Ruth Osborne

Ruth Osborne is passionate about building the young dance artist and developing their individuality. Ruth is currently the Artistic Director of QL2 Dance. Ruth pioneered youth dance practice in Australia: performing, teaching, choreographing, directing and collaborating. She established the Contemporary Dance Centre, taught at WAAPA, and was founding Artistic Director of Steps Youth Dance Company. She served on boards of Ausdance, WA Ballet, and WAAPA. She has developed unique programs in Canberra at the Australian Choreographic Centre, and now as Artistic Director of QL2 Dance. Ruth established Quantum Leap youth dance ensemble, developing choreographic literacy in young dancers, and has presented youth dance in Australia, Singapore, Taiwan, Thailand, Jamaica, and Scotland. She represented Australian youth dance at Dance and the Child International (Jamaica, Taiwan and Adelaide), and Youth Dance England’s 2010 conference. At the 2011 Australian Dance Awards, she won the Award for Services to Dance “For her superlative teaching and wide-ranging services to dance for over four decades; for an outstanding contribution to dance education and to the development of youth dance practice in Australia.” Ruth was Director of the 2012 and 2013 Australian Dance Awards. She won the ACT Critic’s Circle award in 2015 for Walking and Falling, and in 2017 took up a Churchill Fellowship. Ruth was also a short-listed nominee for ACT Australian of the Year 2018.