SYDNEY WORKSHOP - International Youth Dance

IYDC 2026 WORKSHOP - SYDNEY

Imagine a competition where every dancer leaves stronger than when they arrived.

“At IYDC, competition is only one part of the journey.”

“Every participant is assessed on their own individual achievement—not ranked against one another.”

“Because we believe every dancer deserves to celebrate their own progress.”

“The focus is on education, growth and helping every dancer become the best version of themselves.”

“Meet dancers from different cities and countries.”

“Our educational seminars help young dancers develop healthy habits that support long-term success—both on and off the stage.”

“They leave with new skills, new confidence, new friendships and a renewed love for dance.”

“This is more than a competition.”

“It’s an experience that stays with you.”

Workshop Objective

Enrolment

Workshop Categories

Workshop Attendance

Application Procedure

Workshop Objective

Enrolment

Workshop Categories

Workshop Attendance

Application Procedure

Kristen Hockley

Kristen Hockley has loved to dance ever since she put on her first pair of ballet shoes at the age of four. During her final years of high school, she discovered a strong passion for musical theatre, teaching and choreography and has since turned that passion into her career.

Throughout her training, she performed in representative troupes, underwent RAD Ballet and Glen Wood Tap exams, and performed in the USA and Gold Coast, Australia.

Kristen’s performance credits include featured dancer roles in Priscilla to Moulin Rouge, Folies Bergere and Grease Fever with Davin Griffith-Jones Productions, roles in Beauty and the Beast, High School Musical, Aladdin and Lion King with City Kids Theatre, Footloose with Loud Theatre Company and Wizard of Oz with Spot On Productions.

Currently, Kristen is the Dance Development Officer for Sports Tots, a program she has developed, providing dance education to early learning centres. She also teaches multiple classes in a variety of genres at The McDonald College and The McDonald College After Hours program. Along with this, she is the assistant choreographer for City Kids Theatre and has worked on productions of Legally Blonde, Little Mermaid, Beauty and The Beast and Frozen. Kristen co-choreographed Miranda Musical Society’s production of Beautiful, The Carole King Musical, and was the choreographer of Jersey Boys and Shrek for Engadine Musical Society.

In January, she was honoured to be on the faculty for International Summer School 2023, where she taught workshops in Jazz, Musical Theatre and Lyrical to aspiring dancers from across the globe.

Kristen is thrilled to be a part of this amazing dance event and is very grateful to have travelled from Sydney, Australia to be involved in this experience.

Matthew Slattery

Matthew Slattery began his dance training at Rosie O’Sullivan’s School of Dance in Cooma, Australia.

At the age of 16, he moved to Sydney to join the Talent Development High School and went on to complete the full-time Brent Street ballet and contemporary course under Christine Keith.

In 2009, he joined the Joffrey Ballet School in New York City. Slattery performed throughout New York and toured with the Joffrey Studio Company. After two years at the school he was offered a contract with Boston ballet II and The Royal New Zealand Ballet Company, where he worked under Ethan Stiefel.

In 2014 he joined The Boston Ballet and was promoted to second soloist in 2018. He has worked closely with choreographers such as William Forsythe, Wayne McGregor, Alexander Ekman, John Neumeier, Mikko Nissinen, Jorma Elo, and danced roles in works of Balanchine, Jiri Kilian, Bourninville, Cranko and Robbins.

Elle-May Patterson

Elle-May Patterson, originally from Sydney, Australia, discovered dance at age four and has been chasing that spark ever since! She trained at Brent Street Studios before earning a B.A. Honors Degree in Musical Theatre from LASALLE College of the Arts in Singapore.
Now based between New York City and Los Angeles, California, Elle works internationally as a theatre choreographer and performer.
Recent choreography credits include Mean Girls, A Bronx Tale, the world premiere of Who’s Got Me? and Evita. She’s also assisted Broadway names like Nikki Snelson, Marc Kimelman, and Brett Smock. As a performer, Elle was Dance Captain on the First Broadway National Tour of The SpongeBob Musical, with additional credits including Mamma Mia!, A Chorus Line, Tootsie, Catch Me If You Can, Cabaret, and Young Frankenstein, to name a few.
Elle is so thrilled to join the IYDC family as an educator and adjudicator!

Daniel Gaudiello

Brisbane-born Daniel Gaudiello strapped on his first pair of dancing shoes at the age of six at the Johnny Young Talent School, then at Promenade Dance Academy. Later he completed the Queensland Dance School of Excellence and Queensland Ballet professional year before being accepted into The Australian Ballet School, where he participated as an exchange student with The National Ballet School of Canada and the School of American history in Ballet in New York.

Daniel joined The Australian Ballet first seconded out of his last year of the ballet school in 2003 and then formally in 2004 and in early 2007, on scholarship, participated in classes with some of the world's finest ballet companies in London, Amsterdam, Munich and Paris.

Daniel made his choreographic debut with a piece called “Notte in Bianco” for Bodytorque. To the Pointe in 2009, then “South of Eden” and “Tristan and Isolde”. Daniel was promoted to principal artist in 2010.

