Dr. Laura (Amara) Osweiler is a dancer, choreographer, teacher, producer and scholar from the USA now in Sydney, Cammeraygal country.
As a Classic American belly dance and MENAHT folk dancer, Laura has performed as a soloist and in dance companies in Los Angeles, Las Vegas, Austin and Sydney. For fifteen years, Laura was the Director of Ya Helewa! Dance Company and regularly collaborates with dancers, dance/theatre companies, musicians and artists.
As a leading innovator in Contemporary Middle Eastern dance, Laura’s works have been presented at international events and on video. Many of her dances explore the identity of Middle Eastern dance. Her current works interweave dance, movement, film, music, audio description and health and employs communication technologies to support access and engage with audiences in different locations.
Laura is contracted by organisations as an access advocate to audit and implement disability plans. She also works with artists with disability as a mentor and to develop their project management tools and infrastructure.
Laura has taught accredited university courses and regularly teaches workshops at festivals and online. She has produced numerous dance concerts and festivals including An Evening of Experimental Middle Eastern Dance (LA), X-MED (LA and Austin) and The Austin Belly Dance Convention. She was also Assistant Producer of Dance for Parramasala Festival and General Manager at Critical Path.
Laura holds a PhD in Dance History and Theory from UC Riverside and a BA in Music History and Literature and a certificate in Ethnomusicology from The Florida State University and worked on an MA in Dance Ethnography and MFA in Dance Performance at UCLA.
