Brooke Cassen: Different Dreams

Brooke Lockett, as she was known throughout her career, grew up in Ballarat and had a dream run to the stage.

Shaun Parker, King-Maker

Shaun Parker's path to artistic director and choreographer of an internationally renowned contemporary dance company is totally unexpected.

Danielle Rowe, New Frontiers

Danielle Rowe on her international career, choreography, family life, and how she became the first female artistic director of Oregon Ballet Theater.

Man in the Mirror

Talking Pointes Season 3

Signing and Dancing with Emma Memma

Welcome back to Talking Pointes. This season we're back with another 10 beautiful conversations with some of the world's most extraordinary dancers, choreographers, and artistic directors. I'm your host Claudia Lawson. For our summer season bonus episode, we're catching up with the divine Emma Watkins. In season one, Emma and I spoke about her life growing up in Sydney. We spoke about her early dance years, about injuries and auditions, and then being selected to be the first ever female Wiggle. We spoke about Emma's passion for Auslan, her PhD, and we also spoke about love, surviving endometriosis, and fertility....

Talking Pointes: Summer Season

Congratulations to Talking Pointes, bronze medal winner of Best Arts & Culture podcast for the Australian Podcast Awards. To celebrate, we are revisiting conversations with our guests from Season One, including David Hallberg, Emma “Wiggle” Watkins, Frances Rings, and many more.

Talking Pointes: Bronze Medal for Best Arts & Culture Podcast

We are thrilled that Talking Pointes Season One was awarded the bronze medal for Best Arts & Culture podcast at the Australian Podcast Awards on November 21, 2022. We would like to thank our whole team, including host Claudia Lawson, Output Media, Sawtooth Studios and all our wonderfully generous guests for helping to create this special podcast.

David Hallberg, One Year On

For our bonus episode this season, we’re catching up with the Australian Ballet’s Artistic Director David Hallberg. Last season, David and I spoke about his life growing up in South Dakota, being bullied, training at the Paris Opera, becoming principal at American Ballet Theatre, and being the first American to be invited to dance with the Bolshoi Ballet in Russia. We talked about climbing back from his epic injury, his head space at that time, before taking over the Artistic Directorship of the Australian Ballet right in the middle of Covid. A year later we talk about what it's been like to...

Paul Mercurio: A life lived in fear is a life half-lived

30 years ago this year, a small independent film, by a first time director, and an unknown cast, hit our screens. That film was Strictly Ballroom. And so, for our final episode of Season 2 of Talking Pointes, I’m speaking with the legendary Paul Mercurio. Paul was born in Swan Hill in regional Victoria and started dancing after he saw his elder sister in a local dance class. With dad off the scene early, the family moved to Perth where Paul continued to train at the John Curtin Senior High School as it was known then, before, at 18, being accepted in the Australian Ballet School in...

Jenna Caley, Born to Dance

Today I’m speaking with the divine Jenna Roberts. Jenna grew up in Newcastle and started dancing only because a local ballet studio set up shop on the same street as her family home. But as fortune would have it, that local studio happened to be the Marie Walton Mahon Dance Academy, as it was known back then. And so Jenna, and little sister Callie, started dancing. For any outsider, it was clear the Robert’s sisters were born to dance—with high arches and long, lean legs, genetics almost pre-determined their careers. By the time Jenna was a teen, she was winning...

Beau Dean Riley Smith, Stories to Tell

Today I’m speaking with Beau Dean Riley Smith. Beau was born on Wiradjuri Country in Dubbo, Western NSW. But as a little kid the family moved to Culburra on the NSW South Coast where Beau spent his childhood surrounded by siblings, love and chaos while growing up at the beach. Beau didn’t learn to dance as a kid, instead he studied drama in high school, before being accepted into the performance program at WAPPA—the Western Australian Academy of Performing Arts in Perth.