On any given weekday at Burgh Healthy Hub, you'll find dozens of students learning aerials, acrobatics, tumbling and gymnastics; rehearsing dance routines; sharpening drama performances or practising parkour at one of the region's best obstacle courses.
Since founding Treetop Arts almost eight years ago, Dell’Arte-trained circus performer Charlie Truscott has led the growth of the company from one class a week to 50 classes. Today the performing arts school has more than 300 students.
Most recently, Charlie has overseen Treetop Arts’ transformation into a not-for-profit organisation, eager to expand their outreach and offer classes in rural communities, as well as subsidise student fees to alleviate the pressures of inflation.
But about two months ago, Charlie made the difficult decision to step back from Treetop Arts to spend more time with her two young children and focus on touring with her circus company, Treetop Circus.
The new Treetop Arts director is 24-year-old acro dance and tumbling teacher Chantelle Walker, who has been with the school since the beginning.
“When the school started out, I was in one of her first classes – circus – and then I graduated high school, left and then came back after doing my certificate in dance,” Chantelle said.
“Charlie upskilled me by teaching me how to teach aerial, and then I followed on into learning some tumbling skills with Charlie and furthered that into acrobatic arts module one, which allowed me to continue teaching tumbling and acrobatics. That morphed into our class acro dance, and then I furthered my teaching by doing some professional development in gymnastics courses, so I am also qualified in gymnastics.
“I eventually hopped on board as Charlie's administrative assistant, and then I've been teaching and doing the admin together [since].”
While helping students achieve their goals is what drives Chantelle, her passion extends beyond teaching, as she’s preparing to jet off to Liverpool, England, for her final World Baton Twirling Championship when we speak in July.
With her zeal for the performing arts, Chantelle was the perfect fit to replace Charlie as Treetop Arts director, officially signing on five weeks ago.
“About 10 weeks ago, Charlie expressed to myself and another administrative assistant, Emma, that she was looking at taking a step back for her kids and, to be quite honest, when she told us that my heart sank – I didn't want the program to stop,” Chantelle said.
“She didn't either, which is why I reached out to her and said, ‘If you would be interested, I'm happy to look into taking on the director role if that's something you'd like, so that there's still a space for you to continue coming back to if you ever want to teach and be involved in the projects that we do.’
“I feel very lucky to be able to do this, because I've been working with Charlie so long as well and it's an amazing program, it's so well-established and the roots have been planted for me already, and I just feel [that] to be able to just take on continuing growing those roots is just massive and something I never thought I'd be doing.
“I also feel I've got big shoes to fill when I'm in the director role after taking it on from Charlie.”
But Charlie won’t wander far from the Treetop Arts space. She’ll return to teach classes between circus shows and join the Treetop Arts board alongside Chantelle, circus and drama instructor Corey Pickett and Kate Barter to help develop creative projects from next year.
In the meantime, Chantelle is excited to continue to nurture Treetop Arts and promote student achievements at end-of-year competitions and next year’s National Circus Festival in Mullumbimby.
“We're definitely going to be moving with that regional and rural community project,” Chantelle said.
The plan is to offer tuition at schools, with a five-week program ending in a performance. “Hopefully there'll be a festival or a local market or community fair in the area where those kids can perform for their local area,” Chantelle said.
“We have our end-of-year spectacular happening in November, and we are going to be doing it at the Bruce Gordon Theatre in Wollongong for the first time… which is really exciting for everyone because we haven't really had that opportunity for our students to go on stage before.
“We also have our advanced circus troupe and dance troupe working with [aerialist] Nat Harris, and they are collaborating with Circus Monoxide to create their own performance. It's a cabaret-style performance, so they all have individual pieces that they work on and bring it together, and it's going to be called Wollongong's Got Talent.
“I've always dreamt of taking on a performing arts studio, and I feel like it’s just been something that's manifested in the background for me and then all of a sudden this opportunity’s come up and I feel really lucky that I could have taken it on.
"I also definitely feel grateful for the support that Charlie has given me to be able to take on this role, in addition to all the staff there. They've been so supportive as well, and all the clients and customers are so lovely and the community that is there is just wonderful to work with.”
