A performance by Pastor Brady's Yelangi Dance Company and Stephen Mam's Torres Strait Island or Waiben Dancers opened the workshop.
The participants in the workshop included John Bayles, Euphemia Bostock, Laurel Briggs, Fred Buckskin, Irene Casey, Betty Colbund, Aileen Corpus, Lillian Crombie, Jack Davis, Christine Donnelly, Elizabeth Duncan, Ros Forgan, Monica Hoffman, Yvette Isaacs, Andrew Jackomos, Rhona Keys, Pearl King, Lorraine Mafi, Shireen Malamoo, Hylus Maris, Zac Martin, Wayne Nicol, Dorathea Randall, Fred Reynolds, Ralph Rigby, Cherie (Cheryl) Stone (co-founder of Bangarra Dance Theatre), Georgina Telfer, Maureen Watson, Roslyn Watson, and Darryl Williams.
[6][7] Founding members of NAISDA, apart from Johnson, were Lucy Jumawan from the Philippines, the principal teacher, and students Lillian Crombie, Wayne Nicol, Dorathea Randall, Cheryl Stone, Darryl Williams, Michael Leslie, Richard Talonga, Malcolm Cole, Kim Walker and Philip Langley.
Over the years, Johnson engaged many other dancers and choreographers from around Australia and worldwide, and together they developed what is now known as Contemporary Indigenous Dance Technique.
Naya Wa Yugali ("We Dance" in Darkinyung language) featured oral histories, photographs, film footage and artwork by Tracey Moffatt, Michael Riley, Juno Gemes, Lee Chittick and Elaine Kitchener as well as a specially commissioned work by Vicki Van Hout and Marian Abboud.
[2] NAISDA is based in Mount Penang Parklands in Kariong[16] on the Central Coast of New South Wales,[3] on Darkinjung land.
[17] As of 2021[update], NAISDA Ltd is a limited company that runs the Dance College, and is governed by a board which includes Wesley Enoch and Elizabeth Butcher AM and is chaired by Maryah Sonter.
[18] The NAISDA Foundation is a separate fund-raising entity, whose patron since its establishment in December 2013 is Dame Marie Bashir AD CVO.
[12] Plans are under way for new international art education centre, Naya Wa Yugali (meaning "we dance" in Darkinjung language)[12] to be built adjacent to the current campus.
[22][23] Plans include an expanded curriculum of accredited courses across the creative industry, helping to increase the number of qualified artists and leaders.
[29] Malcolm Cole (1949-1995), was an Aboriginal and South Sea Islander man from Ayr in Far North Queensland, later a teacher and counsellor at the college.
He is especially remembered for his participation in the 1988 Sydney Mardi Gras, in which he took the role of Captain Cook in an enactment of the First Fleet landing, in which a boatful of black sailors was pulled by a white man.
The artist, along with Malcolm's brother Robert, participated in a panel as part of the Biennale, which reflected on his legacy as an unapologetic gay man and a trailblazer.
A segment on ABC TV's evening current affairs programme, 7.30, on 4 March 2024 covers Robert's appearance in the parade.