LGI/

Paul is a Melbourne based Lighting Designer with a broad range of experience in theatrical and event production.

His multifaceted knowledge has been used to provide integrated solutions for theatre, festivals and events around the world. Lighting design credits include: Metal, Make Your Own World, The Dark Chorus & Split (Lucy Guerin Inc); The Magic Flute (New Zealand Opera); Changes 變 and Siva (Black Grace Dance Company); Fault Lines (Le Shan Modern Dance Company); Trapper and Robot Song (Arena Theatre Company); Hot Brown Honey, Briefs: Close Encounters, Briefs: The Second Coming and Yana Alana: Queen Kong (Briefs Factory).

Paul is a Director of Additive, providing lighting design and technical solutions to the entertainment industry.

Find out more at: Additive Lighting

Credits:
– Metal (2020) - Lighting Designer
– Make Your Own World (2019) - Lighting Designer
– Split (2017) - Lighting Designer
– The Dark Chorus (2016) - Lighting Designer and Production Manager

Image: Gregory Lorenzutti

Jethro Woodward is a Melbourne-based composer, musical director, arranger, musician and sound designer recognised for his expansive and highly layered film, theatre and dance scores. A multi Green Room Award winner and Helpmann nominee, he has worked with some of Australia’s leading major and independent companies including; Malthouse Theatre Company, Melbourne Theatre Company. Sydney Theatre Company, Belvoir, Melbourne Symphony Orchestra, Opera Victoria, Chamber Made Opera, Back to Back, Arena, Windmill, Chunky Move, Lucy Guerin, Australian Dance Theatre, Aphids, Stuck Pigs Squealing, Rawcus, and more.

Recent works include: Distant Matter (Staatsballett Berlin), Common Ground (Chunky Move/Dance Massive), Rumplestiltskin, (Windmill/Southbank Centre London), Paul Capsis & the Fitzroy Youth orchestra (Sydney Festival), Rita Dreaming, (in collaboration with Meow Meow for Sgt. Peppers 50th anniversary Festival, Liverpool)

Jethro has won Green Room Awards for his work on; Song for a weary Throat, (Rawcus), For the One who walk away (St Martins) The Bloody Chamber (Malthouse Theatre), Moth (Malthouse Theatre / Arena Theatre), Goodbye Vaudeville Charlie Mudd (Malthouse Theatre / Arena Theatre) and Irony Is Not Enough (Fragment 31). In 2018 Jethro Was the recipient of the GRAA Technical achievement Award.

Kate is a multidisciplinary artist working as a director, set designer, costume designer, visual artist, and floral designer. She is the Co-Artistic director and Co-CEO of feminist experimental performance company THE RABBLE. Kate has directed and designed for THE RABBLE – YES (Arts House/Vitalstatistix), UNWOMAN (The Substation/Dublin Fringe Festival), My Dearworthy Darling (Malthouse Theatre), Lone (Arts House), In the Bleak Midwinter (Malthouse Theatre), Deathly, Death, Dead (Curator - Malthouse Theatre, Melbourne Writers Festival), The Bedroom Project (Linden Gallery), Cageling (Carriageworks/45 downstairs) and Corvus (Carriageworks). She co-created and designed for THE RABBLE – Joan (Theatre Works/Wuzhen Festival/ Vitalstatistix), Cain & Abel (The Substation/Belvoir St Theatre), Frankenstein (Malthouse Theatre), Room of Regret (Melbourne Festival, Theatreworks), Story of O (Neon Festival, Melbourne Theatre Company), Orlando (Melbourne Festival, Malthouse Theatre/Brisbane Festival/Dark MOFO), Special (Carlton Courthouse), Salome: In Cogito Volume III (Carriageworks). For THE RABBLE she is currently working on WAKE, a new work co-authored with an ensemble of women over 65 in the western suburbs of Melbourne.

Kate is also an award-winning Set and Costume designer and has worked for many companies across the country including: Chunky Move, Melbourne Theatre Company, State Library of Victoria, Fraught Outfit, Melbourne Fringe Festival, Belvoir St Theatre, Carriageworks, Malthouse Theatre, Dance House, Griffin Theatre, La Mama, Terrapin Puppet Theatre, Shopfront Theatre, Melbourne Workers Theatre, Sydney Theatre Company and many more.

Kate has taught and mentored for VCA, Arts House, Frankston Arts Centre, Australia Council JUMP Mentorship program, Monash University, Melbourne Fringe Festival, Melbourne Festival Directors Lab and Dublin Fringe Festival. She co-founded THE RABBLE internship program and also facilitates workshops on Design and Dramaturgy, Feminist Collective Practice and Performance Creation through THE RABBLE workshop program.

Matthias Schack-Arnott is an Australian artist, composer and percussionist, whose works span live performance, public art and installation. Over the last decade he has been building unique kinetic systems to create visceral and visually compelling sound worlds.

