This panel discussion is presented as part of the Generative Dancing Roundtable Series 2025, a series of hybrid talks developed in partnership between VCA Dance and Dancehouse.

Sekinin (Responsibility)

Guest Speakers: Guest Speakers: Gracieuse Amah, Irihipeti Waretini and Jackie Sheppard with facilitation by Julie Ann Minaai

Sekinin in Japanese means responsibility – It is taking care of self and others, fulfilling obligations, contributing to the community and building a better world.

A roundtable / panel talk featuring Beninese, Togolese, and French community leader and choreographer Gracieuse Amah, Māori artist Irihipeti Waretini, and First Nations interdisciplinary artist Jackie Sheppard. This discussion offers insights into rituals, cultural and community practices across the arts, community spaces, ecologies, and embodied traditions. Grounded in the lived experiences and artistic work of these established leaders, the dialogue explores how such practices interweave to sustain cultural lineage, support revival and return, and navigate diasporic journeys.

ARTIST BIOGRAPHIES

Gracieuse Amah
Gracieuse Amah, widely known as “KWABO” Grace, is a cultural leader, choreographer, and creative director whose work bridges the worlds of arts, community, and compliance. Of French, Beninese, and Togolese heritage, she uses dance and storytelling as powerful tools for healing, education, and social change. A permanent choreographer for Melbourne’s Public Opinion Afro Orchestra, Grace has performed with icons like Ebo Taylor, Femi Kuti, and Fally Ipupa, and choreographed major events including NGV Triennial Extra 2024 and Honour 2025 at Federation Square.

Founder of KWABO Events and KWABO Festival, Grace champions BIPOC voices through immersive cultural experiences and is a cultural peace broker amplifying the bodies and stories of BIPOC communities. Her latest initiative, the KWABO Art Incubator, a peer-led, multi-artform program running from July 19 to September 21, 2025, nurtures emerging BIPOC talent across dance, singing, spoken word, and photography.

Ausdance VIC board chair, French entertainment lawyer, and senior privacy advisor, Grace merges creativity with strategy, placing cultural safety and inclusion at the heart of her work. Her legacy is one of empowerment, unity, and movement—welcoming all into the rhythm of change.

Irihipeti Waretini
A people and practise weaver of multi-dimensional stories, Irihipeti Waretini is a Māori artist, creative director, and decolonial practitioner whose work navigates the intersection of cultural healing, storytelling, and artistic expression. Drawing from Pasifika wayfinding and Māori epistemology, her projects focus on Indigenous ways of knowing, belonging, and remembrance, blending visual art, sound, movement, and ritual.

Irihipeti’s art explores themes of grief, ancestral connection, and ecological stewardship, with a particular focus on mourning practices and their relationship to the environment. Her bodies of work embrace holistic, cyclical, and relational creative practices that honor both personal and collective histories. She is committed to rematriation, self-determination, and the reclamation of Indigenous cultural sovereignty. Her work is a call to return to the sacred, to heal from colonial trauma, and to reconnect with the land, ancestors, and each other.

A visual and vocal storyteller, her mediums include contemporary Māori art, whakairo (carving), photography, film, soundscapes, live looping, and taonga pūoro (traditional Māori flute). A community cultural development practitioner, she curates repositories of Indigenous methodologies and experiences through various collaborations, creative ventures, and wellness-based practises—providing tools and spaces of learning for the self-determination of the very communities who have fed and raised her and her daughter Marcelina.

Jackie Sheppard
Jackie is an inter-disciplinary performing artist, writer, and storyteller whose practice is grounded in dance, performance, embodiment and ritual. They are a workshop facilitator and practice somatic healing. Jackie has experience as a creative provocateur, cultural consultant and university lecturer. They investigate ancestral and intergenerational narratives through somatic inquiry and exploration of embodied ‘remembrance’. Their work is largely focused on cultural reclamation and revitalisation through storytelling. Selected projects include: The Honouring, a dance theatre production with puppetry and projection supported by Arts House; Wild Australia – Men in Chains roving installation; and a short self-choreographed dance ritual performed at ARTJOG in Indonesia through the Victorina College of the Arts. Jackie has received a literary award for their short-written piece, Ashes to Earth, for the Lord Mayor’s Creative Writing Awards. Their production, The Honouring received a Greenroom Award for ‘Breaking Grounds’, category of Dance. Jackie is currently pursuing a Master of Dance at the Victorina College of the Arts. 

Julie Ann Minaai
Originally from Honolulu, Hawaii, Julie Ann Minaai is an international award-winning dancer, choreographer, rehearsal director, teacher and artist of Japanese heritage. She has trained in both the US and UK, and completed her MA in Contemporary Dance from the London Contemporary Dance School. Julie spent 12 years in the UK and was recognised as an Artist of Exceptional Promise by the Arts Council England. She has toured internationally (UK, US, Norway, Israel, China, South Korea, Colombia & Peru) performing, teaching and creating her own works.  

Since moving to Australia in 2021, Julie has worked with Meryl Tankard AO, Elena Kats-Chernin AO, Regis Lansac OAM, Form Dance Project, Adam Blanch, Configuration Company, Bronwyn Kidd, Carol Brown, Monica Lim, Sunny Kim, Bella Waru, Jackie Sheppard, REMUSE Designs, L2R Dance (Mentor for IGNITING LEGENDS 2022), Multicultural Arts Victoria (RESONANCE 2023, Art Souk 2024), The Bowery Theatre & St. Albans Community Centre, Immigration Museum and Japanese art and music elders and communities (Noriko Tadano, Toshi Sakamoto, and Junko Azukawa).  

Julie is currently a Lecturer in Dance at the University of Melbourne’s Victorian College of the Arts (VCA).  Her interdisciplinary practice explores stories of immigration, cultural identity, and ancestral memory through a Japanese diasporic lens, weaving embodied practices of rhythm, music, ritual, and dance. 

RECORDING

Each roundtable / panel talk will be recorded including the Q&A with the audience.

PARKING

The City of Melbourne has recently changed the parking restrictions around the Southbank Campus. Parking control hours are now expanded to 7am–10pm, seven days per week, and are capped at three hours. A $2-per-hour fee after 7pm is also now in place. There is no change to the $4-per-hour peak rate between 7am–7pm. Parking inspectors are regularly in the area fining drivers who overstay their meter, so we encourage everyone to be aware and avoid an expensive fine.

ACCESSIBILITY

All venues at the Southbank campus are wheelchair accessible. To read more about access services available at our venues, please visit: https://finearts-music.unimelb.edu.au/access-our-events.

IMPORTANT INFORMATION

Please stay home if you feel unwell, even with mild symptoms. Face masks are welcome in all settings for community and personal safety.
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