Ballet Wings

Ballet Wings

Ballet Wings was born from a simple but powerful belief — that movement, story and art-making are not luxuries for the few, but essential languages available to every child.

Founded by Dee Smart in 2015, Ballet Wings is a community-based creative initiative that weaves together dance, storytelling and visual arts to nurture creativity, confidence and authentic expression in children and young people. Through workshops, performances and collaborative projects, Ballet Wings creates spaces where young people discover their own artistic voice and learn to inhabit it fully.

Dee's own journey — from the studios of the Victorian College of Arts to a career in film, television and stage, and ultimately to the canvas — has always moved through the body first. Ballet Wings is the natural extension of that belief: that the arts, in all their forms, are transformative.

The initiative has brought together leading Australian artists and educators in the pursuit of that vision. Among them, celebrated choreographer Meryl Tankard, whose influence on Australian contemporary dance is unparalleled. Developed alongside Dee's sister and collaborator Gabriella Smart, these programs draw on dance and movement as foundations for broader creative and personal development.

The interdisciplinary spirit of Ballet Wings — the insistence that movement, image and story are deeply connected — continues to inform Dee's visual arts practice, her approach to portraiture, and her commitment to community engagement and environmental storytelling.