Described by The Guardian as ‘visually and sonically exquisite’, Matthias’ works have been presented by major festivals and contemporary art spaces including Sydney Festival, Melbourne Festival, Illuminate Festival (Adelaide), RISING Festival (Melbourne), Supersense Festival of the Ecstatic (Melbourne), Arts House (Melbourne), The Unconformity (Tasmania), Perth Institute of Contemporary Art, La Comete (France), Spor Festival (Denmark),The Substation (Melbourne) and The National Gallery of Victoria.

Matthias has worked with many pre-imminent musicians including Steve Reich (USA), Claire Chase (USA), Unsuk Chin (Korea), Zeena Perkins (USA), Valerio Tricoli (Italy), John Zorn (USA), Liza Lim (Aus) and Steven Schick (USA) and as a performer has presented work internationally at the Barbican (London), Cafe Oto (London), Ruhr Triennale (Germany), Transart (Italy), Tage für Neue Musik (Zurich), Noordezon (Netherlands), Batteries (Geneva), Pioneer Works (New York), Kitchen (New York) and Form Festival (Phoenix).

From 2010-2018 Matthias was the Artistic Associate of Australia’s leading percussive arts organisation, Speak Percussion (‘virtuosic and adventurous’, New York Times). During his time with the company he worked closely with Artistic Director Eugene Ughetti in shaping the artistic program, including more than 60 commissions, many critically acclaimed interdisciplinary projects and performances in the world’s leading arts festivals.
Matthias’ recent work ‘Everywhen’ won ‘Work of Year: Electro-Acoustic/Sound Art’ at the 2020 Australian Art Music Awards. He has also been awarded the 2016 Melbourne Prize for Music (Development Award), the 2014 Green Room Award for ‘Outstanding Work by an Emerging Artist’ for his work ‘Fluvial’ and four Australian Art Music Awards for his work with Speak Percussion, including the 2019 ‘Performance of the Year’.

Matthias has also created new works with some of Australia’s most celebrated choreographers. He co-created ‘They Want New Language’ with Antony Hamilton in 2017 for La Comete (France) and recently collaborated with Lucy Guerin to create a large-scale interdisciplinary work commissioned by RISING Festival in association with National Gallery of Victoria.
Groundswell (2021), his first interactive public artwork, was co-commissioned by Sydney Festival, Melbourne Fringe and the Naomi Milgrom Foundation. This large- scale participatory work invites the public to activate an expansive world of kinetic sound. Groundswell premiered at Circular Quay for the 2021 Sydney Festival and will be a keynote event at Melbourne Fringe Festival 2021.

Matthias was commissioned by Naomi Milgrom to create an immersive audio-visual installation for the 2015 MPavilion in collaboration with Bluebottle. The work was experienced by thousands of people across its four month season in Melbourne’s Queen Victoria Gardens.

As a musician, Matthias has been a soloist and collaborator with many of Australia’s leading arts organisations, including Australian Art Orchestra, Chamber Made, Liquid Architecture, Topology, Clocked Out, Elision and Aphids, as well as both the Adelaide and Melbourne Symphony Orchestras.

Credits:
– Pendulum (2021)

Image: Keith Saunders

Katerina Stathis is a music-therapist, multi-instrumentalist and composer. Her current soundscape practice reveals universal visceral themes, conveying a gamut of juxtaposing emotions, using a blend of analogue and digital synthesisers, found sound and acoustic instruments. Katerina has had a number of solo releases including Delusions & Heroines, Refract: Covid Soundscapes Vol 1, Hope Springs Eternal and most recently the soundtrack for Cloudland a collaboration with installation artist, Chi-Uh Star. Her compositions have been included in various compilations including MESS: Capacitor and Music Under Lockdown: Melbourne 2020 on the Shame File Music Label. Katerina is one third of the composition collective STATHIS//DAVEY//KIM who were involved in sonic installation collaborations for Mona Foma 2020 & 2021: Hypnos Cave (in collaboration with Robin Fox and Soma Lumia) and Chairway to Heaven- A Suspended Symphony in the Sky. She is also a member of the MESS Synthesiser Orchestra, whose performance of Magnitudes by Mat Watson, debuted at Sydney Myer Music Bowl in 2021.

Credits

• How To Be Us (2022)

Image: Carla Grbac

CS + Kreme are Conrad Standish and Sam Karmel–two Australians who record slow, hallucinatory music. Based in and around the hinterlands of Naarm/Melbourne, there was a meeting of minds at an intrepid friend’s day-party a few years back, then after one alchemic studio jam – the rest was history.

Over the past few years, CS + Kreme have released a string of disparate records on labels which share their ethos: Total Stasis, Wichelroede, Efficient Space, Reel Torque and The Trilogy Tapes. The latter collaborations with Will Bankhead have been the most prolific, his label becoming an unofficial home away from home for the duo. Issuing EPs Cold Shoulder in 2018, howwouldyoufeelwithoutthatthought as well as the Snoopy LP to much critical acclaim in 2020.

