Company Members
Director | Choreographer | Dancer
Tamsyn Heynes, born in Cape Town, raised in Boorloo, is profoundly moved by music, art and nature. She seeks to express poetic movement through dance, with a special focus on eco-arts, sustainability, environmental and civil justice.
Tamsyn trained at the prestigious Marie Walton-Mahon Academy, and the West Australian Academy of Performing Arts ( WAAPA) under Nanette Hassall and Marilyn Jones. She regards her private training with Prima Ballerina Assoluta - Dame Lucette Aldous AC and ballet training industry giant - Marie Walton-Mahon OAM, as invaluable and a privilege. She was accepted with full sponsorship by South African Ballet Theatre (now Joburg Ballet) to join their graduate programme while in 2nd year of WAAPA, and went on to perform with them professionally. Tamsyn was also offered a Rotary scholarship to tour Germany.
The growing body of artistic collaborations at home and abroad reflect the mindful approach that permeates Tamsyn's practice. As well as staging independent stage productions, she has been fortunate to choreograph for music performances/videos for local artists (some of which are local and international award winning), and has been involved with various visual art projects. Her collaborations have included those with music, circus, academic, writing, audiovisual and visual art backgrounds
Tamsyn is committed to creating issues-based works through collaboration and strong developmental processes, with a focus on eco art. Her primary medium is ballet
She is a lifelong practitioner of yoga and meditation, and an Usui Reiki healer. Tamsyn is also a student of History, on the path the Juris Doctor at the University of Western Australia, and a co-editor at Green Issue - the editorial magazine for Greens WA. She is a member of UNESCO - International Council of Dance
(Image: Brett Canet-Gibson)
Dancers
Sarah Hepburn is a Perth dancer who began her training at Stevens Dance Academy when she was 3 years old. After graduating from the Advanced Diploma ballet course at WAAPA, Sarah was offered a position at West Australian Ballet as the company's first Young Artist. After 4 weeks with WAB Sarah was promoted to corp de ballet and then after another 5 years performing with the company she was promoted to soloist. During this time Sarah performed many principal roles including Bianca in Taming of the Shrew, Juliet in Romeo and Juliet, Giselle in Giselle, Lise in La Fille Mal Gardee, Snow White in Snow White, Swanilda in Coppelia, Clara and Sugar Plum in Nutcracker, Cinderella in Cinderella, Blue Bird in Sleeping Beauty as well as many lead roles in more modern works by choreographers like David Dawson, Jiri Kylian, George Balanchine, Jayne Smeulders, Paul Lighfoot, Natalie Weir and Kim McCarthy, to name a few.
Sarah has also performed the principal roles with Perth City Ballet for Cinderella, Sleeping Beauty, Don Quixote, A Midsummer Night's Dream, Picnic at Hanging Rock, Swan Lake and Giselle.
Sarah retired from the West Australian Ballet at the end of 2018. In early 2021 she continued dancing as a freelance dancer and performs regularly with the Candlelight Ballet alongside the musicians from Australian Baroque. She also enjoys spending more time with her young family and teaching and inspiring the next generation of ballerinas.
Jess Cruse, Boorloo/Perth dancer. My life is a balance between three pillars that bring me joy and a sense of success. These being, work, passion and connection.
I work at a social services not for profit organisation, I indulge in my passion for dance through teaching, performing and choreography and I value and work on the connections that I have with friends and family around me every day.
I always thought that success was only reached through perfection. Specifically in dance I always found my passion to be aligned with the aesthetics and precision that it demands. While this is still true, I also find the joy and beauty in the imperfections and vulnerability that dance can portray.
In my current pursuits as a performer and choreographer I have found that living my life around these three pillars has helped me to ground myself as a dancer . I strive to find the joy in my movement with the balance of precision, and vulnerability and I hope to express this through my performances, my choreography and the way I teach, in the hopes of empowering others to find the same fulfilment.
Xin Hui Ong. Born in Singapore, Xin has made Boorloo (Perth), Australia home. She has also lived in Canada, Israel and the UK. She moved to Australia to pursue medicine, but discovered that the root cause of many health issues faced by developed countries today is a lack of connection; to place, to purpose, to each other and to our own bodies. This can be more readily addressed through engagement with the arts; in particular, dance, a nexus between physicality and human connection.
