Hans Ahwang originates from St Paul’s Community Wug Village, Mua Island, one of the Torres Strait Islands. He completed his studies at Naisda Dance College and graduated with a diploma in Professional Dance and Performance in 2014. Hans has combined his love of dance, fashion and culture into a multitude of roles and projects promoting Torres Strait culture and contemporary dance.  He has performed in diverse environments including Indigenous communities, schools, workshops, festivals both locally and overseas.

He has performed with renowned dance companies such as Mirramu Dance Company, Gary Lang N.T Dance Company and Arpaka Dance Company. He was involved in the inauguration as a model as part of the 1st Australian Indigenous Fashion week held in Sydney in 2014 and chosen to represent Australia as one of the Indigenous models who took part in the Fiji Fashion Week 2015. He has performed both locally and internationally at arts festivals including Womad, the 11th Pacific Arts Festival in the Solomon Islands, the Woodford Folk Festival and toured extensively in 2017/18 to the United States as part of the International Association of Blacks in Dance conference. His film and television credits include ‘Wonderland’, ‘Redfern Now’, ‘Clevermen’, ‘Dance Academy, The Comeback’ and the major motion picture ‘Pacific Rim 2’. In 2016 he won NAIDOC Award ‘Artist of the Year’. 

Hans continues to blend his skills in dance, fashion, culture and education. As the Artistic Director for a number of projects for Far North Queensland with Phunktional dance theatre and youth projects based in Melbourne  he recently developed, with other artists, a puppetry/dance show that was performed in Torres Straits schools and was a performer in the Intertwine fashion performance, Festival 2018 part of the Commonwealth Games. In 2018 Hans was on tour as a performer in the critically acclaimed show ‘Wyniss’ with Musica Viva Australia, performing in schools   throughout NSW and Queensland. 

Hans is a regular contributor and performer having appeared over many years at the Cairns Indigenous Arts Fair. Most recently he was appointed choreographer for Bulmba_barra (messenger, yesterday, today and tomorrow) as part of the 10th year anniversary of the event.