Mansell, a proud pakana/Trawlwoolway woman, also spent a lot of her early years on truwana/Cape Barren Island, off Tasmania’s northeast coast.

She was first taken home to the remote island when she was just nine days’ old to meet her extended family after being born in nipaluna/Hobart, and she visited the island regularly in the years that followed.

Mansell says some of the most influential moments of her childhood stemmed from her time on the island. She remembers walking along the beach there with her grandmother, and attending school at a house where she was one of only four students. She remembers mutton-bird season, she remembers the close-knit community, and she grew up having deep respect for her extended family and their long history on the island.

“I’ve always been very aware that I come from a strong, proud, black family,’’ Mansell says.

Her childhood travels and experiences, she says, combined with “deeply rooted ancestral knowledge” informed the person she is today and sparked a strong desire to share her culture through the arts, with Mansell dedicating much of her life to reclaiming ancient traditions, strengthening cultural knowledge, nurturing young talent, and helping to shape the future of cultural policy in Australia and beyond.

The 36-year-old producer, artist, dancer and community leader has been a prominent face and name in the Tasmanian arts community for more than 20 years, co-founding dance company pakana kanaplila when she was 16.

The traditional and contemporary dance troupe, of which Mansell is a performer and a producer, began performing at small community events initially, but over the years – as the group became more widely known and interest in Indigenous history, arts and culture continued to grow – its dancers have performed at large scale events locally and nationally, as well in South Africa and Los Angeles.

Recently, Mansell stepped into the role as senior producer with Performing Lines TAS, where she leads the company’s activities and programs in Tasmania.

Established in 2006 under the name Tasmania Performs, by founder Wendy Blacklock and inaugural senior producer Annette Downs, the organisation was later rebranded as Performing Lines TAS.

The not-for-profit organisation’s mission is “to showcase the work of lutruwita/Tasmania’s most audacious independent artists, including First Nations artists, and to push the boundaries of what’s possible in contemporary performance” and “curate a portfolio of works that are propelled by pressing questions and new ways of seeing the world’’.

Mansell first became involved with the organisation six years’ ago when she took part in an artist’s residency. Then, in early 2022, she stepped into the role of associate producer before being named senior producer last month, following the resignation of Annette Downs.

Mansell has received high praise from many in the industry, including Performing Lines’ national executive producer Marion Potts, who says Mansell demonstrates “incredible talent” as a producer, with a “commitment to a vibrant and rich performing arts ecology”.

“She has the highest aspirations for Tasmanian artists, and the vision, imagination, and practical acumen to realise them.,” Ms Potts said.

It is an exciting role to have stepped into, Mansell says, and she enjoys the chance to represent and support a wide range of artists, including many Indigenous artists.

“I feel very fortunate,’’ she says.

“Arts and culture is my life. I feel honoured to put my mark against the legacy that is Performing Lines TAS. I hope to find new forms of representation and inclusion. I am committed to supporting artists and celebrating the many roles they play in society.

“I am proud to be the second senior producer – and current caretaker – of a company I am passionate about.’’

During her time with Performing Lines, Mansell has helped with tour management of shows including Second Echo Ensemble’s Outside Boy and was instrumental in the delivery of Nathan Maynard’s and Jamie McCaskill’s major commission Hide The Dog, which premiered at Sydney Festival this year, and has toured extensively around Australia.

Mansell has also been involved with a suite of sector development initiatives, including the annual Tarraleah Artist Residency, First Nations mentorships, and the Muylatina training program for producers.

Performing Lines has been instrumental in unearthing and nurturing the talent of acclaimed palawa playwright Nathan Maynard, as well as other Aboriginal artists, including Indigenous walking tour guide Nunami Sculthorpe-Green, and actor Kartanya Maynard, who is enjoying success nationally on stage and screen – this year alone she has appeared in ABC shows The Messenger and Gold Diggers, and Prime Video’s Deadloch.

“They’ve all been supported in some capacity through this organisation,’’ Mansell explains.

“We’re passionate about making sure those opportunities continue to happen.’’

Mansell provides mentorship and support to a range of organisations and projects – she has been on advisory panels for the Moonah Arts Centre, Ten Days on the Island Festival and the Walantanalinany Palingina (WAPA) program – and her valued input has also been sought by government advisory groups on a state and national level.

Mansell once sat on the Ministerial Arts and Advisory Council for Tasmania’s Department of State Growth, and last year she was appointed to a powerful expert panel tasked with the job of shaping the future of cultural policy in Australia by providing advice to federal Arts Minister Tony Burke on the strategic direction of the Albanese government’s new national cultural policy.

Mansell’s own interest in the arts was born out of a desire to strengthen cultural identity and to create and showcase dances that reflected the traditions of Indigenous Tasmanians.

In other states, didgeridoos and boomerangs form part of cultural practices, but in Tasmania, traditional dancers are informed by the animals native to our island. Even within Tasmania, there is huge cultural diversity across mainland Tasmania and the Bass Strait islands, and Mansell wanted her dances to reflect this diversity. Which is how pakana kanaplila began.

Mansell says the group’s dancers are committed to the “physical expression of culture and ceremony”.

“We were passionate to create cultural dances that are traditional to our culture,’’ she explains.

“Members are located all over lutruwita/Tasmania and have been working for decades to reclaim traditional dance practices.

“We are here, strong, and still practising traditional customs.”

