WildWooHoo Music and Entertainment - songs and audiovisuals at the intersection of animal behaviour, ecology and entertainment

What it is. An interdisciplinary undertaking - original song, full music video, embodied choreography, and a diverse Canberra dance cast - translating PhD research on individual personality in 300+ eastern grey kangaroos into a high-energy, multicultural pop-cultural object. Music, film, dance, science, in one piece.

The work. The song parallels kangaroo behavioural differences with the varying dance styles and aesthetics of the micro-communities living in Canberra. Differences lead to diversity became the project's core message and the lens for everything WildWooHoo has built since.

• Winner, Science Magazine's Dance Your PhD 2024 - the international competition for translating PhD research into dance.
• 238+ media features worldwide - Science, NPR, Smithsonian, The Guardian, BBC, ABC, O Globo, Triple J, and more.
• 155K+ video views · used by schools and researchers internationally.
• Recognised by former ANU Vice-Chancellor Professor Genevieve Bell as one of the university's most far-reaching pieces of international engagement.

Source. Dr WELI's PhD research on kangaroo personality, social environment, and maternal effects (ANU). Peer-reviewed paper ↗

Co-create photography that connects human-animal societies.

What it is. A recurring, location-based creative project for photographers, models, hair-and-make-up artists, stylists, and creatives who want to collaborate on imagery that explores the connection between humans, animals, and the landscapes we share.

First session. Canberra / Gungahlin, February 2021 - the staged photography series translating Dr WELI's PhD findings on kangaroo personality, social environment, and maternal effects into a human portrait series.

Status. Ongoing. Open to co-host a session in your community.

A spark of hope. A joyful madness. A celebration of us and nature as one.

What it is. WildWooHoo Studio's flagship music project - an ever-growing album, inspired by the indeterminate growth of kangaroos, the studio's founding PhD study organism. The concept reaches across global ideas, but at its heart it is a celebration of us and nature as a unity. A living album that keeps growing - the way kangaroos do.

The aim. The album carries the energy of big championships - the moments when human skill is put to the test, the world watches, and there is a winner. Music as the room where the question gets sung and felt, not argued.

The format - indeterminate growth, inspired by kangaroos. Kangaroos have indeterminate growth - their skeletons keep growing throughout their lives. Why We Smile borrows that pattern. Three songs in year one. Three in year two. Three in year three. Then at least one new song every year after that, for as long as the album keeps living.

The format draws on the macropod life-history research of Marco Festa-Bianchet (Université de Sherbrooke) and the kangaroo-as-narrator approach begun in Kangaroo Time and Dr WELI's PhD work.

How it starts - three songs in 2026 / 2027. The arc follows change and choices - inspired by the changing climate and the natural world we belong to - moving through disconnection, reconnection, and our power to choose differently. Each song uses an animal narrator to bring the question close.

Built with an interdisciplinary team - WELI (writer and performer), WildWooHoo Studio (production and co-publishing), and producers, artists and vocalists drawn from the studio's creative register.

Status: Songwriting in progress · Phase 1 recording July 2026 · lead single Q3 2026. We welcome label partners, grant co-applicants, conservation-partner organisations, music-video co-financing, and screening commissioners for this release.