In 2022 they released their latest offering to The Trilogy Tapes in the shape of another album Orange, which Boomkat dubbed as “brilliantly incomparable”. Where Snoopy was “quietly seductive, deeply romantic and stealthily addictive”, Orange is a remarkably different record, composed of skittering drum programming, invocatory voices, and dubwise treatments. The LP is profoundly original, as if the duo have started again completely from scratch, paving a different path for themselves into the unknown. Guests on the album include British folk legend Bridget St. John and their returning collaborator, Australian composer-performer James Rushford, who also featured on Snoopy. 2

Transcending style and space, CS + Kreme don’t follow a philosophy of making music, what they do is more fluid. Drawn like moths to the liminal state, they write slow and meditative “horizontal-music” which takes in heavy dub processing, sweeping post-punk and chamber soundscapes. In Karmel’s words, “Inherently, there are influences that come through without us even realising. It’s kind of that cliche where people put their two cents forward for what our influences are, but I don’t think we’ve set out to be like anyone or anything.”

Both seasoned musicians, Standish & Karmel together hold a rich history of collaborations in successful experimental groups such as: F ingers, Bum Creek, Standish/Carlyon and Devastations to name a few. In recent years they’ve collaborated with vocalist Bridget St John, James Rushford who played portative organ on both Snoopy and Orange, and Judith Hamann contributed cello on “April Fools Day”, from howwouldyoufeelwithoutthatthought.

Following a string of stand-out shows in 2020 which included a seminal night at The White Hotel in Manchester, CS + Kreme developed commissions for Rewire Festival (NL), and Berliner Festspiel (DE). In 2022 they embarked on a 27-date tour of the UK, Europe & North America – with many sold-out shows, their most extensive venture on the road to date. Late in the year they began their radio residency on NTS.

Now in 2023 they are writing new material and preparing for another string of European dates which include bills at the prestigious Bourse de Commerce in Paris, as well as Rewire Festival in the Hague

Peter is a Melbourne/Naarm based King’s Counsel and is Chair of the Ian Potter Museum of Art, the Sir Robert Menzies Memorial Foundation, the University of Melbourne’s Humanities Foundation and Melbourne Art Foundation.

Peter has been Deputy Chair of the Australian Centre for Contemporary Art, a Director of the McClelland Sculpture Park and Gallery and Director of the National Gallery of Australia Foundation and is a Patron of the Australian World Orchestra as well as a member of the Victorian College of the Arts Foundation. Peter is a Life Governor of The Florey and a former director of the Melbourne Business School as well as various other legal governing boards. In 2014 Peter was made a Member of the General Division of the Order of Australia for significant service to the law in Victoria and to the community. 

Lorrae is the Manager of Philanthropy Partnerships at Arts Centre Melbourne.

Lorrae brings more than 20 years’ experience in Philanthropy and Business Strategy to the LGI Board. Lorrae has had built and led Philanthropy teams in large, national non-profit and arts organisations including, Lifeline and Headspace National Youth Mental Health Foundation, ACMI, the national museum of New Zealand, Te Papa Tongarewa. Throughout her career, Lorrae has focused on developing and delivering strategies for diversifying revenue streams through fundraising, government and philanthropic grants, corporate partnerships and where appropriate, fee for service offerings.

Lorrae is a highly experienced and successful relationship manager, committed to sustainable business practices. Her practical experience is complemented by formal qualifications in Business, Marketing, Sustainability and Governance.

Katie is a Chartered Accountant and experienced Finance and Corporate Services executive.

She has extensive experience in both the public and private sectors, including over 12 years’ experience in arts administration. Her areas of expertise include organisational leadership, financial management, project & change management, corporate governance and risk management.

Katie is the Head of Finance at the National Gallery of Victoria (NGV). Prior to joining the NGV, Katie spent four years in Sydney where she was the Director, Finance and Corporate Services of the Museum of Contemporary Art Australia (MCA) and the Head of Finance and Administration at Sydney Festival. Katie began her career at PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) before relocating to New York, where she held a senior finance position in publishing with McGraw Hill. In 2009, Katie returned to Melbourne and joined Arts Centre Melbourne, where she served for 5 years and held the position of Manager, Governance, Risk and Compliance. Following this, Katie was the Finance Director of BAR Studio, a Melbourne-based international interior design studio.

Katie has previously served on the Board of Next Wave Festival (2015-17) and Rawcus Theatre Company (2014-2022). She is a member of the Institute of Chartered Accountants, holds a Bachelor of Business and has completed the Company Directors Course (AICD).

Artistic Director of Lucy Guerin Inc

For more information, please see Lucy Guerin in the Staff section.

Georgina is Director of Commercial & Development at ACMI.

She is an executive manager who has happily combined her love of arts and culture with her day job over a career spanning 20 years in media, major events and the arts.

She has held senior leadership roles across Melbourne’s cultural and government sectors over the past decade, and led business development, brand, marketing, digital and communications strategy for prestigious Victorian attractions and events including Melbourne Fringe, Melbourne Writers Festival, NGV and ACMI.

Georgina is also the co-owner of Collingwood wine bar, Smithward.

Michael Whitehead is Regional General Manager at Vicinity Centres.

He oversees iconic mixed-use and retail assets including Chadstone, Emporium Melbourne, Sydney CBD assets and South Australia and Tasmanian regions, with a total combined value of more than $10B of assets under management. Prior to this he was Centre Manager for Chadstone Shopping Centre responsible for the operational management of one of the worlds best retail destinations.

