Julia is a graduate of the Royal Ballet School Teachers’ Training Course Diploma in Ballet Teaching and has a 46-year dance teaching career encompassing running her own large dance school and youth performance company and freelance dance teaching and choreographing at private studios, full-time vocational courses and university dance performance and teacher training programmes. Julia continues to teach freelance and as a guest teacher in Sydney, Newcastle and throughout Australia. She is passionate about dancer wellness and creating positive and safe dance experiences for students of all ages and levels of education and training.

Julia is a Life Member, Registered Teacher and Examiner for the Royal Academy of Dance (RAD) and holds the Academy’s Advanced Teachers’ Diploma. She is also a Practical Teaching Supervisor and Tutor for the RAD Faculty of Education Certificate, Diploma and Postgraduate programmes and has recently become an Approved Tutor for the new RAD Assistant Teacher Award. Julia has additional teaching qualifications in Benesh Movement Notation, Pilates Matwork and ISTD Imperial Ballet, Cecchetti Ballet, Modern Theatre and National Character Dance.

In 2021 Julia completed a Master of Philosophy at Queensland University of Technology (QUT) researching adolescent dancer wellness in elite pre-professional dance schools and private dance studios. Julia also has a Master of Creative Industries (Dance Teaching) from QUT (2008) and a Postgraduate Certificate in Higher Education (Teaching and Learning) from Macquarie University (2013). Julia has presented regarding her research and teaching strategies at three RAD Conferences in Australia and at the International Association for Dance Medicine and Science (IADMS) Sydney Regional Meeting. Julia was also Chair for three years of the Industry Advisory Committee for Auckland University of Technology’s BDance programme and has experience as a contributor to dance magazine articles and as a dance performance reviewer. Julia is currently on the Executive Committee of the Australian Society for Performing Arts Healthcare (ASPAH).

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Louise Drysdale is a dance physiotherapist and PhD Candidate at the University of Canberra. Her research is focused on understandinng and preventing bone stress injuries in classical ballet.

She trained at Queensland Dance School of Excellence before completing a Bachelor of Physiotherapy in 2012. She also holds a Master of Medical Research from Griffith University.

Louise has worked in clinic (and backstage behind several unusual pieces of set) with dancers of many genres, including youth ballet companies, touring musical theatre productions and dancers of Queensland Ballet and Queensland Ballet Academy.