Julia began her career as a classical dancer with The Australian Ballet, later joined contemporary dance company Australian Dance Theatre and was a founding member and co-director of Etcetera, a visual performance group appearing in festivals in Australia, Canada, Singapore and the United Kingdom. As a choreographer Julia has worked with Company B Belvoir – Frogs (directed by Geoffrey Rush), Sydney Theatre Company – The Way of the World (directed by Gale Edwards), Kim Carpenter’s Theatre of Image – Exotic Pleasures and The Gypsy Boy and The Australian Ballet – Super Man. Julia was the director of Etcetera’s In Which Case and co-director of For Example and Etcetera Incorporated. She performed with Marilyn Wood’s Celebrations Group and directed Bitumen Street Theatre for the Adelaide Festival of Arts; Spare Parts Puppet Theatre for the Perth International Festival; and was Artistic Director of Australian Theatre of the Deaf where she directed Savant, Language of One and Shape Up.
Julia worked at NIDA for 15 years first with esteemed movement teacher Keith Bain OAM and then on his retirement she became Head of Movement for the Acting Department and the post-graduate Movement Studies course. As well as choreographing many theatre productions at NIDA Julia also directed Ionesco’s Man with Bags, physical theatre productions Out of Reach, Footprints, In Transit, Time’s Up and Hypothetically and co-directed Nick Enright’s Country Music for the opening of the Parade Theatre. She currently teaches for the NIDA Corporate Performance Program.
Since leaving NIDA in 2009 Julia has worked for Company B Belvoir as choreographer on The Book of Everything (directed by Neil Armfield), was Movement Director on Savages for Darlinghurst Theatre Company and Theatre of Image’s Little Beauty for the National Portrait Gallery. She wrote, directed and choreographed Backstage at the Ballets Russes for the National Gallery of Australia. In 2018 she devised, wrote and directed Gone… for the Kambala Senior Production and worked as Movement Coach on Venus in Fur for NIDA student productions.
In 2010 Julia was instrumental in the editing, publishing and launch of the book Keith Bain on Movement. She was acting Head of Movement at WAAPA in 2012 and 2013 and became Head of Movement at Actors Centre Australia in 2015 where she worked on devised projects with Anthony Skuse and directed Movement productions for the students.In 2016 Julia completed a Master of Creative Arts-Research degree at the University of Wollongong.