Previous to joining Vicinity centres and the property industry Michael has had significant senior management experience in a broad range of sectors including consulting, hospitality and tourism, arts and culture, venue management and transport industries over the past 20 years. Most recently he worked for Keoils Downer managing Growth and Innovation for Yarra Trams leading strategies to deliver over $2B of revenue and innovation across the group.

Michael has built a wealth of experience and capability including strategic thinking, change management, leadership and product development. In addition Michael is a Board member for Lucy Guerin INC and recently finished as a Board Observer program with 2 years on the Australian Ballet Board.

Eloise is currently Head of Legal at Jetstar Airways in the Qantas Group.

Eloise has over 2 decades’ experience in in-house legal teams and at a major Australian law firm. She is an intellectual property specialist with a wide range of legal experience that extends to managing joint ventures in Asia and industry-specific policy and regulation. In additional to her legal role, Eloise has also held leadership roles supporting Qantas Group’s Reconciliation Action Plan and championing safety in the workplace.

Eloise has a love of the arts and was previously on the board advisory of Black Arm Band Inc. She was also a board observer with Fitted for Work Inc as part of the Observership Program.

Alice Dixon is choreographer, dancer, teacher, and performer working across contemporary dance, theatre and experimental performance. She has worked with Australian and international artists and companies including: Natalie Cursio, Lucy Guerin, Monica Bill Barnes & Company, CHUNKY MOVE (Antony Hamilton), Opera Australia, Mish Gregor and Lara Thoms (Aphids), Rawcus, Victoria Chiu, Reckless Sleepers, Phillip Adams BalletLab, Walter Dundervill, Euginia Lim, Rob McCreddie, Prue Clark and Emilie Collyer, Emma Riches, QL2 Youth Dance Company, Nebahat Erpolat, Deanne Butterworth, Gabrielle De Vetri and One Step at a Time Like This, amongst others. 

Since 2013 Alice has worked in collaboration with fellow dance and performance makers William McBride and Caroline Meaden. Together they have made and performed eight original works of dance and theatre, carving out a distinctive aesthetic and formal contribution to the local dance ecology. Alice Will Caroline have presented work in festivals and venues including Dance Massive, Next Wave, FOLA (Festival of Live Art), Dancehouse, Carriageworks, the Substation, Temperance Hall, Arts House, Abbotsford Convent, Northcote Town Hall and the National Gallery of Victoria.

Their most recent work ‘What’s Actually Happening’ was presented as part of the Keir Choreographic Award 2022.  Their work together has been recognised by numerous awards and nominations including the 2020 Green Room Award for Best Ensemble (Dance). In 2022 they were 1 of 10 artists/companies to be recognised with a $100,000 Chloe Munro Fellowship.

Amber is a Naarm/Melbourne-based dancer and choreographer. Her practice incorporates prosthetics, mask-making, film and practical special effects to create new augmented bodies, foreign to both the performer and viewer. Amber has worked extensively with Chunky Move, Lucy Guerin Inc and is a creative associate of Tasdance. In 2022 she was honoured to receive a Chloe Munro Fellowship from Lucy Guerin Inc. She won a 2022 Green Room Award for Best Performer in Prue Lang’s Project F and was a finalist for The Australian Ballet/Telstra Emerging Choreographer. In 2020 Amber was a recipient of Solitude 1, Chunky Move’s home-based residency program and created her film ‘Softtrap’ for the 2021 Activators program. She has presented solo work for Tasdance, Lucy Guerin Inc’s ‘PIECES’ and Dancehouse’s ‘Now Pieces’. Amber has enjoyed performing for Dancenorth and Antony Hamilton Projects as well as independent choreographers and multidisciplinary artists; Jenni Large, Prue Lang, Jo Lloyd, James Batchelor, Su Huiyu, Kyall Shanks, Jonathan Homsey and Niharika Senapati.

Image: Gregory Lorenzutti

Antony Hamilton is Artistic Director and co-CEO of Chunky Move. He works with collaborators to meld choreography with sound and visual design, resulting in vivid imaginary worlds in performance.

Antony has been the recipient of major fellowships from Bangarra Dance Theatre (the Russell Page Fellowship), the Tanja Liedtke Foundation, the Australia Council for the Arts and the Sidney Myer Foundation. In 2013, he was Resident Director of Lucy Guerin Inc and in 2014 was guest dance curator at The National Gallery of Victoria. He was also the inaugural International Resident Artist at Dancemakers Toronto from 2016 to 2018. Antony has received four Helpmann Award nominations, winning for Black Project 1 & 2, and Forever and Ever (Sydney Dance Co.). He has won numerous Green Room Awards and has also received a New York Performing Arts Award ‘Bessie’ for Outstanding Production for MEETING.

In his time as Artistic Director at Chunky Move, Antony has premiered Token Armies (2019), Universal Estate (2019), Nocturnal (2020), Yung Lung (2022) and Rewards for the Tribe (2022). He has also championed a range of sector support programs, including the Victorian Regional Artist Residency, commissioning program Activators and the Choreographer in Residence initiative.

