Shelley O’Meara (they/them) is a Melbourne based video artist and dancer. Their work combines live movement, animation and intricate video layering techniques to develop highly immersive works on and off the screen. They employ practice based research methodologies to develop score based, structured improvisation drawn from their training background in martial arts and contact improvisation. Concerned with power, autonomy and the politicisation of bodies; movement is Shelley’s primary storytelling tool and in 2019 they began training in contemporary dance to broaden their understanding of dynamic movement and embodiment. Shelley is a core member of interdisciplinary collective Root Synthesis and moonlights with site-specific theatre company Gold Satino.

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Winner of VCA’s “New Voice Award” for Of Safe Return (2016), recipient of the Signal Screen Commission for An End in Itself (2017) winner of the Montsalvat Film Prize for It’s Brutal Baby (2019) previous participant in Dance House’s Emerging Choreographers Program (2021). 

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Opperating on Wurundjeri lands, Shelley recognises the sovereignty of Australia's first peoples.