Take a look behind the winner of Dance Your PhD 2024 | Kangaroo Time

ANU Research School of Biology researcher Dr Weliton Menário Costa entered this year's Dance Your PhD competition run by Science Magazine and took out the top prize! Take a behind the scenes look at how he conveyed his research on eastern grey kangaroos through dance.
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Science and Artistic Rationale by Dr Weliton Menário Costa :
In our 2024 AAAS/Science Magazine Dance Your Ph.D. Contest submission, we explore kangaroo behavior through dance and promote diversity. The performance, titled "Kangaroo Time", is based on my Ph.D. field research at Wilsons Promontory National Park, Australia, conducted at the Australian National University in collaboration with the University of Sherbrooke, Canada. My thesis, "Personality, Social Environment, and Maternal-Level Effects: Insights from a Wild Kangaroo Population", is accessible here: openresearch-repository.anu.e.... I am honored to have worked under the expert supervision of Prof Loeske Kruuk and Prof Marco Festa-Bianchet.
We delve into animal personality, defined as consistent behavior that distinguishes individuals, and social plasticity, the extent to which behavior changes in response to the social environment. We explain how both personality traits and social environment influence kangaroo behavior, including responses to stimuli like a remote-controlled car, and we demonstrate the role of personality on social dynamics.
The diversity of the dancers, ranging from classical to urban styles, reflects the variations in kangaroo personality, e.g. bolder to shier. These dancers, unchoreographed, improvise their movements, responding to cues and interacting with each other. The dance thus serves as a visual narrative, capturing how kangaroos react based not only on their instincts but also on their social context. This approach demonstrates that kangaroo decisions are a complex interplay of intrinsic tendencies (personality) and social awareness leading to adjustment (plasticity). I hope this performance makes the scientific concepts both accessible and engaging for the audience.
I completed my Ph.D. at the Australian National University, Canberra, in 2021, and worked as a Research Officer. Now, I'm pursuing music, having released my debut EP "Yours Academically, Dr. WELI" and the single "Kangaroo Time (Club Edit)," featured in the video. This project represents a fusion of my scientific work and my foray into performance and creative arts, combining animal behavior with artistic expression.
Staring
Faux Née Phish
Holly Hazlewood
Marina de Andrade
Megan Aponte-Payne
Trish Dias
Shelly Giorgi
Crystal Prior
Laura Pelaez
Wendy Xin Xiao
Olivia Sutton
Jazz Zollinger
Cynthia
Mogendhri Müller
Thomas Müller
Lucas Nelson
Chichi Curtarelli
Rachael Remington
Trevor Unmack
Andrew Unmack
Georgina Negem
Chily
Jeff
David Pandora
Valquíria Menário Costa