Antony danced with Lucy Guerin Inc. from 2005 to 2009, performing in Lucy’s works Aether, Structure and Sadness, Corridor, and Untrained.

Ashley McLellan graduated from the Western Australian Academy of Performing Arts in 2010 with an Advanced Diploma in Performing Arts (Dance).

Ashley performed with the West Australian Ballet from 2008 - 2011, under the directorship of Ivan Cavallari.

In 2015 she joined Dancenorth Australia’s full time ensemble, touring works extensively across the globe, and in 2021 she moved back down to Naarm, Melbourne where she currently resides.

Ashley is working as a freelance dancer and teacher with Lucy Guerin Inc. Chunky Move, Melanie Lane and Stephanie Lake to name a few, creating new works and touring within Australia and Internationally.

As a choreographer she has made a few short works; Other in 2013, Pearl for Lucy Guerin Inc.’s season of Pieces for Small Spaces in 2014, Free Dive with Dancenorth in 2017, Laguna 20 for Dancenorth in 2020, and Veiled Wild for Transit Dance in 2021.

Benjamin Hancock is a dancer, choreographer, and performance artist, who is currently based in Melbourne, unceded Wurundjeri country. He has featured in works by Australia’s leading choreographers including Lucy Guerin, Prue Lang, Melanie Lane, Antony Hamilton, Lee Serle, Sue Healey, Martin del Amo, Narelle Benjamin, and Gideon Obarzanek.

As a solo artist, Benjamin often inhabits fantastical dispositions that invite audiences to embrace parallel masculinities and femininities. He has presented solo performances at Chunky Move (Next Move), Lucy Guerin Inc (Pieces for Small Spaces), Performance Space (Day For Night), National Gallery of Victoria (Melbourne Now), Mona Museum & New Orleans Biennial (Prospect 3 USA).

Benjamin has also collaborated with contemporary artists, such as Dylan Martorell, Belle Bassin, Lichen Kelp, and Fayen d’Evie, to develop and perform works presented at leading Australian galleries including the Art Gallery of NSW, the Ian Potter Museum of Art, and Heide Museum of Art.

He received an Australian Dance Award (2017), Helpmann Award Nomination (2017), and Green Room Award (2016) for his outstanding performance in Lucy Guerin Inc’s ‘The Dark Chorus’. His performance in ‘Princess’, his solo work choreographed for Chunky Move (Next Move) received a Green Room Award Nomination (2015). ‘Princess’ also won two Green Room Awards (2015) for outstanding sound design and visual design.

Acclaimed as a performance artist in drag cabaret and club venues, including BARBA and Honcho Disko, Benjamin often plays with the spectacle of camouflage and masks, within egalitarian choreographies of drag. These performance entities have resonated beyond the club scene, leading to commissions at Aesop, Tourism Australia, NGV, Art Bank, Mona Foma and Dark Mofo, ACCA, ACMI. Collaborations continue with performance artists James Andrews, The Huxleys and Discordia.

Since 2015, Benjamin has been a core member of the drag cabaret ensemble YUMMY, which has performed at Underbelly Festival (London), Edinburgh Fringe Festival, Brisbane Festival, Auckland Live, and fringe festivals in Melbourne, Adelaide, and Perth. ‘Yummy’ won two Green Room Awards (2018) for best production and cabaret ensemble.

Benjamin graduated from the Victorian College of the Arts in 2008 with a Bachelor of Dance, and was the recipient of the inaugural VCA choreographic award in his final year.

benjaminhancock.net

Image from Make Your Own World (2019) rehearsals in 2018. Credit: Gregory Lorenzutti

Caitlin Mewett is an emerging dance artist who relocated to Naarm/ Melbourne from Wollongong (NSW). Excited by the peculiar, her practice utilises movement to challenge comfort and physical boundaries. She aims to amalgamate precision, intricacy, distortion, strength and mundane activity to produce foreign dialogues and the uncanny.

2022 saw Caitlin work with choreographers Lucy Guerin, Antony Hamilton and Jo Lloyd. Caitlin performed with Lucy Guerin Inc in ‘PENDULUM’ for Melbourne Fringe Festival 2022. She performed with Company TasDance in ‘Collision’ choreographed by Jo Lloyd for Launceston’s 2022 Junction Arts Festival.  She understudied for Chunky Move’s season ‘Rewards For the Tribe’ choreographed by Antony Hamilton, for the 2022 Melbourne Rising Festival. 

Caitlin also performed an excerpt of ‘Here We Have It’ by Amrita Hepi at Next Wave and was a 2022 artist of the Emerging Choreographers Program by Dance House.

In 2021 Caitlin graduated from the Victorian College of the Arts (VCA) with a Bachelor of Dance. She was the recipient of the Agnes Robertson Dance Entry Scholarship and the Lionel Gell Foundation Scholarship. In 2021 she performed Naree Vachananda’s ‘Lucent’ in the National Gallery of Victoria Triennial Festival. Upon graduation she received an internship with company Chunky Move.

