Since graduating from the Western Australian Academy of Performing Arts (WAAPA), Aimee Smith has been involved in dance opportunities around the world including performances in Germany, Canada, Belgium and the UK, and the premiere of her performance installation Press Play at the Next Wave Festival (Melbourne). In addition to creating works independently, Smith is an active member of STRUT dance, has received commissions from Buzz Dance Theatre and WAAPA, and recently received the WA Dance Award for Emerging Artist. During her residency with the Darpana Academy, Ahmedabad, she continued her exploration and work in arts for social change.

Supported by the Australia-India Council and the Department of Culture and the Arts - Government of Western Australia.

A Designer of stage, costume and puppetry, trained at the WA Academy of Performing Arts, with further training and experience in London and Sydney. Now Fremantle based, Woltjen has designed productions varying from local fringe to outdoor operatic promenade, from novelty giftware to four metre high multi-operator harnessed junk puppets. Infatuated by the collaborative process, Woltjen works across Australia as a multi-artform designer of theatre and spectacle, specialising in the development of new work. In India, Woltjen will work with the school of Pallikoodam in Kottayam, engage in a spectacle based production and workshops with Dadi Pudumjee of the Ishara Puppet Theatre Trust, New Delhi, and establish links with contemporary and traditional puppetry. (Supported by the Australia-India Council and Arts WA)

Rakini Devi’s work involves hybrid theatre, dance, choreography, and spoken word texts based on her own cross-cultural identity. Born in Calcutta, her background in Indian classical dance and ritual worship of the Goddess Kali have been the subject of many of her internationally presented works. Devi will be based with Adishakti in Pondicherry, where she will research contemporary art practice in the context of her Indian heritage. In this residency she hopes to take advantage of Adishakti’s many exponents with knowledge in Indian martial arts, Ayurvedic medicine and Tantric studies. (Supported by the Australia Council and Arts Victoria)

Violist William Lane is a prize-winning solo artist, chamber musician, improviser and collaborator who has performed all over Australasia, Europe and North America. Lane has collaborated with some of the most important musicians, composers and ensembles in the field of new music, and is Artistic Director of a
twenty-piece contemporary music ensemble based in New York City, Berlin and Melbourne, GRENZENLOS. In India, Lane will work on collaborative projects with Indian musicians Dhruba Ghosh and Ragesh Mehta and will be in residence at the ORKA-M International Institute of Innovative Music, Mumbai. (Supported by the Australia Council and Arts Tasmania)

Tim Dargaville is a musician/composer who worked with the students at the Bangalore School of Music to develop a performance for their East-West Encounter (international music and dance festival).  He also spent time learning the mrindangan and konakkol at Karnataka College of Percussion.  Dargaville conducted piano masterclasses for senior students and teachers, directed the Bangalore School of Music Choir and recorded streetscapes at the Bangalore market for use in composition.

Funded by the Australia-India Council and the Australia Council.

Dianne Reid is an independent dance and video artist and was previously Artistic Director of Dancehouse, Melbourne.  Her residency at the Darpana Performing Arts Academy offered her a period of concentrated artistic research, a context for collaboration with a range of artists across disciplines and an opportunity to engage with the traditional practices and contemporary innovations in Indian culture.  Reid spent her time creating Unfixed, a live dance and video work which was performed at the Vikram Sarabhai Festival.  As a result she was invited to extend her residency to further refine the work for the tour to Mumbai in 2007.

Funded by Arts Victoria and the Australia-India Council.

Writer/director Angela Chaplin was the Artistic Director of Deckchair Theatre at the time of her residency.  Previously she was the Artistic Director of Magpie Theatre, and Artistic Director of Melbourne's Arena Theatre.  During her residency Chaplin  working with Imago Theatre Group devising Trash-the Musical, a reworked Bollywood interpretation of The Beggar’s Opera.  She also worked with Imago Theatre’s In Education Company where she devised a play about young people and violence.  Chaplin also held writing workshops with local writers, with major tertiary institutions and spoke at various forums.  A major outcome from the residency is that Trash-the Musical is being co produced by Deckchair Theatre, WA and Teamwork Production, New Delhi.

Funded by Arts WA and the Australia Council.

Andrew Hansen is a puppeteer and co-founder of Melbourne’s highly regarded puppet and visual company, Handspan Theatre Ltd.  Hansen has worked on productions for both children and adults, including theatre and touring productions, parades, festivals and one-off events.  During his residency, Hansen travelled extensively throughout India and worked on eight different puppetry projects.  He presented puppetry workshops organised by host organisation Ishara’s director Dadi Pudumjee and had the opportunity to experience and learn about rare forms of Indian and Keralan puppetry.

Funded by the Australia-India Council and the Australia Council.

