Meet the Aussie dancer chosen to run one of the world's most prestigious dance schools

The Age

01-06-2025

At 13, Melissa Toogood took a deep breath and made a call that changed her life.
The teenage dancer from Campbelltown had just watched students from Newtown's School of Performing Arts at the annual Schools Spectacular. She was blown away.
'I called the school and I asked to audition,' she says. 'I was scared. But, hey, it paid off.'
She was accepted and began taking her first steps towards an international contemporary dance career.
'You can't wait for an opportunity to come your way. I'm a shy person, but when it's mattered, I'm willing to put myself out there,' she says.
Three decades on, Toogood's stellar career has just taken a giant leap. She has been appointed dean and director of the Juilliard School's dance division in New York, one of the world's leading performing arts institutions.
She will be responsible for nurturing a new generation of contemporary dancers and will have up to 90 young dance students under her wing. It will mean largely moving away from performing, but at 43, she is ready to step out of that limelight.
'I still want to live an artful life,' she says. 'But I don't want to be the one making it all the time any more. I'll be able to put together all these skills that I've already been working on into one job, at a time when I feel more inspired to help other artists with their careers than my own.'
Toogood has spent most of her career in New York. She went to the United States at 18 to pursue her dance studies, and since then she's worked with many leading dance companies and choreographers.