Claire Leske is a Melbourne based performer and collaborator from Wagga Wagga, NSW. A graduate from the Victorian College of the Arts in 2014, Claire has worked with choreographers Rebecca Jensen and Sarah Aiken, Jo Lloyd, Prue Lang, Shelley Lasica, Geoffrey Watson, Harrison Hall & Andrew Treloar, Brianna Kell, Siobhan McKenna and Tra Mi Dinh. Claire is the initiator of Dance Is; a ‘what’s on’ website for contemporary dance in Melbourne and Open Dance (movement classes for adults with a background in dance).

Cora Hughes is dance artist based in Naarm, Melbourne. Predominately, trained in contemporary dance forms, she is interested in how dance can bring people together and connect people to their sense of place.

Recently, she completed her studies in Contemporary Dance at the Victorian College of the Arts where she worked with Lucy Guerin, Julie Minaai, Gregory Lorenzutti, Tristan Carter and Dylan Tedaldi, Daniel Riley and Brianna Kell. She was the recipient of The Philip Adams Award, 2022. Whilst studying she was engaged as a dancer in a development with Helen with Helen Herbertson Projects.

As a former company member of Yellow Wheel for five years, she has worked with renowned artists including Adam Wheeler, Kyall Shanks, Israel Aloni, Lee Brummer, Phillip Adams, Alice Lee Holland, Ashleigh Musk and Joshua Lowe at events such as The Australian Dance Awards, Lucy Guerin Inc’s 15th Birthday, The Australian Youth Dance Festival, Melbourne Fringe Festival, Melbourne Fashion Festival and Dance Massive.

In 2021, Cora performed as part of dance residency with Ashleigh Musk, Jenni Large, Isabella Hood and Erin O’Rourke at the Judith Wright Centre, working on Ashleigh Musk’s work ‘From Infancy.’ In 2022, he continued with Ashleigh Musk in a residency at WXYZ Studios. 

Deanne Butterworth is a performer and choreographer born in Perth and based in Naarm/Melbourne. Her practice is preoccupied with the investigation of movement and how it relates to the physical, emotional, and sonic space in which it is located. Since 1994 she has shown work across many platforms including Next Wave Festival, Dance Massive, NGV, Dancehouse, Melbourne Fringe, Dance New Amsterdam (NYC), Hong Kong, West Space, Bus Gallery, M Pavilion, RMIT Gallery, Melbourne Art Fair, Temperance Hall, and more. Her work traverses public and private spheres to include incidental performances and the role of the spectator and has been situated in galleries, for film, theatre, museums, and outdoors. In 2017-2019 Deanne was a studio artist at Gertrude Contemporary creating multiple new works, in 2019 she was Resident Artist at Temperance Hall, and in 2021 Resident Artist at The Pavilion, Fitzroy Gardens. Deanne has performed in the works of Shelley Lasica, Sandra Parker, Phillip Adams, Lucy Guerin, Jo Lloyd, Shian Law, Lee Serle, Brooke Stamp and others. She has also performed in the work of many visual artists including Sally Smart, Linda Tegg, Justene Williams, and Michaela Dwyer. Her most recent full-length work ‘Slow Calm Drama’ premiered at Dancehouse April 2021. Across 2023 she is a participating artist in the Platform Arts LAB developing new collaborative works. Throughout the course of her almost 30-year career she has been nominated for multiple Green Room Awards.

Geoffrey Watson is a Melbourne-based artist whose work is rooted in choreography but has branches in wearable design, text, lighting, sculpture and photography.

www.geoffreygeoffreygeoffrey.com

Through this work, Geoffrey advocates for a state of perceptual unrest:
an agent to further confound the already confusing landscapes of art, history and reality.

Geoffrey’s performance works include Camel (Arts House, 2016), Loving You Ad Nauseam (Trades Hall, 2016) DISTRACTION: Smackdown! (Melbourne Fashion Festival, 2017), DISTRACTION: T.C. F’d Up (Counihan Gallery, 2017), Geoffrey’s Corpse: Violet Spurlock (Uferstudios Berlin, 2019), Rachael Wisby (Newport Substation, 2019), and ongoing visual arts mission Reverse Fruit.

As a performer, Geoffrey has worked with companies and artists including BalletLab, Nana Biluš-Abaffy, Lucy Guerin Inc. Lee Serle, Alisdair Macindoe, and Gekidan Kaitaisha. His costumes have been featured in Virgin Australia Fashion Festival, Melbourne Fashion Week, and in works by Lilian Steiner, Brooke Stamp, Matthew Bird et al.

Georgia is a contemporary dancer, performer and teacher originating from New Plymouth, Aotearoa. She is now living and working in Naarm. She was an ensemble dancer for six years with Dancenorth Australia under the directorship of Kyle Page and Amber Haines performing and touring works at festivals nationally and internationally by artists including; Melanie Lane, Lucy Guerin, Stephanie Lake, Alisdair MacIndoe, Gideon Obarzanek, Lee Serle, Jo Lloyd and Ross McCormack.