Racheal Cogan co-founded the ensemble the haBiBis in 1993 which performs music from Greece and the eastern Mediterranean. She has also performed with many ensembles in Australia, Greece, Vietnam, and the United States. Cogan went to Chennai in India to study south Indian classical music with mridangam master musician Karaikudi R Mani. Her musical knowledge and skills was extended through lessons on the history, structure and composition of Karnatic music and through challenging rhythmic exercises and classes on improvisation and composition. She wrote several new pieces whilst in Chennai, and she collaborated with the musicians from Mr Mani’s percussion ensemble, the Sruthu-Laya Kendra.

Funded by the Australia-India Council and the Australia Council.

Tess De Quincey has worked extensively in Europe, Japan and Australia as a performer, teacher and director. In collaboration with Ranjit Karlekar & SHAPE in Calcutta, De Quincey initiated Embrace an interdisciplinary performance.  Her residency focussed on skills development through the investigation of parallel principles between Natyashastra, the main classical exposition and theory of Indian artistic practice and Body Weather, which is the underpinning practice of her company DQC which originated in Japan.  DQC presented three workshops and two collaborative performances in India.  The second stage of the performance which was presented in Sydney, including Indian performer Santanu Bose.

 Funded by the NSW Ministry for the Arts and the Australia Council.

 

Vocalist Caroline Lynn was initially trained in jazz at the Guildhall School of Music, London. She currently works as a jazz singer, also with her own project 'World Edge', and with composers/musicians Mark Isaacs and Peter Shaeffer. Her residency in India was undertaken with Jazz India, where she was immersed and trained in the rich traditions and musical sophistication of Indian music. She worked intensively with Indian vocalists on her vocal skills (technical ability, flexibility, stamina) and her musical skills (ear, melodic sense, rhythm). She also performed six nights a week at the exclusive Oberoi Hotel in Mumbai, teaming up with local jazz musicians.

Funded by the Australia-India Council and the Australia Council. 

David Pye is a composer and percussionist working principally in the areas of contemporary music and dance and is founder and artistic director of the Nova Ensemble. Together with costume designer, Barbara Rogers, Pye will use his residency time to work with the Dasksha Sheth Dance Company at the Academy for Arts Research Training and Innovation to develop a production of Gilgamesh. Rogers’ residency focused on costume design and sourcing of fabrics and props for the production which was part of the Perth International Festival in 2002.

Funded by Arts WA and the Australia Council.

Jodie Fried is a set and costume designer with extensive experience in theatre, film and television. She has designed several shows at Sydney Opera House for Ensemble Theatre and costumes for the Bell Shakespeare Company. Fried's film credits include costume design for the animated feature Duck Ugly, design assistant on telemovies South Pacific and The Potato Factory. In India Fried worked with Darpana Academy of Performing Arts in Ahmedabad, designing for contemporary and traditional performance art with international artists and performers. She designed for seven productions, one of which toured four Indian cities while another toured the US.

Funded by the Australia India Council, the NSW Mionistry forthe Arts and the Australia Council.

Antigone Foster is a jazz vocalist, specialising in scat and improvisation and familiar with Indian vocal percussion techniques. Foster has worked with the Elektra String Quartet and their composer, Romano Crivici, to develop solo vocal works which combine jazz and Eastern techniques for performance at the Sydney Opera House. During her residency, Foster worked with Niranjan Jhaveri and Jazz India to further develop these techniques of raga (repertoire) and tala (rhythm) and performed at the Oberoi Hotel in Mumbai.

Funded by the Australia India Council and the Australia Council.

James Cunningham, choreographer, and Suzon Fulks, director, photographer and film maker are the co-artistic directors of IGNEOUS.  They have produced dance-videos, the multimedia dance theatre productions BODY IN QUESTION and THE HANDS PROJECT and short works for collective dance events in Sydney and Montreal.  During their residency Cunningham and Fulks collaborated with Draavidia Art and Performance Gallery in Cochin to work with local performing artists, including Kathakali dancers, Kalari martial artists, musicians and performers.  Their collaborations with local artists resulted in well publicised projects such as Flow and Cheating Death, of which a video was made. As a direct result of the residency and support from the Australia-India Council, kalaripayatt master Vinildas Gurukkal travelled to Australia in 2003 to give master classes and participate in Cunningham and Fulk’s new production.

Funded by the Australia Council.

Victoria Spence has worked in a wide variety of contexts as producer, coordinator, curator, director, performer and collaborator in a range of performances, events and site specific installations. During her residency at the Darpana Academy of Performing Arts, Spence worked on the construction and decoration of the Academy’s new caf and creating a new work A Sup(p)er Happening.  This work was a performance and food event facilitated in the finished caf and utilising the performance skills of a variety of Darpana students and staff.

Funded by the Australia Council.

