit
under the pressure.
Nearing the end of high school I auditioned
for a few dance schools.
But I wasn't accepted into any of them.
So these set backs
only left me with a further
sense of failure and inadequacy.
When I was 17 my parents separated,
I was pretty devastated.
The easiest option was to just give up.
Discipline went right out the door.
I only just passed year 12.
I was so riddled with self doubt and disappointment
that I went through most of my young adulthood
not really knowing where I fitted.
It felt like failure was always looming around the corner
and my dreams and my passions for dance
just became a distant memory.
10 years went by
and I had a loving husband and 3 children,
but I still felt
that loss of identity and that sense of failure.
There was something still missing.
I said one of those prayers,
the ones where you get on your knees and
you say God if you are real
I need you.
It was that prayer that changed my life.
I had an experience with God
that I will never forget.
Uncontrollable tears suddenly began
streaming down my cheeks
and it was like he touched my shoulder.
and it was in an instant that fear and that doubt
began to dissolve.
and that real sense of
coming alive, feeling whole
started to happen for the first time in my life.
I had a real deep hunger then
to know who this God was.
So one night I was at home at my table and
I was reading and praying.
I remember having a sense of knowing
it was like an understanding
that I was going to dance again.
I hadn't even told my husband I used to dance.
Very few people understood or appreciated
my re-discovered passion.
I didn't realise how much a part of me
dancing was,
I'll never forget my first lesson coming back.
At the end we did a traditional reverence
and I gave thanks to God.
It was in that moment that I realised that dancing
had a much bigger purpose
than I had ever known
and I was about to go on a journey
to discover what that was.
Over the 7 years I was growing and changing,
my identity was being restored.
I received honours for my ballet teachers exam.
It was at this time than that I started
to ask myself some deep questions.
What was I created specifically to do
what did I want to do with dance?
So I started to choreograph performances
that brought social justice to audiences awareness.
To pioneer a way to contend for a persons destiny.
Issues along the lines of human trafficking.
Finding my own voice
has never been something that came easy
so I never imagined that I could be
a voice for anyone else.
But I've recently taken my first dance
theatre performance to Cambodia.
Victims of sex trafficking
have been given no freedom whatsoever.
So to be given permission to move or to dance
to express how you feel is incredibly liberating
because than they can feel valued,
heard, and understood.
Telling their story through dance,
they find the pathway back to Him
in body soul and spirit.