Kate Denborough is a dancer and choreographer who co founded Kage Physical Theatre in 1997 with Gerard Van Dyck.  In Japan, Denborough was choreographer in residence at Dance Box, Osaka.  Denborough taught a series of workshops, spoke at the Asian Contemporary Dance Festival and was a guest at the Performing Arts Market.  A major outcome of the residency was the creation of a new work Ink, developed in collaboration with a Japanese artists, including tattoo specialists.  Ink was presented as part of Ancient Futures, the major Australian arts festival in Japan and then reworked and presented through Dancebox in 2006.  Following her residency she worked as Director of the Australian Pavillion Resident Company for the World expo 2005 in Aichi, Japan.

Funded by Arts Victoria and the Australia Council.

During her residency dancer and choreographer Joanna Lloyd was based in Japan with two Tokyo contemporary dance companies, Pappa Tarahumara and Nibroll.  She collaborated and performed in seven performances of Pappa Tarahumara’s dance/theatre production Street of Crocodiles in Tokyo. Working with Nibroll’s director Mikuni Yanaihara, she conducted a contemporary dance workshop in Yokohama and choreographed a short work for 20 students. Her residency included a collaboration for a performance, Chocolate, at Super Deluxe, Tokyo. Lloyd travelled and attended performances and exhibitions by both Japanese and international companies in Tokyo, Kyoto and Osaka.

Funded by the Arts Victoria and the Australia Council

Rakini Devi trained in Indian Classical Dance before emigrating to Australia. Devi’s work involves hybrid theatre, dance, choreography, and spoken word texts based on her own cross-cultural identity. Her background in Indian classical dance and ritual worship of the Goddess Kali have been the subject of many of her internationally presented works.  During her residency Devi worked with the Keiko Takaya Contemporary Dance Company, now known as Dance 01 in Tokyo. She choreographed with the Company, performed and conducted workshops.

Funded by the Australia Council.

After a childhood career in radio, TV, film and theatre, Matt graduated from the National Institute of Dramatic Art in 1981. For the last 20 years he has toured live performance to Europe and Asia. During his second Asialink residency Matt will return to Tokyo tent-theatre company Shinjuku Ryozanpaku to once more collaborate with Director Sujin Kim.  Matt will research and develop a bilingual performed story for his performance series Stories 101 and will tour a Ryozanpaku performance to Korea.  (SUPPORTED BY THE AUSTRALIA COUNCIL FOR THE ARTS)

South Australian Russell Fewster is a theatre director and lecturer who has worked with state theatre companies, professional companies, community and youth theatres, universities and schools over the last two decades. Fewster had previously spent one week in Japan with avant garde theatre group Daisan Erotica to develop a co-production of The Lost Babylon. The residency enabled him to return for a month to consolidate and further develop the creative partnership with Daisan Erotica. He conducted workshops with the Company and undertook creative development for The Lost Babylon. He returned in April 2003 to complete the project.

Funded by Arts SA and the Australia Council.

Joel Stern is one of Australia's foremost practitioners of sound art and regularly performs and curates for Australian and international festivals. Stern co-founded OtherFilm, which has staged three major festivals (2004-07), lectures at Queensland University of Technology, writes for RealTime Magazine and hosts the weekly radio program, Audiopollen, on 4ZZZ. During his residency with multi-arts organisation Deterra Arts in Fukuoka, he will participate in collaborative studio and public performance projects, interview leading Japanese avant-garde composers, and present the work of emerging Australian sound and visual performance artists to Japanese audiences in a touring survey exhibition.

Supported by The Queensland Government, through Arts Queensland and the Australia Council

Lachlan Skipworth is a Sydney-based composer, originally from Perth. He has studied composition with Roger Smalley and Anne Boyd, and spent two and a half years in Japan learning shakuhachi with Kakizakai Kaoru and revered master Yokoyama Katsuya. Skipworth was a featured composer and guest conductor at the 2008 World Shakuhachi Festival in Sydney where master performers premiered two of his works. His residency was in Tokyo, hosted by “Aura-J”, an ensemble of traditional Japanese instruments directed by Minoru Miki. He worked with members of the ensemble to produce new works for this exciting combination of instruments.

