Dance Animateur: Kelly Beneforti

Involved in various ways with facilitating community participation, dance and choreographic skill development, and the creation and direction of performances.

Contact Kelly Beneforti

Kelly is an exemplar of a Tracks company member. As Dance Animateur at Tracks, Kelly brings with her a diverse and extensive creative history with the company for over 10 years, as well as experiences from interstate and overseas. Her artistry is broad in scope, and rigorous in application, and her ability to work across the Territory with many different dancers, cultures, ages, and styles is well known and respected. Kelly also maintains her practice as an Independent dance artist, collaborating with artists, arts organisations, school students and community groups, both locally and interstate.

Initially Kelly became involved with Tracks as a youth dancer, leading into a youth leadership program where she performed, taught, and toured to the Philippines on a research trip. Kelly went on to complete a Bachelor of Dance at the Victorian College of the Arts in Melbourne (2011), returning to work with Tracks on a project basis with the Milpirri project in 2012. Kelly took up the Dance Animateur role in 2015 after being mentored into the position by previous Animateur Jess Devereux. Kelly leads the Choreographic Development Program at Tracks, curates the Fresh Tracks program of new and experimental dance work presented at the Darwin Fringe Festival, and continues to perform at a professional level in Tracks productions.

Kelly has been an ArtStart recipient (Melbourne, New York, Darwin 2013), an Artist in Residence at Millner Primary, undertaken an Early Career Residency with Lajamanu man Caleb Japanangka Patrick (Lajamanu, Darwin 2013/2014), and in 2015, Kelly was the recipient of a Structured Mentorships grant through Community Partnerships, Australia Council for the Arts. In 2017 Kelly performed and collaborated in Frankie Snowden and Madeleine Krenek’s The Perception Experiment, premiering at Araluen Cultural Precinct, Alice Springs. This work tours to Melbourne and Mexico in 2019.

"Since my first youth dance show with Tracks in 2004, the company has offered me so many profound and transformative experiences, both in developing my career and in the sense of influencing me to become a deeply socially and culturally engaged person. The many opportunities to grow and nurture connections and relationships here in the Territory have been the most generous and invaluable gifts that Tim and David have given me. I only hope that my own work is imbued with the same humanity that I continually discover while working with Tracks."

Explore Further

Eras of Youth Dance

Research and Development Programs

Iconic Tracks Works