Imagine, if you will, a world without Art.

Blank walls, no theatre or costumes and silent car trips.

A world without Art for me would be like Ross without Rachel. A notion so bizarre it actually makes me feel sad.

I was lucky to grow up in a family that valued the arts. Early on I learnt the skills of storytelling through dance, acting and music. I was the young girl putting on different voices, reading classics and learning about the lives of authors like Neil Simon and Victor Hugo.

The Arts, then and now, for me was a tool that helped me learn about the world and develop empathy. In fact, drama is the only high school subject that covers the five major traits of 21st Century workers will need:

Communication
Creative thinking
Critical thinking
Personal and social intelligence
Information technology

Acting is not pretending

Acting is not all about pretending or doing make-believe. It’s about understanding people, relationships and psychology so incredibly intimately that you can’t help but feel what another person may feel and do that on stage or screen you go to you share that common humanity.

In Australia however, the Arts plays second fiddle to sports, I’m not against sports, I just think of it as unsophisticated.

A lifelong practice of dance music and drama in the Arts has shaped my life, career and humanity. It’s given me opportunities to travel, a vibrant community of explorative humans and skills to help me become a masterful communicator of my stories and of others.

It’s helped me to think on my feet, think laterally and believe in the power of an ensemble (team) to achieve magic for an audience. Arts helps the people who practice it and an audience reconnect with our own humanity, learn and grow, and that’s priceless.