Nicholas McBride is one of Sydney’s most sought after jazz drummers. He has performed with Sam Rivers, Dale Barlow, Judith Durham and Andrew Hill and toured Asia extensively with Mike Nock.  In India McBride worked with the Darpana Academy of Performing Arts in Ahmedabad in the lead up to their Golden Jubilee. McBride integrated his knowledge of rhythms and his interest in the drumming traditions from India through composition and performance and worked with performers across all disciplines. He created a work for the Darpana Group called Art Beat and wrote music for Tabla artist, Akash Bhatt who will feature on McBride’s next CD.

Funded by the Australia Council, New South Wales Ministry for the Arts and the Australia India Council.

Jon Burtt is co-director of skadada, a Perth based multi-artform performance company that has performed throughout Australia and Asia. In 1999 Burtt co-directed and choreographed Electronic Big Top which combined aerial dance, acrobatics, live music, puppetry, computer animation and projections, receiving public and critical acclaim at the Sydney and Perth Festivals. Plainsong, a collaboration with Black Swan Theatre Company for the 2000 Perth International Arts Festival, received standing ovations and widespread critical acclaim. During his residency in India he worked with the National Centre for Performing Arts in Mumbai to further explore the potential of Indian movement forms and cross cultural collaboration.

Funded by the Australia India Council and the Australia Council.

Adrian Sherriff is a composer and musician who specialises in South Indian drumming. He plays with a number of ensembles including the Australian Art Orchestra, Musiiki Oy, Artisans Workshop, Night Music, Wuruwuru and Sruthi Layam Percussion Ensemble.  Sherriff is also composer and musical director with Natya Sudha Dance Company and Tara Rajkumar. During his residency in Madras Sherriff composed and performed with Karaikudi R. Mani, and the Madras String Quartet exploring compositional methodology and consolidating his understanding of Indian music.

Funded by the Australia Council.

Bernadette Walong is one of Australia’s most highly sought-after dancer/choreographers. She has danced and choreographed for the Meryl Tankard Australian Dance Theatre, the Australian Ballet, Dance North and Bangarra Dance Theatre where she was Assistant Artistic Director / Co-choreographer / Principle Dancer in 1994-1995. She is a graduate of he National Aboriginal Islander Skills Development scheme and has been on choreographic residencies with Hanoi, Taipei and Havana.  In India Walong spent three months at AARTI (Academy for Arts Research, Training and Innovation) where she instigated a training program.

Funded by the Australia Council and the NSW Ministry for the Arts.

Stuart Lynch was originally trained as a sculptor before commencing work in dance with Butoh dancer Min Tanaka and the Mai-Juku Performance Company in Japan.  He has collaborated extensively with choreographer/dancer, Tess de Quincey in both Australia and Europe.  Lynch also has broad teaching experience something which he drew upon during his residency in India.  While in Calcutta Stuart developed the choreography Book with the dance students from the Calcutta Music Schools and ran open workshops with classical and contemporary professional dancers and actors.  He also worked with the slum children of the Calcutta Social Project in pavement and open air schools and ran a number of sessions with the Indian Spastic Society.

Funded by the Australia Council and NSW Ministry for the Arts.

Artistic director Jim Hughes’ residency was hosted by the Darpana Academy of Performing Arts in Ahmedabad.  During his residency Hughes shared his creative skills and methods to create a unique performance reflecting on the skills and creativity of the artists involved in the Academy.

Funded by the Australia Council.

During her residency, Lisa Young, a Masters Degree holder in Vocal Performance from the Victorian College of Arts and a jazz artist, had the opportunity to work intensively with Niranjan Jhaveri of Jazz India and other renowned Indian artists.  She developed her skills in traditional Indian Vocal Percussion and her CD “Speak” was inspired by her time in India.

Funded by the Australia Council.

Sally Chance is a dancer/choreographer who at the time of her residency was Director of Restless Dance Company in South Australia. Chance worked with Darpana Performing Arts Academy in Ahmedabad, sharing her specialist skills and experience in working with people with a disability. During the residency she  conducted workshops for people with physical and intellectual disabilities culminating in the performance Fragments and professional development workshops for special education teachers.  She also devised a production for the 1996 Vikram Sarabhai International Arts Festival and worked closely with the Jagruti team of educationalists, actors and environmentalists who explore environmental issues through the arts.

Funded by the Australia Council, the Australia-India Council and Arts SA.

Tim Dargaville's career covers a diverse range of collaborative works as composer, pianist and percussionist.  Rosalie Hastwell has worked extensively in the fields of performance, multicultural arts and cultural planning.  Through their joint residency at Adishakti Laboratory for Theatre Arts Research, Pondicherry, they identified a range of contacts with artists, organisations and NGOs interested in future art partnerships.  Dargaville created a new work for percussion utilising a range of traditional and non-traditional instruments and rhythmic styles, developed with Adishakti’s actor/musicians.  Hastwell developed a community program to engage local villagers in the company’s activities and ran a series of very successful art workshops for local village children.

Funded by the Australia Council and the Australia-India Council.