Out of Bounds – August 2022 Showcase

Amelia Jean O’Leary

A First Nations Gamilaroi Yinarr from Northern New South Wales living in Naarm (Melbourne) for the past eleven years.

O’Leary’s practice is grounded in the duality of power and softness. It breathes freedom and honesty of exploration and human experience, becoming a product of both the digital and physical realms.

Since graduating from Victorian College of the Arts last year O’Leary performed and toured her first solo full length show Yinarr in Adelaide Fringe 2022. O’Leary is currently working with Joel Bray and is working on having Yinarr performed in Melbourne this year.

As an independent artist, O'Leary is interested in creating her own soundscapes and projections as part of an integrated practice.

Oliver Le

A Vietnamese-Australian dancer from Naarm.

Currently, his practice is primarily based in Hip Hop freestyle and other street dancer styles (breaking, popping and house). He has trained in martial arts such as Judo, Wing Chun, Brazilian Jiu Jitsu and Capoeira which has heavily influenced his movement and training.

Oliver is interested in bringing his vast knowledge of street dance to a space where it’s not typically presented (the stage).

Projects and works Oliver has been involved in include Wavey, Dancehouse’s 2022 ECP and Cross Styles Stage Vol.1.

David Prakash

An Indian/Samoan artist who began his journey into the realm of street dance in 2012. During this time, he has explored multiple genres such as Popping, Hip Hop freestyle, House, and Krump. David has judged at various street dance battles in Melbourne and has competed both nationally and internationally.

Since 2018, David has been co-facilitating 'Jam On Toast’, a weekly dance jam for the Melbourne dance community to dance, hang out and connect with new people.

David’s recent venture into the contemporary dance space has seen him in development for ‘Strange Distributions’ with Chunky Move and in multiple creative projects with Jennifer Ma & Collaborators including Home(s), Submerge at Dancehouse, Art Echoes commissioned by Bunjil Place, ACCUMULATING commissioned by Hyphenated Projects, and We Are Here.

Fiona Martin

Fiona works across video, dance, sound, theatre, performance and installation. She is currently studying a Masters of Contemporary Art at the VCA, has degrees in dance, theatre and literature and post-graduate studies in visual art. Additionally, she is a fitness instructor, published poet and has recently finished studies in hypnotherapy and strategic psychotherapy.

The assortment of epistemologies which Fiona works into coalesce in her artistic practice to create artworks about consciousness and transcendence, investigated via the ordinary tasks of everyday life.

Fiona has been the recipient of numerous supported residencies and awards, including the Ian Potter Museum of Art, Miegunyah Student Project Award, the Bogong Centre for Sound Culture residency, the Bundanon Trust residency.

Fiona lives on Wurundjeri land, with her partner and four children, and exhibits her work in group and solo exhibitions around Melbourne.

Georgia Rudd

An independent contemporary dancer teacher and choreographer originating from New Zealand. She is now living and working in Naarm/Melbourne.

Prior to this she worked with various artists during five years at Dancenorth Australia including; Amber Haines and Kyle Page, Melanie Lane, Lucy Guerin, Alisdair MacIndoe, Gideon Obarzanek, Lee Serle, Jo Lloyd and Ross McCormack, performing and touring works nationally and internationally. 

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.

Georgia continues to refine her dance practice where the body is the basis for questioning, processing 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.

Georgia graduated from the New Zealand School of Dance as a Contemporary Major in 2015. During her studies she performed and toured two new works 'Preface -Homage to a Risk' and 'Visions of Salome' by Ross McCormack (Les Ballets C de La B).

Hayley Does

A Naarm/Melbourne based emerging contemporary dance artist. A VCA graduate (BFA Dance), their choreographic practice harnesses duration and repetition within somatic based explorations and interactive media design as tools of presentation, participation and documentation in non-traditional performance spaces.

Does has completed further study at the University of Arts London, in Creative Coding and is a 2022 Police Point Shire Artist in Residence and a part of DanceHouse’s 2022 Emerging Choreographers Program.

Iona McKenzie

In 2021 Iona received a Bachelor of Fine Arts with Honours at The Victorian College of the Arts.

Currently located in Naarm, she has shown with George Paton Gallery and Platform Arts, participated in digital projects with Solo Show, has published work with The Centre of Visual Art (CoVA), Verses Magazine, and No More Poetry, and received City of Melbourne and UMSU Arts Grants.

