Strong Young Women: Celebrating Halle and Mia's Community Awards

This International Women's Week, two of our senior TCDA dancers have been recognised for something that goes well beyond the studio walls. Halle Swan and Mia Gardner were among a select group of young women honoured at the Ngaar Wirribiiyan International Women's Day awards ceremony, held at Tamworth TAFE's Binalabaa Aboriginal Learning Centre. For those of us at TCDA who know these two remarkable young women, the news was both thrilling and entirely unsurprising.

Ngaar Wirribiiyan: Celebrating Strong Young Women

The name Ngaar Wirribiiyan translates as "strong young women", and the awards ceremony, coordinated by Aaliyah Morley, was created to honour exactly that. Opened with a smoking ceremony and traditional dancing, it brought together young women from across Tamworth's high schools alongside mature women in the community who are actively shaping the futures of the next generation. A dozen women were recognised across five award categories, each built around the spirit of uplifting and empowering their fellow women.

Halle Swan: Champion Award

Halle Swan, a senior student at Oxley High School, received the Ngaar Wirribiiyan Champion Award recognising an outstanding young woman who inspires, uplifts, and empowers her peers through her dedication to the program; who demonstrates leadership, fosters personal growth, and creates a positive impact within her school. When we asked Halle how it felt to receive the award, her response was as genuine and grounded as everything she does: "I received the champion for the girls program so to be recognised for that is mind blowing, as it is across all schools in Tamworth and I'm so grateful to be awarded this award."

Those of us who work alongside Halle on the aerial silks see this same quality every time she trains — a quiet, grounded confidence that lifts the people around her. She leads not through instruction but through example, and the broader community has clearly noticed.

Mia Gardner: Future Leader Award

Mia Gardner, also from Oxley High School, received the Future Leader Award, acknowledging her outstanding leadership potential, innovative thinking, and ability to inspire positive change. In Mia's own words after the ceremony: "I feel like I'm really confident now, like I've stepped up." Those words carry particular weight when you understand the journey behind them.

Mia has been part of the TCDA family since 2012 — over a decade of growth, achievement, and commitment that has taken her from junior student to qualified teacher. Her competition record at TCDA is extraordinary: Junior Studio Champion (2017), Primary Studio Champion (2019), Intermediate Studio Champion (2022), and Senior Championship Winner in 2024. She has earned examination Honours across Classical Ballet and Jazz at every level, including Gold Star achievements in both disciplines. Since 2018, she has been a member of the TCDA Show Troupe every single year without exception — that kind of consistency is a statement of character in itself.

With the completion of TCDA's Studio 4 last year, Mia was offered a teaching position, and she has been delivering private lessons to students ever since. She is already doing what the Future Leader Award anticipated — nurturing the next generation with the same care and dedication that shaped her own development. Her response after receiving the award said it all: "I've been working with Aaliyah for the past year and a half, and receiving this award feels like I'm doing something right. This actually means a lot to me." And then, with characteristic generosity: "A couple of my friends got awards as well, and I'm really proud of them doing the thing that they love."

Acknowledging Country, Honouring Community

There is one more dimension to both Halle and Mia's connection to cultural leadership that deserves recognition. For a number of years, both young women have performed the Acknowledgement of Country ahead of TCDA's Mid Year Showcase and End of Year major production — two of the most significant events on our annual calendar, attended by hundreds of students, families, and community members.

To stand before an auditorium full of people and speak those words — to ground an entire event in respect for Country, culture, and community — takes composure, pride, and a genuine sense of purpose. Halle and Mia have brought all of that, every single time. In doing so, they have made the Acknowledgement a meaningful and memorable moment in each production, not simply a formality. It is a role that speaks directly to who they are.

Character That Carries Across Every Room

At TCDA, we have always believed that the values we develop in the studio such as dedication, humility, resilience, and care for others don't stay at the studio door. They become part of who our students are. Halle and Mia are living proof of that. The leadership they demonstrate in their school communities, in their cultural communities, and now on a public stage, is the same leadership we see from them every week in class and in the air.

As senior aerialists, both Halle and Mia have developed a physical discipline and mental fortitude that is genuinely difficult to cultivate. Aerial work demands trust — in your own body, in the equipment, in the process. That trust, once built, seems to ripple outward into everything else these young women do.

A Community Moment Worth Celebrating

The Ngaar Wirribiiyan ceremony was, by all accounts, a deeply moving occasion. Program coordinator Aaliyah Morley spoke to the significance of Gomeroi women gathering together, to dance, to sing, and to recognise one another's strength. "Our women don't get together anymore, like we used to," she said, "and there's been a massive loss of women's business and culture. For us to get together and to dance and sing has been really, really special."

To be part of a wider community where young women like Halle and Mia are not only developing their art but also stepping into roles of cultural and community leadership, that is something we hold with deep pride and genuine gratitude.

To Halle and Mia

Congratulations to both of you on this well-deserved recognition. You represent the very best of what it means to be a TCDA dancer, not just in what you can do in the air, but in who you are as people. We are immensely proud of you both, and we cannot wait to see where your strength takes you next. Congratulations to every one of this years very worthy award recipients.