Last year’s performance of tuylupa – meaning “spark of fire” – at the Theatre Royal’s Studio Theatre in Hobart as part of Mona Foma, was a collaboration between pakana kanaplila, Tasdance, Skinnyfish Records and tech-art collective Soma Lumia, and used dance, music and projections, as dancers traced the 60,000-year journey of the palawa people and the evolution of the island of lutruwita/Tasmania.

Mansell says the show was about telling an “old story in new ways”.

Initially, pakana kanaplila performed at various community events and provided educational opportunities and workshops.

But demand has continued to grow, especially in more recent years as the arts scene has exploded in Tasmania, with pakana kanaplila performing at major public events locally, nationally and internationally.

“It has not stopped,’’ Mansell says.

Mansell’s own creative opportunities have also continued to grow, and she is proud to have been part of a “long list of pivotal, history-making moments” for Tasmania’s Indigenous community.

In 2018, Mansell and two other pakana kanaplila dancers flew to Los Angeles, for The International Conference and Festival of Blacks in Dance. It was also the year that pakana kanaplila became the first Aboriginal dance group to represent Tasmania at Dance Rites, a national Indigenous dance competition in Sydney. In 2019, pakana kanaplila was invited to lead a cultural exchange residency program ahead of a festival in South Africa, designed to sensitively restore and revive ancient traditional practices in a 21st century context.

Mansell has also been supported by Tasmanian Aboriginal community arts initiative Walantanalinany Palingina (WAPA) in a range of professional development opportunities, including travelling to New York in 2019 as a Tasmanian delegate for the First Nations Dialogues, an event bringing together Indigenous artists from the USA, Canada and Australia for a series of performances, discussions, workshops and ceremonies, with a focus on bringing cultural change through the arts.

In 2021, Mansell created, co-directed and performed in a dance theatre work called BACK for the Ten Days on the Island Festival. The work celebrated the culture and courage of Tasmanian Aboriginal women, after the brutal invasion of lutruwita/Tasmania in 1803, with

Mansell exploring her millennia-old culture, its near-destruction and the resistance and courage that preserved it.

Mansell says it was the first solo pakana theatre dance work that was created, performed and directed by a pakana artist, on lutruwita – a proud moment not only for Mansell but for her community more broadly.

2021 was also the year that Mansell was one of 15 artists selected nationally for the Hobart Current contemporary art exhibition, which featured a song written and performed by Mansell, played across various outdoor spaces including Hobart’s Franklin Square and the TMAG courtyard. She was also a lead creative for Illuminate, a production featuring five Tasmanian dance companies.

Mansell has also appeared on screen in feature film A Drover’s Wife and newly released TV series Deadloch.

Mansell says in decades past, it was seen as an achievement for Tasmanians to get off the island and progress their careers on the mainland.

But, she says there has been a significant shift in more recent years, with people keen to celebrate being on the island, particularly when it comes to the arts.

Major TV shows like Bay of Fires, Deadloch and The Gloaming have been filmed here, and an increasing number of actors are basing themselves in Tasmania when they would previously have been based in Melbourne or Sydney.

International acts are increasingly coming here for festivals like Dark Mofo and Mona Foma, and there’s a buzz about the future that is an encouraging sign of confidence in the state and our wealth of talent.

Mansell also believes the environment, which Aboriginal people have called home for many thousands of years, is also a vital part of the thriving arts scene.

“I put it down to the Country,’’ Mansell says of why so many people are wanting to live and work in Tasmania.

“It’s the pristine environment the island offers. I believe we’re very fortunate – our island environment has been a strength that we have here, and there’s also strength in being such a small tight-knit community that supports and champions each other.’’

Mansell was just 15 when she started working in the language department at the Tasmanian Aboriginal Centre in Launceston, before later moving with her kids to Scamander on Tasmania’s East Coast, which she called home for many years.

She moved to Hobart four years’ ago to care for her family and further her career. Mansell has a 20-year-old daughter, Niara (which means “spirit” in palawa kani), and a 17-year-old son, Noah. “I was very fortunate to raise my children on Country,’’ Mansell says.

She says much of her own cultural knowledge had to be learnt from the pages of books. But, due to many within the community “working tirelessly” to reclaim cultural knowledge and practices, this knowledge can now be passed on to her children and future generations in a more hands-on way.

“I can go to sleep at night with a huge smile on my face knowing that the younger generations are learning from community members and cultural knowledge is being passed down at a much bigger scale,” Mansell told the Mercury in 2019.

“We are living and breathing our culture. Our calendar is now statewide, national and international, compared with a decade ago when there was little knowledge or interest in Aboriginal history and culture in Tasmania.’’

Despite this success, there have still been plenty of challenges to overcome.

Mansell, who was named Tasmanian Aborigine of the Year in 2022, has passionately addressed crowds at Invasion Day rallies on Hobart’s Parliament Lawns and she has fought for human remains of her ancestors to be repatriated and returned to Tasmania.

She says it is not always easy, but it is this struggle that continues to inspire her and propel her forward to promote change.

“(It’s important) to understand what it took for the generations before – the giants that have helped pave the way for my generation – who have worked tirelessly to fight for our identity … we continue to acknowledge, and respect, and continue the fight,’’ Mansell says.

She remains a “major optimist” and is confident that the work being done to reclaim cultural history in Tasmania will leave a legacy for future Tasmanians.

And she hopes her new role with Performing Lines will play a key role in that legacy, as she helps provide vital opportunities for performing artists to make thought-provoking and inspirational works.

‘’For me, to be in the position I am to represent culture and community, is really honouring,’’ Mansell says.

“Everything that we do has an impact on the generations to come.”