Georgia is the first inaugural recipient of the Naarm/Solo dance exchange where she is working with Indonesian artist Riyo Tulus Pernando to develop work across countries and cultures. She has choreographed three short works, ‘sifting through all the forgets’, ‘Construction and Contemplation’ and ‘Together Indecision’ for Dancenorth’s annual Tomorrow Maker’s seasons 2017-2020. Currently Georgia continues to refine her practice where the body is the basis for curiosity and transformation. Her embodiment practices honour the complexity and intelligence of the body and its ability to reflect the world in which it is in.

Harrison Ritchie-Jones is an independent artist based in Naarm (Melbourne). He graduated from the Victorian College of the Arts in 2014 and was awarded the Undergraduate Most Outstanding Creative Scholarship. In 2018 he was nominated for a Green Room Award for Best Male Performer in Stephanie Lake’s ‘Pile of Bones’ and premiered his work ‘Shimmer of The Numinous’ as part of Next Wave’s Kickstart program. He has worked with numerous artists and dance companies across Australia and is currently touring nationally and internationally with Stephanie Lake’s ‘Manifesto’. In August 2023 he will perform in Chunky Move’s new major work ‘4/4’.

Lee Serle graduated from the Victorian College of the Arts with a Bachelor of Dance in 2003, and has presented his choreographic work to critical acclaim worldwide, creating dances on all scales, from grand stages to the intimate and personal, commissioned by the Lyon Opera Ballet (France), Sydney Dance Company, Lucy Guerin Inc, ACCA, The Substation, among many others. Lee has received fellowships from Australia Council for the Arts, City of Sydney and Rolex Arts Institute, and nominated for several Australian Dance and Greenroom Awards throughout his career. Lee is a highly valued educator having lectured and choreographed at tertiary institutions in Europe, USA and Australia, and is currently a trainer at NAISDA Dance College for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander developing artists in NSW.

Image Credit: Cherine Fahd

Lilian Steiner is an Australian-born, Chinese-Malay/Hungarian-Czechoslovakian dancer and choreographer based in Naarm (Melbourne). Her practice champions the deep intelligence of the body and its unique ability to reveal and comment on the complexities of contemporary humanity. Her work has been presented in Australia, France, Italy, Switzerland, Latvia, Spain, the UK and Hong Kong.

Since graduating from the Victorian College of the Arts, Bachelor of Dance program in 2010, Lilian has worked as a major performer-collaborator with Lucy Guerin Inc., and occupied the role of the company’s Resident Director in 2021-22. She has also worked on numerous projects with choreographers Phillip Adams, Shelley Lasica and Melanie Lane amongst others, and frequently collaborates with artists working with sculpture, film, experimental sound performance and 3D digital design.

Lilian received the Green Room Award for Best Female Dancer in both 2017 and 2018, as well as the Helpmann Award in 2017. Her work Noise Quartet Meditation received the 2015 Green Room Award for Concept and Realisation.

liliansteiner.com

Melanie Lane is an Australian choreographer and performer of Javanese/European cultural heritage. Working between Naarm/Melbourne and Ngunnawal/Canberra, she works across visual arts, theatre, music and film. Her choreographic work interrogates physical and social realities to create surreal futures that are confounded, broken and reconfigured.

She has been commissioned by Sydney Dance Company, Australasian Dance Collective, Dance North, Chunky Move, Schauspiel Leipzig and West Australian Ballet (among others) and has toured her independent work internationally. Her collaborations include projects with UK musician CLARK, Adena Jacobs, Amos Gebhardt, Leyla Stevens , Monica Lim and Rianto.
Melanie was the recipient of the 2018 Keir Choreographic Award, 2017 Leipziger Bewegungskunstpreis and has been nominated for the Green Room and Helpmann Awards.

As a performer, Lane has worked with artists such as Tino Seghal, Arco Renz, Eun Me Ahn, Club Guy and Roni, Jo Lloyd, Antony Hamilton and Lucy Guerin. Melanie was the 2015 resident director at Lucy Guerin Inc., Resident Artist at The Substation, Associate Artist at QL2 and is the 2023/24 Choreographer in Residence at Chunky Move.

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Image credit: Barbara Dietl

Michelle is a choreographer, performer, and collaborator. Creating and dancing alongside others enriches her life. Her performance career spans working nationally and internationally with artists and companies such as Gideon Obarzanek (Chunky Move), Lucy Guerin, Helen Herbertson, Leigh Warren, Michael Kantor, Phillip Adams (Balletlab), Sandra Parker, Sue Healey, Polyglot Theatre, Black Hole Theatre, Victorian Opera, Ben Cobham (Bluebottle) and Walter Dunderville (N.Y.a). Her independent work has been presented at Melbourne Festival, Beijing Dance Festival, Dance Massive, The Substation and Castlemaine State Festival. Michelle is a Helpmann Award nominee, multiple Australian Dance Award nominee and recipient of several Victorian Green Room Awards. Michelle is also a qualified Child Play Therapist.

Ngioka Bunda-Heath is Wakka Wakka, Ngugi from Queensland; and Birrpai from New South Wales. She graduated from the Victorian College of the Arts, as the first Aboriginal woman in dance.

Ngioka received both the Hutchinson Indigenous Fellowship and Residency and the Chloe Munro AO/Lucy Guerin Inc Independent Artist fellowship.

