Queer biologist in Australia: Kangaroo expert wins dance competition for researchers

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Drag queens and ballet as an expression of different kangaroo personalities? Sounds crazy. But a researcher in Australia won a coveted dance competition with it.

An Australian kangaroo researcher has won a global dance competition for scientists with a strange video. Weliton Menário Costa, a doctoral student at the Australian National University (ANU) in Canberra, was named the overall winner of the “Dance Your PhD Contest 2024”.

The university announced this after he impressed the jury with his extremely creative and bizarre dance contribution ‘Kangaroo Time (Club Edit)’ and cheered: ‘From kangaroo whisperer to global dance sensation.’ ‘Dance Your PhD’ is a global competition that has been held since 2008. Scientists must express their research results through dance.

Humans and kangaroos look alike

The queer biologist known as WELI and also singer-songwriter combines a funky beat and cool lyrics with drag queens and Brazilian dancers in the colorful video. It’s also about different kangaroo personalities. The end product was “both entertaining and educational,” the report said. WELI, who has Brazilian roots herself, is both the lead actor and the director. He cleverly illustrated various personality traits of kangaroos using dance styles, the ANU wrote.

WELI moved from his hometown to Canberra in 2017 to pursue a PhD in animal behavior. He spent three years studying the behavioral differences of a group of more than 300 eastern gray kangaroos in Victoria. “We found that kangaroos like to interact in groups, but prefer smaller social circles,” he explains. “And just like humans, kangaroo personalities manifest early in life.” Among other things, siblings among marsupials often showed similar temperaments. (SDA)

Source: Blick