Daniel’s principal roles with The Australian Ballet include both Des Grieux and Lescaut in Sir Kenneth MacMillan’s Manon, Basilio in Rudolf Nureyev’s production of Don Quixote (2010), Petrouchka in Petrouchka (2009), the Prince in Alexei Ratmansky’s Cinderella(2013), Siegfried in Stephen Baynes’ Swan Lake (2012), Franz in Peggy van Praagh’s Coppélia (2010) and works by Christopher Wheeldon and Jiří Kylián. As a guest artist he has appeared with Houston Ballet, Singapore Dance Theatre, New Zealand Ballet, Queensland Ballet, West Australian Ballet and English National Ballet. He was the recipient of the 2011 Australian Dance Award for outstanding performance by a male dancer in Coppélia, a Green Room Award and was nominated for three Helpmann Awards for most outstanding male dancer.

Daniel is now head of ballet stream at the Queensland College of Dance and has Co produced and choreographed his first feature film “The red shoes- The next step” that premiered in the box office in 2022.

Workshop Faculty

We are pleased to announce our current workshop faculty members and excited to share that more esteemed faculty will be joining the event. Stay tuned for more updates!

Gareth Belling

Gareth Belling is a choreographer, teacher and workshop facilitator. He danced with Queensland Ballet from 2002 to 2012, and performed as a freelance artist until 2019, most recently with Collusion in his ballets DESIRELINES in Guangzhou, and Turbine at Shanghai Dance Festival.

He is Resident Choreographer of Collusion Music and Dance Ensemble, having collaborated with this exciting group of chamber musicians on three evening-length works, and many shorter ballets since 2005. He has also created works for Queensland Ballet, Expressions Dance Company (now ADC), Ochre Contemporary Dance Company, Dancebourne Arts, Queensland University of Technology and WAAPA, and restaged his ballets on Queensland Ballet Academy. Along with Collusion, he was shortlisted for a 2016 Australian Dance Award for their chamber ballet DESIRELINES.

Gareth has received fellowships and grants from the Australia Council, Arts Queensland, Australia-China Council, was mentored by Nils Christe (JUMP Mentorship) and selected for the Swiss International Coaching Project for Choreographers (SiWiC).

He holds a Master of Fine Arts (Dance) from Queensland University of Technology, and is currently undertaking a PhD at the University of Queensland, researching arts funding and Australian dance history.

Gareth has taught ballet and contemporary dance at vocational studios and tertiary institutions since 2010. He is currently a faculty member at Melbourne Academy of the Arts specialising in contemporary dance.

Kristen Hockley

Kristen Hockley has loved to dance ever since she put on her first pair of ballet shoes at the age of four. During her final years of high school, she discovered a strong passion for musical theatre, teaching and choreography and has since turned that passion into her career.

Throughout her training, she performed in representative troupes, underwent RAD Ballet and Glen Wood Tap exams, and performed in the USA and Gold Coast, Australia.

Kristen’s performance credits include featured dancer roles in Priscilla to Moulin Rouge, Folies Bergere and Grease Fever with Davin Griffith-Jones Productions, roles in Beauty and the Beast, High School Musical, Aladdin and Lion King with City Kids Theatre, Footloose with Loud Theatre Company and Wizard of Oz with Spot On Productions.

Currently, Kristen is the Dance Development Officer for Sports Tots, a program she has developed, providing dance education to early learning centres. She also teaches multiple classes in a variety of genres at The McDonald College and The McDonald College After Hours program. Along with this, she is the assistant choreographer for City Kids Theatre and has worked on productions of Legally Blonde, Little Mermaid, Beauty and The Beast and Frozen. Kristen co-choreographed Miranda Musical Society’s production of Beautiful, The Carole King Musical, and was the choreographer of Jersey Boys and Shrek for Engadine Musical Society.

In January, she was honoured to be on the faculty for International Summer School 2024, where she taught workshops in Jazz, Musical Theatre and Lyrical to aspiring dancers from across the globe.

Kristen is thrilled to be a part of this amazing dance event and is very grateful to have travelled from Sydney, Australia to be involved in this experience.

Jasmin Wong

Jasmin Wong was born in Hong Kong, and graduated at the Hong Kong Academy of Performing Arts, majoring in Contemporary Dance. Independent Choreographer and dance artist. Previously a dancer for Y-Space (Hong Kong).

During her time on the BFA (Hons) programme, she was awarded a Grantham scholarship and also went on an Shanghai Exchange Tour funded by Hong Kong Foundation for arts and culture. She was selected to perform in various school productions including Savage Symphony、Echoing Woods by Christine Gouzelis and Here & beneath the surface of there by John Utans. Other outside performing experiences include CCDC’s WuDaoQingNian program; Sky of Nepal Arts Project by Bobbie Chen and Hero @ Eb Major by Ong Yong Lock for LCSD Community Cultural Ambassador and Unlock Dancing Plaza.

She received a CCDC scholarship to participate in the Beijing Dance Festival in 2014, 2015 and 2017. Jasmin also has an interest in choreography and her work Among Them was presented in CCDC's My Own Dance program and the series of Are you thinking what I am thinking? was presented in HKAPA and Eside’s Imagination boom 3.

Jasmin has been dedicated to dance teaching in recent years. She has taught Contemporary, Jazz, Creative Dance in primary and secondary, as well as dance schools. Jasmin obtained her Teaching Certificate of Commonwealth Society of Teachers of Dancing (CSTD) in 2022.

Questions & answers