Iona’s upcoming (2022) exhibitions include a solo show at Seventh Gallery in May, a group off-site exhibition curated by Anna Bochkova in Vienna, Austria in June, and a group show curated by Torre Alain in Keiv Space (Athens, Greece) in November.

Isabelle Beauverd

Isabelle Beauverd is a dance artist from Naarm/Melbourne. She has performed for Siobhan McKenna, Chunky Move, Sandra Parker, Victoria Chiu, Arts Fission, Emma Riches, Rhys Ryan and Jack Riley.

Upon graduating from The Victorian College of the Arts, Melbourne University in 2016, Isabelle received the Choreographic Development Fund Award. Her choreographic works include Bottom Line (Melbourne Fringe Festival, 2016), Grapple (commissioned by Melbourne University, 2019), Surge (awarded Best Dance, Melbourne Fringe Festival, 2019) and Passing (Dancehouse, 2022).

Isabelle recently collaborated with Victoria Chiu for Virtual Crossings, a virtual reality project in collaboration with The University of Melbourne and Gilles Jobin Company in Geneva.

Janelle Tan Yung Huey

 A Chinese-Malaysian dance artist based in Naarm, Melbourne. Janelle is a recent dance graduate from Victorian College of the Arts and is now pursuing her interest in dance-making and Pilates training.

Her creative interest derives from the daily mundane things and has an eye for subtleties, details. She believes that humility enables people to see the world from a broader and more intimate sense simultaneously, which will always feed on our creativity and make our works real and rich.

Janelle has worked with many choreographers and dance artists such as Danielle Michich, Michelle Heaven, Caroline Meaden, Alice Dixon, Amelia O’Leary, Emily Keane, Daniel Riley, Philip Adams and more to come.

She was an award recipient of The Choreographic Development award 2021 and the AG McMillan Arts Trust 2019.

Jonathan Sinatra

Sinatra is a significant contributor, teacher and facilitator to the Australian and international Contact Improvisation community from 1993 to present. Jonathan Sinatra has over 25 years of professional experience in dance making and teaching.

Principal dancer with Australian choreographer Russell Dumas' of Dance Exchange (2001-present). French choreographer Xavier Leroy in 13 Rooms (Sydney 2012). Melbourne International Arts Festival with Becky Hilton (2010) and Eleonore Didier (2014). Europena Contact Improvisation Teachers Exchange (2010-2012). Selected residencies: Room to Create, City of Yarra (2019); Dunmoochin Arts Residency (2012-2014). Educator: Contemporary Dance Lecturer, VCA (2020-present). Teaching Artist for ArtLife dance program for people of mixed ability Footscray Community Arts Centre (2010-present).

Leah Landau

Born in Ngunnawal-Canberra, Leah Landau is an Australian artist working with dance, choreography, text and curation.

As a dancer Leah most recently performed in Communal Rope for QUATRO (SWE) 2021; Ultimate Dancer a.k.a Louise Ahl’s (SWE/UK) six hour epic saga Hevi Metle at Baltic Circle for Contemporary Art Newcastle (2020) and choreographer Luke George’s (AUS) Public Actions at Dance Massive Festival, Melbourne (2019) and Keir Choreographic Award (2018).

As a choreographer, Leah most recently performed her work ‘Back then, flying meant you could land in a farmer’s field’ (2021) at Hallan Stockholm; Goat Talk at Dans Massa (2019), Stockholm and Dance Massive Open Studio Program, Melbourne (2019), Smoke Smoking at Danscentrum Stockholm (2019).

As a writer and curator, from 2019-2021 Leah curated online two programs for Chunky Move’s Activators series: Activators 3: BONANZA! and Activators 4: Conversation Series and First Chapter of a Novel.

Nebahat Erpolat

Erpolat works interculturally across genres, encompassing sound art, installation art, site-specific performance, text and dance. She is interested in how choreography can create new performance contexts, using space, body and objects from an intercultural framework to create highly experimental pieces engaging audiences to re-think critically about live performance and dance.

Since returning to Melbourne in 2013, she has established her own independent arts practice with a special focus on creating highly immersive, experimental and conceptual works.

Her dance work Emptying the Bucket was awarded Best Dance Award at 2016 Melbourne Fringe Festival and received high acclaim from writers Andrew Fuhrmann (RealTime Arts Magazine) and Paul Ransom (Dance Informa Magazine).

