Carole Johnson's legacy is incredible. Carole grew up in Philadelphia, USA where she discovered her love for dance. She trained in ballet under Sydney Gibson King and later with British choreographer Antony Tudor. Carole graduated from the Juilliard School in New York in 1963.

In 1966, Carole joined the Eleo Pomare Dance Company, as a dancer and an important advocate for African-American dance. Carole has danced in works including: The Angels Are Watching Over Me, Construction in Green, From the Soul, as Bessie Smith in Gin, Woman, Distress and as Angela Davis in Jailhouse Blues.

Carole first visited Australia in an important time for the fight for rights and recognition of Australia’s First Nations people. It was in 1972, when the Eleo Pomare Dance Company performed for Adelaide Festival, that Carole was exposed the huge inequities in Australia between First Nation Australians and the rest of the population. While in Adelaide Carole was asked by the Australia Council for the Arts' Indigenous Officer, Jennifer Isaacs, to teach some dance workshops in the significant urban centre for Indigenous Australians, Redfern, Sydney. Carole’s advocacy and activism started in earnest, developing a deep appreciation and respect for Indigenous Australians.

Carole was the founding director of the National Aboriginal and Islander Skills Development Council (NAISDA). Through a deepening relationship formed over a decade Carole worked with Yirrkala people from the Northern Territory and the Lardil people from Mornington Island (Kunhanha). In 1989, Carole founded the now world renowned Bangarra Dance Theatre.

Carole Johnson was inducted into The Australian Dance Awards the Hall of Fame in 1999 for her work with NAISDA Dance College, AIDT and Bangarra Dance Theatre. Carole was also awarded an Australian Government Centenary medal recognising her contribution to Australia’s Indigenous community in 2003.

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Read more about female leadership in dance from Jordan Beth Vincent.

This season produced in partnership with Ausdance Victoria. Delving into Dance is completely self-funded. If you have enjoyed this episode please consider leaving a donation. Contributions keep this little project going strong, and are the only source of funding for this project.

Featured

Dalisa Pigram

‘We value everyone equally, but you know, of course each person has a role to play in the team that's been created, but no one is, you know, less valuable than another.’

Daniel Riley

‘My daughter Billie, she was in rehearsal today. My son Archie grew up the first two or three years of his life, like, on tour with me when I was with Bangarra Dance Theatre and just being in the artistic environment and being surrounded by people is such a beautiful gift, I think, that I can give to them as well.’

Antony Hamilton

‘When I'm making dance and when I think about choreography or art, I often relate my early childhood experiences to the things that I make now as well.’

Alice Topp

‘I guess for a lot of people, ballet is still very much an evolving, developing language. I think people think it was probably stuck in a time and hasn't progressed. But modern ballet is very challenging and arresting and it's finding new ways of working with an old structure.’

Lloyd Newson

I used to say for a long time that I thought the dance was the Prozac of the art forms. […] there is an aesthetic that dominates our work, often complex or ugly or difficult issues are glossed over because people are pointing their feet and look very lovely.

James Vu Anh Pham

“What I love about the dance world is that it has the possibility of bringing together so many different cultures, so many different people, beliefs, ways of thinking, ways of being in a space … we always find a common ground and a way to exist and support one another and to create something really beautiful”

Paul White

“I am totally hooked by collaboration, particularly with friends”

Amrita Hepi

“There is something about sharing something with somebody, or about teaching somebody something that allows space for a conversation that you might not normally have.”

Harper Watters

“I try to make the ballet world a lot more colourful, diverse and a lot more inclusive.”

Mette Ingvartsen

“The fact that the sexual undertone, or the desiring undertone that a lot of dance is operating through, for me it was very important to make it explicit. To actually say ‘okay part of what is happening here is a question of desire, it is a question of being stimulated physically. Then there are many different levels or layers of this happening of course. In my work it was about saying, we have to recognise that these underlying structures are there, and if we recognise it and even expose it explicitly then maybe we can actually look at for something else or question ourselves….”