On a cold winter's day, three Ukrainian performers rush down to Sydney's Dee Why beach to take selfies, darting from the waves crashing on the shoreline.
Maria, Liza and Vlada had never been to Australia before Russia invaded Ukraine.
This particular day, they are celebrating singer Liza's arrival to Sydney – also her 25th birthday.
"I wake up in Australia with the ocean," Liza says, "It's the best gift."
Her best friend Vlada agrees: "It's like a film, it's like a dream."
Help from all around the world
The three dancers are among nearly 300 students from the Kyiv Municipal Academy of Performing and Circus Arts who fled the war and are now training in schools abroad.
Former circus performer Jasmine Straga has been a crucial part of connecting the Ukrainian students – like Maria, Liza and Vlada – with schools across the globe.
Ms Straga, from Sydney's Northern Beaches, is a board member of the World Circus Federation and part of the Global Alliance of Circus Schools.
When she saw the call for help from the Kyiv academy, she knew she needed to help.
"To lose the arts in the Ukraine would be to lose hundreds of years of culture," Ms Straga says.
Actors, illusionists, circus performers and dancing students have been billeted in schools across Germany, Hungary, the Czech Republic, Italy and France.
Ms Straga has helped to get about 200 adult circus artists out of Ukraine, and tried to keep teachers with as many students as possible so they could continue their curriculum.
The Kyiv Academy's deputy director, Nina Araya, said she was amazed by Ms Straga's generosity.
"She started to connect all the schools, and after that I started to have dozens and dozens offering help," Ms Araya says from Prague, where she is now coordinating the students.
While the academy has secured help for nearly 300 students, just as many remain in Ukraine. For some it is their choice.
'I just need to know he's alive'
When Vlada heard she could come to Australia two months ago, it was bittersweet to leave her family behind.
"The day they called me and said you can come here and dance, and live here in a safe place, I was so shocked," she told The Drum.
It has been two months since Vlada came to Australia, and her father is now a soldier fighting for Ukraine, so she doesn't hear from him as much as she would like.
"I just need to know he's alive now and everything is OK," Vlada said.
She worries too about her mother, who lives in Zaporizhzhia, which is near Mariupol, the port city now under Russian control.
"They haven't got food in this town," she explains.
Maria's mother and sister are in Poland, which they thought would only be temporary, and they are planning to return to be with her father and grandparents in Ternopil in western Ukraine.
Her father has a heart condition and is unable to fight, but according to law he cannot leave the country — and he wouldn't anyway.
In recent days, rocket attacks have begun near where her family lives.
The students are safe — but need support
Each student needs extra support to deal with the trauma of what they experienced, their school leader Nina Araya said.
She has heard stories of students "walking on the street with the dead bodies" as they left their country.
"It's not normal. We try to support them to make a family here."
That's why Ms Straga feels like a mum to the three young women in Australia, aged 19, 21 and 25.
"I was kind of on autopilot, and then when the girls came to Australia I spent a week crying because I bottled everything up for so long," Ms Straga told The Drum.
The girls are now getting their training for free from the Lee Academy in Tuggerah.
Ms Straga's crowdsourcing has raised more than $22,000 for the dancers in Australia and abroad.
On top of that, she has coordinated families to pay for flights and accommodation and arrange clothing donations.
The hardest part now, as food prices increase, is keeping them fed.
Hope for the future
The student performers have applied for bridging visas and will apply for the three-year Temporary Humanitarian Concern Visa, also known as the 786 visa, so they can access medical treatment.
The Home Affairs Department told The Drum that 1,100 Ukrainian nationals have been granted 786 visas.
Since the conflict began in February, the Department has granted 8,000 mostly temporary visas, but only 3,200 Ukrainians have arrived in the country.
Vlada and Maria have been meeting new friends, exploring their new home, and learning new dance styles.
"My family is so happy that I am in a safe place and I can continue to do my dancing," Maria said.
Maria always knew she wanted to dance and follow in her choreographer mother's footsteps.
"Even if the war ended now, dance is the last thing that Ukraine needs, but of course I come back to Ukraine and I want to teach and I want to show all my experience with Ukrainians," Maria said.
Returning to the Kyiv Academy could be some time away.
They can no longer train where they had before the war, because it has now become a makeshift hospital.
But the students hope that sometime in the near future they will be able to dance together again.
