Daniel riley, ambassador

Daniel Riley, A Wiradjuri man with ancestral ties throughout Western NSW, is the current Artistic Director of Australian Dance Theatre (ADT) – Australia’s oldest ongoing contemporary dance company based on Kaurna Yerta, Adelaide. He is the sixth Artistic Director in the company’s 60-year history, and the first Blak artist to hold the position. Riley currently sits on the inaugural Creative Australia First Nations Board. He previously served as an Associate on the Board of A New Approach (ANA), Australia’s leading cultural think tank and the Board of Tandanya National Aboriginal Cultural Institute. He is an Honorary Fellow through the Faculty of Fine Arts (Dance) at the University of Melbourne.

Daniel began his contemporary dance journey at Quantum Leap Australia, ACT, and since graduating from Queensland University of Technology (QUT) in 2006 has danced for Leigh Warren & Dancers (2005–06); New Movement Collective, UK (2014); Fabulous Beast Dance Theatre, Ireland (2014); Chunky Move (2019); Bangarra Dance Theatre (2007-2018) and Australian Dance Theatre (2022–23).

Under his directorship at Australian Dance Theatre, Daniel has worked on various initiatives to support the next generation of First Nations dancers, choreographers and artists. Chief among these is the multi-award-winning BLAK FUTURES, which was delivered by ADT in 2024 in collaboration with BlakDance and Adelaide Festival. Through a rigorous consultation process, BLAK FUTURES developed a set of national and local priorities designed to plant the seeds for the future of Blak artistry in the dance sector.

Other arts organisations Daniel has worked for are ILBIJERRI Theatre Company, as Associate Producer (2019–20) and Creative Associate (2020–21), and Moogahlin Performing Arts as a mentor (2021). He was a Board Director for Chunky Move from 2019 to 2021. In 2020 he was appointed as a Lecturer in Contemporary Dance at the Victorian College of the Arts, University of Melbourne, where he launched and led Kummarge, a self-determined mentoring program for First Nations dance students.

Daniel’s choreographic credits include Australian Dance Theatre: The Third (2022), SAVAGE (2022), Tracker (2023, in partnership with ILBIJERRI Theatre Company), THE HUM (2023, in collaboration with The Australian Ballet), Marrow (2024), A Quiet Language (2025); Victorian College of the Arts: WAX (2021), RISE (2020); Louisville Ballet, USA: Tonal (2020), Sacred Shifts (2015); Melbourne International Arts Festival: Tanderrum (2019); Dancenorth: Communal Table (2019); Bangarra Dance Theatre: Dark Emu (2018), Miyagan (2016), BLAK (2013), Riley (2010); Sydney Dance Company: Reign (2015); Third Row Dance Company, UK (2014); QL2 Dance: Hit the Floor Together (2013, 2018); QUT: Twelve Ascensions (2013), Thirteen Ascensions (Twelve Ascension Rework) (2018).

His film credits as Director and Choreographer include mulunma – Inside Within (2021) for RISING: Melbourne & Yirramboi, and ACT V (2021) for The Australian Ballet’s Bodytorque Digital 2021. As a performer, they include Dan Sultan’s Under Your Skin and Stephen Page’s Spear (Bangarra Dance Theatre), in which he worked as Director’s Attachment.

Daniel has been nominated at the Australian Dance Awards (2010, 2013) and for the National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Deadly Awards (2010, 2012 and 2013). He is highly sought after and experienced in conducting masterclasses, facilitating workshops and teaching professional company classes for a range of organisations, educational institutions and dance companies across Australia and around the world.

Daniel Riley became a patron of of Quantum Leap Australia in 2026.

Julie Dyson AM, Patron

Julie (SHE/HER) works in a voluntary capacity as an arts advocate across several national and international organisations, including as immediate past Chair of the National Advocates for Arts Education and as Secretary of the World Dance Alliance Asia Pacific. She is the former national director of Ausdance, where her work included policy development, advice to funding bodies, government departments, companies and individual artists, and the initiation of innovative partnerships to promote and support contemporary dance, performers and educators.

Julie has worked as a volunteer on the dance collections of the National Library of Australia and Ausdance National, and has edited many publications, including Dance Forum, Shaping the Landscape – Celebrating Dance in Australia and Shifting Sands: Dance in Asia and the Pacific. She was awarded the Sidney Myer Performing Arts Award for Administration in 1994, the Ausdance 21 Award for outstanding service to the organisation in 1998, the Australian Dance Award for Services to Dance in 2000 and the Lifetime Achievement Award in 2004. In 2007 Julie was made a Member of the Order of Australia (AM).

Julie continues her work with Ausdance National as a board director, and remains particularly focused on dance advocacy at the federal level. She has also been nominations coordinator of the Australian Dance Awards, and currently mentors several Australian dance artists.

Julie Dyson became a patron of Quantum Leap Australia in 2023.