Everyday Dancers

Christa Moritz is a truly creative dancer, someone that isn’t afraid to draw outside the lines and express things differently through movement. Like her most known and loved dance style which is locking, her energy and vibe looks really happy and carefree. When I first met Christa the way she danced helped me to be more open minded about what you could do with dance. A few years ago though Christa had a stroke, following an automobile accident where she was hospitalised and told she would never be able to walk again. Christa proved them wrong, not only learning to walk but dance again too. Fear hasn’t stopped her moving and she continues to inspire others to move.

PJ is a cool, creative cat. He draws and paints, dances in his own unique way, makes interesting performance based works and a bunch of other stuff too.  He's always got ideas and likes to experiment. If you're ever in Melbourne town he's definitely someone to have a yarn with. 

Note: Unfortunately due to some technical difficulties there is a short break in the audio around 21 minutes in where the line dropped out and where we had to reconnect.

Thanks for tuning in! 

Karla Mathieson is a wonderful human being and dancer. She is super creative and channels her creative energy in lots of different areas from graphic design and art through to popping and roller dance. Her adventures in dance has taken her from a small town in the south of NZ through to Melbourne and even all the way to Korea. Karla had what some might call a traditional start in dance by learning styles like ballet and tap and even flamenco at a young age but where’s she’s taken her dance is vastly different from where she started. Am grateful to have Karla on this episode of everyday dancers to share her story with us. Hope you find it as interesting, inspiring and humbling as I did. 

Note: Due to some technical issues, the interview got cut halfway and have had to post this in two seperate parts. Here's part 2 of the part 2 series on Karla.

Karla Mathieson is a wonderful human being and dancer. She is super creative and channels her creative energy in lots of different areas from graphic design and art through to popping and roller dance. Her adventures in dance has taken her from a small town in the south of NZ through to Melbourne and even all the way to Korea. Karla had what some might call a traditional start in dance by learning styles like ballet and tap and even flamenco at a young age but where’s she’s taken her dance is vastly different from where she started. Am grateful to have Karla on this episode of everyday dancers to share her story with us. Hope you find it as interesting, inspiring and humbling as I did. 

Note: Due to some technical issues, the interview got cut halfway and have had to post this in two seperate parts. Here's part 1, go to the next episode to hear the continuation of Karla's story in part 2. 

Simon MacAdams is a dancer, meditation practitioner, yogi and musician. Simon is based in Melbourne and first started dancing at clubs in Canada before finding popping and later contemporary dance, 5 rhythms, somatic practises and other dance forms. His approach to  his art is very wholistic and in this interview he draws parallels between his spiritual/meditation/yogi practise to his understanding and expression of dance and music. It was great to chat to Simon and understand more about the way he approaches and understands dance as well as his other practices. 

Jo Lin is one of the most generous dancers I've met. The way he is able to be present for and give space to another dancer while being attentive, thoughtful and caring is really beautiful to watch. I'd also describe Jo's dance as honest, fun, unexpected and daring. After this interview I discovered that Jo is not only a contact improvisation dancer and improvisational dancer but that he has also been a student and teacher of tai chi before even beginning  dance. Check out the instagram page to see some footage of Jo's exploration into intergenerational contact improvisation.

Andre Widjaja aka Jazzy Dre is one of the funkiest dancers to watch. He currently resides in Melbourne in Australia and has a real love of funk music and funkstyles dance, namely Popping and Boogaloo, Locking, Party Dances and Soul Dance. Originally from Sydney, Dre has been around the street dance scene in Australia since about 2003 and has followed his love of funkstyle dance to different parts of Australia and across the globe. Loving to jam with others at parties and get down to live music, he definitely captures the essence of funk and is an everyday dancer at heart. 

Jackie Laso is a powerful dancer accomplished at many dance styles including vogue, house, hip hop and waacking. In this episode of Everyday Dancers she tells us about her influences from the 80s,  her time in New York: living, partying and taking class from OGs and how she came to learn voguing and contribute to the vogue scene in Sydney. Get set as Jackie takes us on a few of her dance journeys and stories from her past. 

Geraldine Balcazar is a generous dancer with a background in contemporary dance, performance art, yoga and other dance forms. She refers to movement, rather than dance as part of her practise and is interested in making dance available to a wider audience. More recently she has studied and worked with concepts from body mind centering by Bonnie Bainbridge Cohen and has been looking after her one year old son Max after moving to the North Coast of NSW. In this interview she talks about how she got into dance, why she chooses to frame her practise around movement, her influences and what she's more focused on in her dance at present. Hope you enjoy listening to this interview with this lovely human being. 

Jonathan Ng aka @thecoolestkid (on Insta) is a sydney based B-Boy, who is part of the crew Breakin Borders. He takes a different approach to dance than most street dancers, adopting a more holistic health based approach which includes a vegan lifestyle amongst other things. A strong, fun and interesting character. 

“Dance allows me to bring out those expressions through movement.”
You can usually find Karen Otero aka Kaz @..... making lots of fun angles, lines and shapes in her dance. She’s a versatile dancer that knows a variety of different street styles including popping, hip hop, waacking and voguing

She loves colours, big earrings and fashion and is a great human being.

In our first edition of Everyday Dancers we introduce you to Laura J White who loves music and dance. She organises a community based dance night in Sydney with two other people called Freedom Sessions. She’s a keen lover of music of all types, loves dancing and is a great person to know. Friendly, kooky and loves supporting others in their creative pursuits.