Meet our new Associate Artist

We’re so pleased to introduce our new Associate Artist, Caleena Sansbury!

Caleena will be working with the First Nations community here at ActNow and we’re excited to see how she influences our programs. We thought you might be interested in hearing about Caleena, her background and her role so we sat her down for an interview.

Tell us a bit about yourself.

My name is Caleena Sansbury. I am a Ngarrindjeri, Nhurrunga & Kaurna woman from South Australia. I am a mother of a beautiful son who is full of energy and curiosity.

My love of dance started from a very young age dancing with my family and doing cultural dance. I grew up going to a youth performing arts centre called Kurruru, formally known as Port Youth Theatre. Here I performed many places around South Australia with a youth dance ensemble. We were also a part of many productions in theatre places like Vitalstatix, where we were a part of a show called Second to None. We were extremely lucky to have so many great opportunities back then, I had no idea of the amazing opportunities we were having as a young person. When I look at it now I think wow, we were doing some amazing things back then.

Fast forward a few chapters. I made the jump to study at NAISDA Dance College which is situated on the Central Coast NSW and is a dance school for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people. I studied the 4 year course, where I graduated with a Diploma in Careers in Dance in 2013.

I then went on to the world of a freelance independent artist. I worked with some really amazing creators, Vicki Van Hout, Thomas E S Kelly, Taree Sansbury (my sister), arts companies such as Insite Arts, Legs on the Wall, and Polyglot Theatre just to name a few. I toured around Australia nationally and parts of the world internationally. I’ve had a remarkable career as an independent freelancer and have worked with some incredible people who are now my extended family.

I will say though my life with my son is the most challenging and grounding experience I have ever had, and with definitely more to come. 

What are you most looking forward to as our new Associate Artist?

I guess I am excited about creating spaces for First Nations artists/youth. Making these spaces more accessible and culturally safe and for it to be set up as a forever thing and not determined by who is governing. The youth are who I really think about and am passionate about. I had such a profound upbringing at Kurruru that I want the future generations to experience what I had. No matter what was happening in my life. Kurruru was always there to pick me up and take me to our performance and rehearsals quite literally. Kurruru had a bus driver (uncle Les) who picked us up and dropped us off. I never even thought that what I was doing at that time was creating work ethic, gaining so much knowledge, experience and confidence because it felt like it was just a part of life. 

So you’re a parent, a dancer, a creative producer and apparently an expert at juggling everything on your plate. How do you find balance? Do you have any tips?

Hahahaha ummmmmm not really!! I actually have no idea how I am doing it either?? I feel like I am still in the midst of figuring it all out.

I definitely have to say that working now has a completely different feel about it and my priorities have completely changed. I was always fairly “free flowing” before I had my son. I just worked to get more experience and never did too well in setting myself up in most areas of my life. Now that I have my son everything is literally about setting him up so he's not struggling when he's older. In a way I feel more grounded even though parenting can be the hardest thing and life gets really hectic. I have something I'm always working towards. I try to make sure that work isn’t the leading thing in my life and parenting and giving my time to my son comes first and remembering that my son is like a sponge and he is watching (and listening) to my every move. He is only 3 at the moment so I try to remind myself that he will be a big kid in a blink of an eye so I have to calm myself and take it all in. In no way I am doing it perfectly though, I’m happily tripping up all over the place.

That’s my tip: just happily be in all the messiness. It’ll all work out! 🙂

If you could be remembered for one thing, what would you want it to be?

I want to be remembered as a loving caring mum to my son who worked her butt off to do everything in my power to show him what it is to be a kind human in this world. To the rest of the humans I’d love to be remembered as a person who saw where the gaps were and filled it! 

If you could bring only 3 things with you to a deserted island, what would you choose?

1. I would bring a tools box — build things with of course

2. Fishing line — catch me food

3. Books — keep me occupied