In 2017: she worked with Marrugeku, a dance theatre company based in Sydney and Northern Territory, on Burrbgaja Yalirra for Sydney Festival, moderator for Q&A panel discussion for ‘We Love Arabs’ by Choreographer Hillel Kogan for 2017 Melbourne Festival and worked for Outer Urban Projects dance production ‘Vessel’ 2017.

She is currently developing a new work for Darebin Arts Council & Multicultural Arts Victoria collaborating with Syrian, Turkish & Kurdish artists.

Shaun McLeod

McLeod is a dancer, choreographer and researcher. He danced with dance companies in the 1980's and 90's (ADT, Danceworks, One Extra Co) before making choreographic work in the independent scene in Melbourne over a long period.

He recently left Deakin University where he worked for many years teaching dance and publishing academic research. His PhD project examined the use of Authentic Movement as the basis for a participatory performance. Most of his work has a relationship to improvisation in some way and is often made for site-specific situations.

He is a member of the group About Now who collaboratively make improvised performance work in response to specific sites, specific objects or audience participation.

In 2019 he worked with artists of Indian origin based in the city of Wyndham in the creation of a site-specific, community project.

Tara Quilligan

Quilligan is currently a Naarm, Melbourne based dancer and interdisciplinary artist. Dancing since the age of 5, it was during her HSC studies that Tara decided to pursue her contemporary dance practice at the Victorian College of the Arts (VCA).

During her time at the VCA, Tara has had the privilege to work with artists and perform works by Danielle Micich, Meryl Tankard, Daniel Riley, Michelle Heaven, Alice Dixon, and Caroline Meaden.

She has enjoyed working with other disciplines through collaborations with animation, interactive composition, production and film students. Tara’s artistic and choreographic interests lie within the realm of truth and exploration.

Zoë Bastin

Bastin is an artist, choreographer and researcher whose work combats objectification and the stigmatisation of bodies. She creates exhibitions, films, public programs and performances, runs the Queer Theory Reading Group and teaches creative dance.

Bastin completed a PhD at RMIT University, where she developed a deep knowledge of contemporary sculpture and dance practice, with a particular interest in improvisation, feminist and queer critical theory, and new materialisms. Bastin has shared her research at conferences both in Australia and Internationally and by hosting workshops and she is currently a lecturer at Deakin University.

In 2021, Bastin has participated in Dancehouse’s Emerging Choreographers Program, held a Minimax Residency at Chunky Move, curated a national touring exhibition for NETS Victoria, published essay Waves Are Disturbances with the Feminism and Intersectionality Research Program CoVA, University of Melbourne and presented a sold-out performance season titled That Which Was Once Familiar at Dancehouse with Bus Projects for Midsumma Festival. She is a member of NETS Victoria’s Artistic Advisory Committee and the Diversity & Inclusion Project Steering Committee for the Parkville Hospital Precinct.

Bastin has previously exhibited & performed at Bus Projects, Dancehouse, Midsumma Festival, Felt Space, c3 Contemporary Art Space, Seventh Gallery, Testing Grounds, BLINDSIDE, Bloc Projects, KINGS Artist Run, MADA Gallery at Monash University, Project Space at RMIT University & The Substation.

Anna Tolotchkov

Tolotchkov is an emerging dance artist, in her final year studying a BFA (Dance) at Melbourne University (VCA), she trained under the directorship of Sue Hayes, Adam Wheeler and Kyall Shanks through Utassy Ballet School and Yellow Wheel, respectively.

Anna has worked with and performed in works choreographed by Adam Wheeler (Quark, NEO), Kyall Shanks (Quark), Phillip Adams (Paradise), Brianna Kell and Daniel Riley (Rise), Naree Vachananda (Lucent, NGV Triennial) and Dasha Tolotchkov (Signal Issues, MPavillion). Most recently she has performed in Gregory Lorenzutti’s “Theatrum Botanicum”.

In her own practice and choreography Anna is interested in questioning the meaning of movement, ideas around authenticity, and relationship to rhythm as displayed in her works such as “affect: not affected”, and “Moving Parts” (with Erin Taube).

Gemma Sattler

A queer identifying, emerging contemporary artist based in Naarm, Melbourne. Her current practice is anchored by the physicality of dance, allowing her to work outward from the body and practice within the broad scope of contemporary performance art.

