Positive Psychology Lectures

Lucy Guerin

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Born in Adelaide, Australia, Lucy Guerin graduated from the Centre for Performing Arts in 1982 before joining the companies of Russell Dumas (Dance Exchange) and Nanette Hassall (Danceworks). She moved to New York in 1989 for seven years where she danced with Tere O’Connor Dance, the Bebe Miller Company and Sara Rudner. Now based in Melbourne, Guerin has been commissioned by Chunky Move, Ros Warby, Woo Co (Denmark), Ricochet (UK ), The Berlin Literature Festival (with poet Michael Lenz), JCDN/Hirano (Japan), Dance Works Rotterdam and Mikhail Baryshnikov’s White Oak Dance Project (USA) among others.In 2002 she formed her company Lucy Guerin Inc www.lucyguerin.com.Her works have toured to France, The Netherlands, UK, Germany, Denmark, Switzerland, Singapore, Korea, Shanghai, Canada and throughout the USA.In 2000 Guerin was awarded the Sidney Myer Performing Arts Award for achievement by an individual. Other awards include the Prix d’auteur from the Rencontres Choregraphiques Internationales de Bagnolet in France, a 1994 New York Foundation for the Arts Choreographic Fellowship and a 1997 New York Dance and Performance Award (a ‘Bessie’) for her piece Two Lies. In 2007, Structure and Sadness won an Australian Green Room award for ‘Best Choreography’, a Helpmann Award for ‘Best Dance Work’ and an ‘Australian Dance Award’ for Best Performance by a Company’ Recent works for Lucy Guerin Inc include Structure and Sadness, Corridor and Untrained. She has also collaborated on projects with visual artist David Rosetzky, ACMI screen gallery, the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra and the Australian Opera.

Rob Moodie

Global health, Australia’s health and our own health.

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Rob Moodie is Professor of Global Health at the Nossal Institute for Global Health at the University of Melbourne. Between 1998 and 2007 he was the CEO of VicHealth. He is the Chair of the National Preventative Health Task Force. Since 1979 he has worked for Save the Children Fund, Médicins Sans Frontiérès, Congress, the  Aboriginal Health Service in Alice Springs, the Burnet Institute and for the World Health Organization, and the joint United Nations Program on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS). Rob chairs the Technical Panel to the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation’s HIV prevention program in India. He also chairs the Melbourne Storm Rugby League Club. He is married to Anne, a physiotherapist and they have two children Nick 23 and Penny 21. He writes regularly in the media and is co editor/author of four books, including Hands on Health Promotion. His most recent book is Recipes for a Great Life written with Gabriel Gaté.

Gideon Obarzanek

Movement, Creativity and Wellbeing

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Gideon Obarzanek became interested in dance towards the end of high school and after graduating deferred science at university tostudy at the Australian Ballet School. He later danced with the Queensland Ballet and the Sydney Dance Company before working as an independent performer and choreographer with various dance companies and independent projects within Australia and abroad. These have included commissions from the Australian Ballet Company, The Sydney Dance Company, Opera Australia and the Netherlands Dance Theatre. Gideon founded Chunky Move in 1995 and has been its Artistic Director to date. While the company mostly features his work, it also commissions various other Australian choreographers and invites international choreographers to give workshops in its home city of Melbourne, Australia. Obarzanek’s works for Chunky Move have been diverse in form and content including stage productions, installations, site-specific works and film. His works have been performed in many festivals and theatres around the world in the U.K, Europe, Asia and the Americas. In New York, he has been presented at BAM Next Wave Festival, Dance Theatre Workshop and the Joyce Theatre. Most recently, Gideon’s film, Dance Like Your Old Man, co-directed with Edwina Throsby won best short documentary at the 2007 Melbourne International Film Festival. In collaboration with Lucy Guerin and Michael Kantor, Gideon has also received a New York Bessie award for outstanding choreography and creation for Chunky Move’s production of Tense Dave. Earlier awards have included two Melbourne Green Room Awards for best concept and choreography for I Want to Dance Better at Parties and in 1999 a Mo award for best choreography for Bonehead. In 1997 he received the inaugural Australian Dance Award for outstanding achievement in choreography and in 1996 the Prime Minister’s Young Creative Fellowship.

Professor Glyn Davis AC

"A qualification or an education? Reflection on the 'Melbourne Model' "

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Professor Glyn Davis is Vice Chancellor and President of the University of Melbourne. He has just completed a term also as chair of the Group of Eight, representing Australia’s leading research universities. Professor Davis teaches and researches in the field of public policy. Recently one of Australia's oldest higher education institutions, the University of Melbourne, chose to make radical changes to its undergraduate curriculum and move most professional degrees to graduate schools. The introduction of the "Melbourne Model" has been controversial, but prospective students, as seen in applications for "New Generation" undergraduate and post-graduate degrees, have shown enthusiastic interest. In this lecture Professor Glyn Davis, Vice-Chancellor of the University of Melbourne, will explore the educational reasoning behind the Melbourne approach, and explain the new undergraduate "breadth" subjects. Rather than focusing on narrow vocationalism -- 'getting a qualification' -- the approach is to provide students with a broad educational experience.

Dr Mathew White

Why bother teaching them to be happy?

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Dr Mathew White (GGS staff 1998 - ) is the Head of Positive Education at Geelong Grammar School. As Head of Positive Education Dr White coordinates the integration of Positive Psychology principles into the educational experiences and curriculum of students, staff and the operations of the School across all campuses. Reporting to the GGS Vice Principal the scope of the Head of Positive Education’s role is pioneering in international and Australian education. Dr White leads the Positive Education Department, an interdisciplinary team of fourteen subject teachers from English, Physical Education and Wellbeing, History, Science, Languages and Economics. The GGS Positive Education Department will be the first school in Australia to deliver explicit Positive Psychology classes using the Penn Resiliency Programme and Strath Haven Positive Psychology Curriculum as developed by leading researchers including Professor Martin Seligman and Dr Karen Reivich from the University of Pennsylvania with teachers in the United States of America. The efficacy of these programmes is documented in fourteen years of scientific research and over twenty four peer reviewed publications. Dr White has been invited to contribute to panels on Positive Education at the International Positive Psychology Association (IPPA) 2009 World Congress on Positive Psychology in June in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA with representatives from the United Kingdom and the United States of America.