About the Facilitator

Gretel Burgess has a BA in Communication – Theatre Media and then won a scholarship to complete a year of study in Cultural Theatre and Dance at the Indonesian Art Institute of Pandang Panjang, West Sumatra in 2009. She completed two years of a counselling degree before transferring to a master’s in social work (completed 2015). She has combined her background in the Arts and Health sectors to work with many different groups including, teaching dance classes with asylum seekers on Christmas Island, refugees with the Multicultural Council in Darwin and has facilitated a STEPS program for adults with stroke and acute brain injury through Queensland Health in Cairns. While in Cairns Gretel also worked at ARC Disability where she wrote and facilitated drama and dance programs for people with various psychical abilities.

Gretel has been working in many roles in Canberra over the last five years, including writing and facilitating an arts-based program for the Messengers Program for disengaged teenagers and a Messenger’s parenting program at the Tuggeranong Arts Centre. Gretel has been teaching dance for the Ignite, Belconnen Arts Centre with the Deaf Butterfly dance group, DeafACT. as well as the Dance for Wellbeing program for all mobility levels, dementia, and Parkinson’s at BAC and down at Tuggeranong Arts Centre. Gretel is a performing artist who has been invited to perform in many events including local and national festivals, at the National Art and Portrait Gallery, performances at the Belconnen Arts Centre, local theatres and has toured on shows throughout Australia and abroad. Combing her passion as a performing artist and working in the health sector has led her to create a lived experience, three act dance piece with her daughter, ‘A Stroke of Luck” which opened for three nights and four performances at the QL2 Dance Theatre in February this year with successful reviews.

Gretel is on the board of Canberra Dance Theatre (CDT) and works as a guest teacher for the CDT GOLD over 55-year-old dance class, and teaches workshops for the CDTribe, teenagers with additional needs. Gretel is the social work counsellor at Radford College four days a week and is also currently working on the Canberra Dance Theatre 45^th birthday event as a choreographer and a dance facilitator. She has recently moved out to Binalong, NSW on a property where she is creating a creative arts space bus studio for artists to work out on the property in Binalong.

History
Southern Tablelands Arts have been delivering Dance for Wellbeing classes for many years. Dance for Wellbeing in Yass continues the legacy of the much-loved Dance for Wellbeing program run by STA between 2018-2022 with classes in Goulburn with Liz Barling and in Picton with Bonnie Curtis.

STA Dance for Wellbeing classes in Yasss were founded by Kiri Morcombe who facilitated the classes in 2023. Gretel Burgess took over facilitating the classes in Yass in 2024. 

Dance for Wellbeing is supported by Southern Tablelands Arts, Dance for Parkinson’s Australia and the Aged Persons Welfare Foundation