Gemma’s practice encompasses her interest in collaboration as a necessity; between several bodies, across artistic disciplines, and between witnesses and performers.

She is developing a dual practice with collaborator Molly McKenzie, which through necessary collaboration, endeavors to disrupt ingrained hierarchies of performative spaces and artforms. Gemma is informed by, and subsequently works to continue, the deep strong lineages of queer and feminist art.

A 2021 graduate of the Victorian College of the Arts - Bachelor of Fine Arts (Dance), Gemma was the recipient of the Orloff Prize in Dance. She has worked with prominent Australian dance artists including Amrita Hepi, Daniel Riley, Paea Leach and Luigi Vescio. Gemma also had the privilege of working with Chunky Move’s artistic director Antony Hamilton while interning with the company.

Part of Dancehouse’s 2022 Emerging Choreographer’s Program, Gemma is working through the space between durational performance art and dance, and seeking ways to minimise and blur this space through queer perspectives.

Molly McKenzie

An emerging queer contemporary artist located in Naarm, Melbourne. Molly is a recent graduate of the Victorian College of the Arts, graduating with a Bachelor of Fine Arts (Dance). Whilst at VCA, Molly has worked with acclaimed choreographers including Anna Smith, Meryl Tankard, Vincent Crowley, Caroline Meaden, Alice Dixon, Linda Sastradipradja, Amrita Hepi and Daniel Riley.

Molly was the 2021 recipient of the Phillip Law Travel Scholarship in Dance which she intends to use to undertake further studies in Marina Abramovic’s process.

Molly is currently part of the 2022 Dancehouse Emerging Choreographers Program working with Gemma Sattler under their collaborative duo gemma+molly.

Molly's practice centers itself around improvisation as a key medium for creation and experimental modes of performance. She works with durational performances and seeks to engage audience agency, honing in on the relationships between body, space and object.

Molly recently understudied for Sandra Parkers ‘Yield to Resistance’ at both Temperance Hall and Dancehouse.

Nikki Tarling

Nikki is a Melbourne/Naarm based contemporary dance artist. Since graduating from the West Australian Academy of Performing Arts in 2016, Nikki’s has worked professionally with a myriad of established choreographers in the contemporary dance sphere around Australia. Some of these include Antony Hamilton, Jo Lloyd and Stephanie Lake.

With a fierce passion for movement and a deep fascination with the body, Nikki's practice is inspired towards continuously re-inhabiting the physical body as a mode of challenging her own physical boundaries. Nikki has integrated modalities such as Yoga and somatic training into her practice to unpack the bodies kinaesthetic intelligence, and to present the body as a sensorial, transformative vessel.

Most recently Nikki has been developing a choreographic practice with her collaborator Jemima Lucas. Together they are interested in the intersection of sculptured assemblages being activated by a performing body.

Ruby English

Based in Naarm, Ruby is an emerging contemporary dance artist who has recently completed her Bachelor of Fine Arts at the Victorian College of the Arts. Amidst and beyond her training, Ruby has worked with and been inspired by artists through collaborative, company and directorial processes.

In 2020, she began making as an independent artist predominately exploring collaborations with both musicians and videographers.

Ruby has performed for choreographers including Amrita Hepi, Rachel Coulson, Adam wheeler, Amber McCartney, Alice Lee Holland, Alice Dixon, Caroline Meaden and Daniel Riley, all of whom have challenged and developed her movement perception.

Andrea Illés

Andrea Illés (they/she) is a transdisciplinary artist living and working on stolen Wurundjeri land.

A scavenger and mess-maker, she finds opportunities in objects, video, sound, and performance. Their work embraces chaos and aims to subvert colonisation and its racialised and gendered hegemony however possible.

Someone saw her recently and said that the end is coming - she welcomes the end of his world.

Always aiming to avoid simplifying, or collapsing, experience, they construct worlds and landscapes where the boundaries around bodily possibility are dissolved.

She is a current masters student (coursework) at VCA.

 Erin Taube

 Taube is a Naarm based artist currently studying her third year at the VCA. Trained in a range of styles including a heavy focus on commercial and broadway which informs her high energy and versatile approach to contemporary dance practice.

While she is new to the Naarm dancescape she is particularly interested in a versatile artistic practice in which her other artistic ventures merge into the whole of who she is an artist.

