Michael Leslie is an

Indigenous Australian Indigenous Australians or Australian First Nations are people with familial heritage from, and membership in, the ethnic groups that lived in Australia before British colonisation. They consist of two distinct groups: the Aboriginal peoples ...

dancer and

choreographer Choreography is the art or practice of designing sequences of movements of physical bodies (or their depictions) in which motion or form or both are specified. ''Choreography'' may also refer to the design itself. A choreographer is one who cr ...

. In 1979 Leslie was awarded the

Churchill Fellowship Winston Churchill Memorial Trusts (WCMT) are three independent but related living memorials to Sir Winston Churchill, based in the United Kingdom, Australia, and New Zealand. They exist for the purpose of administering Churchill Fellowships, a ...

to further his studies which he used in 1981. Leslie was part of team which created the following organisations: the

Aboriginal Centre for the Performing Arts The Aboriginal Centre for the Performing Arts (ACPA) is a national Australian institution for the culturally sensitive training of Aboriginal Australian and Torres Strait Islander people in the performing arts. Founded in 1997, it has been loca ...

; The Black Swan Theatre Company;

Marrugeku Carriageworks is a multi-arts urban cultural precinct located at the former Eveleigh Railway Workshops in Redfern, Sydney, Australia. Carriageworks showcases contemporary art and performing arts, as well as being used for filming, festivals, f ...

Physical Theatre and the

NAISDA The NAISDA Dance College (usually referred to as simply NAISDA) is a performing arts training college based in Kariong, New South Wales for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people in Australia. It was established as the Aboriginal Islander S ...

Dance College. He created the Michael Leslie Pilbara Performing Arts Program to expose local children to the performing arts. In 1993, he choreographed the first

Aboriginal Australian Aboriginal Australians are the various Indigenous peoples of the Australian mainland and many of its islands, such as Tasmania, Fraser Island, Hinchinbrook Island, the Tiwi Islands, and Groote Eylandt, but excluding the Torres Strait Islands ...

musical, ''

Bran Nue Dae __NOTOC__ ''Bran Nue Dae'' is a 1990 musical set in Broome, Western Australia, that tells stories and of issues relating to Indigenous Australians. It was written by Jimmy Chi and his band Kuckles and friends, and was the first Aboriginal Austra ...

''. In 2010 he received the

Red Ochre Award The Red Ochre Award is an annual art award for Indigenous Australian artists. Background and description The Red Ochre Award was established in 1993 by the Australia Council for the Arts. It is awarded annually to an outstanding Indigenous Au ...

from the

Australia Council for the Arts The Australia Council for the Arts, commonly known as the Australia Council, is the country's official arts council, serving as an arts funding and advisory body for the Government of Australia. The council was announced in 1967 as the Austra ...

, receiving . In 2018, he performed at the Ochre Contemporary Dance Company's Australian Premiere Season of ''3 point 3.''

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Leslie, Michael Year of birth missing (living people) Living people Australian choreographers Australian male dancers Indigenous Australian dancers