She worked for Bangarra Dance Theatre in ‘Rekindling’ their youth education program; and is the First Peoples Partnership Coordinator at Chunky Move.

Ngioka has performed works by Mariaa Randall, Sarah Aiken and Rebecca Jensen, Amrita Hepi and will dance for LGI in 2023. Internationally, she’s participated in dance conferences, festivals, and residencies in New Caledonia, France, Canada, and America.

Ngioka’s choreographic work includes ‘Blood Quantum’ (2019), ‘Birrpai’ (2021) awarded Dance Best Duo/Ensemble at the Greenroom Awards, ‘Bridge’ (2022) and ‘Footprints’ (2022).

Raina Peterson is a dancer-choreographer of Fiji-Indian and English heritage who was born and raised on the lands of the Gunaikurnai people of regional Victoria. Raina creates moving experimental dance works that respect and challenge both traditional and contemporary dance. With a substantial body of new work including four full-length company productions, Raina‘s works draw on their training in classical Indian dance (mohiniyattam) and are critically acclaimed for their subversive and visceral approach to exploring diasporic experience, cultural identity, colonialism, gender diversity and sexuality. With dance partner Govind Pillai, their full-length works include In Plain Sanskrit (2015), Bent Bollywood (2018), Third Nature (2019), Kāla (2019), and dance film Drishti (Winner of two Melbourne Fringe Awards, 2020), and two solo works: Narasimha: ManLion (2022, winner of Melbourne Fringe Award for ‘Best dance and physical theatre’) and Mohini (upcoming, March 2023 at Arts House for Frame Festival).

Image Credit: Kavita Peterson

Rebecca Jensen is a dancer, choreographer, and teacher from Aotearoa / New Zealand, based in Naarm / Melbourne Australia. Her practice considers the equally speculative and practical forces of dance practice, with sustaining interests in multiplicity, memory, time, and the influence of expanding digital technologies. Several of her ongoing projects examine social and ecological systems through improvised group dances. In 2013, Rebecca co-founded participatory project ‘Deep Soulful Sweats’ with Sarah Aiken. Their collaborative work investigates and subverts the roles of performance, considering complicity and commonality of audience and performer. Rebecca regularly performs as a dancer and cross-disciplinary collaborator, notably, she has danced with choreographer Jo Lloyd since 2010.

Image Credit: Jay Jensen

Samantha Hines was born in Sydney where she trained at Ettingshausens and Ev and bow, before attending New Zealand School of Dance. In her final year 2012 she was hired by Australian Dance Theater. She performed and toured extensively with the company both nationally and internationally. In 2016 she left to go on to work with Lucy Guerin, Gideon Obarzanek and Stephanie Lake. Between 2017-2021 she joined Dancenorth full time touring to America, Europe, Mexico and Asia. In 2022 she performed in the world premieres of; ’Grey Rhino’ by Cass Mortimer Eipper and Charmene Yap, ’Manifesto’ by Stephanie Lake and ‘Double Beat’ by Sara Black. Samantha has been nominated for awards such as a Helpmann award (2017), Greenroom Award (2017) and a New York Bessie award (2019).

Stephanie is a Melbourne based dancer. She completed her dance studies in Wellington at the New Zealand School of Dance, graduating at the end of 2020. During her time in New Zealand she had the privilege to work with choreographer Malia Johnston on ‘World of Wearable Arts’ and ‘He Wawā Waraki Roaring Chorus’. As well as Good Company Arts artistic director and film maker Daniel Belton on his recent film ‘AD PARNASSUM - purapurawhetū.’

Stephanie has most recently performed in ‘PENDULUM’ a work created in collaboration between Lucy Guerin and Matthias Schack - Arnott at Melbourne Fringe Festival.

Stephanie has most recently worked with Lucy Guerin in ‘PENDULUM’.

Tra Mi is a dance artist based across Sydney and Melbourne. Studying at Victorian College of the Arts, she graduated in 2014 with a Bachelor of Fine Arts (Dance) and the Orloff Family Charitable Trust Scholarship for Most Outstanding Dancer.

Since graduating, Tra Mi has worked with incredible artists including Lucy Guerin, Victoria Chiu, Lee Serle, Michelle Heaven, Isabelle Beauvard and Monica Bill Barnes & Company in works presented at Dance Massive, AsiaTopa, MEL&NYC, Melbourne Fringe Festival, MPavillion, and Melbourne International Arts Festival. Her performance in Make Your Own World (2019) by Lucy Guerin Inc was nominated for a Green Room Award.

Tra Mi’s choreographic practice has been supported through residencies undertaken through Tasdance’s On the Island program, Sydney Fringe Festival’s Art in Isolation, Critical Path, and Readymade Studios Constant Relay. HOLDING, Tra Mi’s debut solo work premiered at March Dance Sydney Festival 2021 to a sold-out season. Tra Mi will be sharing a short work not the piece at ReadyMade Works’ upcoming program Happy Hour #12. Her new work (UP)HOLDING will be presented at Sydney Fringe Festival.

Image credit: Gregory Lorenzutti