Pip Chapman

Pip is an Australian contemporary dance artist. She completed her Bachelor of Fine Arts (Dance Performance) from QUT in 2017. During her study she also trained at the Hochschule für Musik und Darnstellende Kunst in Frankfurt am Main. Shortly after, Pip danced in the Bollywood film industry for 6 months in Mumbai working in television, film and live performance.

Pip moved to Melbourne in 2018, joining Lion Heart Dance Company and Yellow Wheel. Pip is also a registered ballet teacher for the Royal Academy of Dance and a recipient of the RSL Youth Development Grant.

She completes a Master of Business (Arts and Cultural Management) at the end of this year.

Jemima Lucas

Jemima Lucas (she/her) is a multi-disciplinary artist living and working in Naarm, whose broad practice intersects conceptual and spatial modalities of research, contemporary sculpture, assemblage and performance. Her work penetrates and dilates discourses around relativity, autonomy and material & immaterial bodies.

Jemima completed a Bachelor of Fine Arts at Monash University, before undertaking an Honours of Fine Art at VCA. Her work has been exhibited and published locally and internationally.

Caroline Meaden

Caroline is a performer and choreographer working across language, dance and performance mediums.

She has worked with artists and companies including Sandra Parker, Michelle Heaven, Phillip Adams BalletLab, Walter Dundervill, Monica Bill Barnes & Co, the Merce Cunningham Trust (for NGA), Reckless Sleepers and Shelley Lasica among others.

With her collaboration, Alice Will Caroline (https://www.slown.net), she has created and performed works for the Keir Choreographic Award, Dance Massive Festival, Next Wave, FOLA, MEL&NYC Festival, and Melbourne Fringe.

This year Caroline is developing new work as part of Creative Victoria’s Creators Fund initiative, while studying to be a speech pathologist.

Tegan Nash Ollett

Ollett is an artist, producer, and teacher working in the field of dance and live art. Following the completion of a Bachelor Degree in Fine Arts Dance (QUT), she established a creative focus exploring contemporary dance practice through collaborative performance installations and larger choreographic works.

Tegan has produced numerous original works and received the Dance Award at the North Queensland Arts Awards (2015).

Her works have featured in galleries and public spaces, including collaborations with Australian visual, sound and projection artists. She has choreographed and performed works for festivals including the Brisbane 2 High Festival and Townsville’s Strand Ephemera 09. In 2015, Tegan choreographed and performed in Twilight, a multisite performance work directed by Cheryl Stock with Dancenorth, which received the 2016 Australian Dance Award for Outstanding Achievement in Community Dance.

Tegan has worked and trained with a range of Australian artists and her residencies include Guts Dance Alice Springs, Castlemaine State Festival and Lucy Guerin Inc.

Tegan is an alum of the Footscray Community Arts Centre’s Emerging Cultural Leaders Program and TNA’s Victorian Independent Producers Initiative. Tegan recently launched a performance platform, Live Art Benalla, to present multidisciplinary performance work and support rural/regional artists.

Jason Pearce

Pearce is a dance and film artist based in Melbourne (Naarm) and Canberra (Ngunnawal country). He is an alumni of QL2, and graduated from the Victorian College of the Arts in 2019, where he had the opportunity to create his first two films.

Since Graduating in 2019, Jason has worked with Alisdair Macindoe, performed at the National Portrait Gallery with QL2 and most recently was a recipient of the Ausdance ACT and QL2 Curated Residency Program.

During this residency, he created his new work ALL BLANK WASTELAND which had a first development showing at the QL2 theatre and had an excerpt shown during the BOLD festival in Canberra in early 2022.

Tra Mi Dinh

Tra Mi Dinh is a dance artist and emerging choreographer interested in movement that is surprising, absurd, rhythmic and presentational.

As a dancer she’s worked with artists and companies including Lucy Guerin Inc, Chunky Move, Victoria Chiu and Michelle Heaven. Her choreography has been supported through residencies at Tasdance’s On the Island Program, Sydney Fringe’s Art in Isolation, Critical Path and March Dance.

Her current choreographic curiosities lie at the “edge” of things – blurring the lines between random and deliberate, significance and insignificance.

Dinh graduated from the Victorian College of the Arts in 2014 with a Bachelor of Fine Arts (Dance).