Since 2017, Xin has pursued the arts full-time, training at Ev & Bow, Kibbutz Contemporary Dance Company and the Western Australian Academy of Performing Arts, where she completed her Bachelor of Performing Arts (Honours) thesis with First Class Honours looking at how to hold space for psychological safety and peak performance within interdisciplinary collaboration.
As a performer, Xin has presented repertoire of Mats Ek, Hofesh Shechter, Rami Be'er, Crystal Pite, and Jiří Kylián amongst others, as well as performed in new creations by Léa Bessoudo-Greck, Heather Myers, Kay Huang Barnes, Brent Rollins, Leah Sellwood and others. Xin has also performed in improvisatory works such as Adelaide X at Adelaide Fringe Festival and Noiseroom at The Blue Room Theatre.
(Image: David Cooper)
Minni Karamfiles (she/her) is an independent dance artist based in Perth (Boorloo) WA. Minni’s dance ventures began at the age of 3 training in ballet (Royal Academy of Dance) and contemporary until the age of 16 under Melissa White at the Studio of Classical and Contemporary Dance. She continued her training by moving to Perth and being accepted as a Steps Youth Dance Company member and performing in their 25th anniversary season ‘Fights and Flights’ in 2014. The following year she completed a year of fulltime ballet training at the Perth School of Ballet and with Co3 as a youth dancer performing in the company’s first performance season and launch in ‘Toros’ by Raewyn Hill in 2015. After graduating the West Australian Academy of Performing Arts (WAAPA) with a Bachelor of Arts in 2018 she has worked as an independent choreographer, performer, and teacher. She is passionate about interdisciplinary crossover with dance involving photography, textile, and visual art.
In 2020 she produced and presented the dance film ‘1000 Layer Cake’ and performed in ‘Flower and Skin’ by Giorgia Schijf for Fringe World Festival Perth.
Minni the assistant director of Enneagon movement, a local dance theatre collective that was founded in 2021 and since its foundation the syndicate has produced and presented multiple works. She co-choreographed ‘Pursuit’ under the award-winning State of Play program through State Theatre Centre of Western Australia (STCWA) in 2021 and in the following year she then performed in the reworked version under Giorgia Schijf which received an award for Dance and Physical Theatre.
Alongside Schijf, the pair developed and presented ‘Ignorance is (was) Bliss’ (IWB) at Short Cuts under Strut Dance WA in 2022. In the year following they presented the reworked and full length IWB at the State Theatre Centre of WA under State of Play which won an award in Dance and Physical Theatre. In 2022 the duo presented their first development of ‘Hyperfantasia’ at Enneagon Movement’s ‘Pilot’ which is a fresh platform the collective has launched to support and platform emerging artists and choreographers. Just recently in May 2024 their fully produced site-specific version of IWB was presented at the Liberty Theatre.
Continuing her passion for teaching and education, Minni began working with the West Australian Ballet in 2023 as a teaching artist throughout Perth, the lower south-west and Pilbara regions facilitating dance workshops, masterclasses and choreographing for their Youth Dance Collective 2024.
(Image: Meiji Nguyen)
Jacinta Andersen began her dance journey at age 3, soon finding a love for ballet and contemporary as her training progressed. She went on to study full-time with Perth Classical and Contemporary Coaching, then moving to Melbourne to train full-time at Ballet Theatre Australia under the direction of Leeanne Rutherford. Here, she trained in the Vaganova style and attained a Diploma of Dance (Elite Performance).
In 2018-2019, she moved to the USA to dance with Mystic Ballet, diversifying her artistry with predominantly contemporary repertoire.
After a European tour, Jacinta concluded her season abroad and moved back to Perth, where she began teaching for Perth Classical and Contemporary Coaching. Jacinta has taught in several schools across Perth and the South-West since 2020 to present, choreographing and coaching students in classical and contemporary styles.
In addition to her experience as a dancer and teacher, Jacinta is a certified personal trainer, and is passionate about the benefits of strength training for dancers. Jacinta has an undergraduate degree in psychology, and is currently continuing her studies to become a sports psychologist. In the future, she aims to work with dancers and dance schools to improve wellbeing and mental health outcomes, supporting dancers to have long-lasting, healthy and fulfilling careers. Jacinta stays connected to dance through taking classes, teaching, and applying her knowledge of fitness and psychology to the dance world