Saturday 25th August | 7pm
Sunday 26th August | 2.30pm
National Theatre
20 Carlisle St, St Kilda VIC 3182

MELBOURNE

NGIOKA BUNDA-HEATH

Ngioka Bunda-heath is Wakka Wakka, Ngugi from Queensland through her Mother and Biripi from New South Wales through her Father.

Ngioka completed her Advanced Diploma in the Performing Arts. Majoring in Dance at the Aboriginal Centre of the Performing Arts in Queensland. While studying she had the amazing opportunity to work with Leah Purcell, Gale Mabo, Tammie Gesell, Gina Rings, Elise May and Penny Mullin.

Outside of her studies Ngioka participated in secondments with Sydney Dance Company and Bangarra Dance Theatre. Where she was fortunate enough to learn company repertoire from Rafael Bonochela, Amy Hollingsworth and Stephen Page. She was also involved in the creative rehearsal process of Expressions Dance Company’s performance of R&J by Natalie Weir.

Ngioka completed her Bachelor of Fine Arts (Dance) at the Victorian Collage of the Arts and is the first Aboriginal Women to graduate from the university in her field. While studying she worked with the amazing Fiona Cameron, Vivienne Rogis, Becky Hilton, Prue Lang, Jacob Boehme, Frances Rings, and Lina Limosani.

Ngioka has travelled overseas, dancing in Noumea, New Caledonia with Compine Maado, Banff in Canada as apart of the International Indigenous Dance Residency and took part of the World Dance Allience in France. She also just performed in Los Angeles as a part of the International Association of Blacks in Dance Conference and Festival.  

After graduating VCA, Ngioka accepted a traineeship with Bangarra Dance Theatre teaching in rural Victoria with their Youth Education Program called Rekindling and has been performing and teaching Hip Hop dance in Melbourne and remote communities all around Australia with the Indigenous Hip Hop Projects. 

Ngioka also performed Divercity a choreographed work by Mariaa Randall for both Dance Massive, YIRRAMBOI First Nations Arts Festival and APAM the Australian Performing Arts Market.

More recently Ngioka has been developing her first choreographed work into a full length Contemporary piece, tilted Blood Quantum. Blood Quantum is being developed at Arts House in Melbourne as apart of the Indigenous Choreographers Residency and through an Arts House Seeding Grant in 2018.