Supported by Arts NSW and The Australia Council. 

Linda Luke has been working in theatre and dance-performance since 1997. She started performing with De Quincey Co. in 2004 and from 2006 has been facilitating the company's Body Weather‚ training program. She has a wide variety of experience as a performer, dramaturge and co-director for festivals and events in Australia, Greece and the U.A.E. Her residency in Japan at the Body Weather farm, Hakushu, and in Tokyo, enabled Linda to study both the Butoh and Body Weather traditions and participate in the Hakushu Arts Festival.

Funded by the Australia Council

Tim Humphrey and Madeleine Flynn are composers, performers and sound designers, with a long-term collaborative practice. Curiosity about sound and artistic expression inspires them to seek partnerships in dance, theatre, installation and film. They combine their artistic and academic expression in directing the megaphone project – an installation concerned with intimate listening in public spaces. Recent collaborations with the tony yap company (tyc) include creating scores with The Necessary Stage, Singapore and Theatre Nottle, Korea. In 2008 they worked on a sonification of data with the Garvan Institute for Medical Research. During their residency they explored distributed networking concepts to map a sonic landscape across Hokkaido, and initiated a connection between Future University in Hokkaido and Griffith University, Queensland.

Supported by The Australia Council. 

Timothy O'Dwyer is a composer and saxophonist who performs in a wide variety of contexts including improvisation and contemporary classical music. His residency with the Seian University of Visual Arts, Kyoto and the Mssohkan Gallery, Kobe, was an intensely creative and productive period as he collaborated with a vast array of Japanese artists ranging from Butoh dancers, sculptors, contemporary dancers and musicians. In addition he conducted lectures and workshops and performed in and completed a studio recording to be released in Japan in 2003. O’Dwyer will return to Japan to present an installation at the Kyoto Arts Centre along with concerts with Japanese musicians, and a tour in the Kansai area with an electro- acoustic improvising ensemble that was formed while he stayed in Kobe.

Funded Arts Victoria and the Australia Council.

Luke George was joint Artistic Director of StompinYouth Dance Company at the time of his residency where he produced and choreographed site-specific performance projects with and for young people in Tasmania and interstate.  In Tokyo, George worked as a choreographer on a project with contemporary performance company Nibroll and its artistic director, Mikuni Yanaihara.  Whilst there, he developed new connections to contemporary artists in Tokyo and performed a new work which he created with a Nibroll dancer titled Here, not now over. The work was presented as part of a Japanese contemporary dance season over five nights at Die Prazte Theatre in Kagarazuka, Tokyo.  

Funded by Arts Tasmania and the Australia Council.

Luke Lickfold is involved in a wide range of performance projects: performing live sound art, live/pre-composed sound for theatre and dance, and work on interactive multimedia projects. Although varied in context and with a strong desire to experiment, a solid set of production values and keen attention to detail identify Lickfold's work. His residency with multi-media performance unit 66B/Cell (Tokyo) allowed him to further explore an immersive installation/performance format woven from elements of dance, visual projection, lighting, sound and custom speaker design. Lickfold was awarded a BFA in Sound Design/Music Production with Distinction from Queensland University of Technology, and also works as a DJ, producer and sound engineer.

Supported by The Queensland Government, through Arts Queensland and the Australia Council.

Jim Franklin is a composer/musician working with the new technologies who spent three months as composer/performer in residence with the Centre For Computer Music and Music Technology at the Kunitachi College of Music in Tokyo. Franklin used state-of-the-art facilities for music technology in combination with Japanese traditional instruments for composition and collaborated with Japanese musicians to present the work.

Funded by the  Australia Council. 

Michael Fowler is an exponent of contemporary electro-acoustic music and also explores audio design through installation.  As artist-in-residence at the Department of Media Architecture at Hakodate Mirai Daigaku, Future University he met and worked with a number of researchers, academics and students.  Fowler conducted research into Japanese garden design, gave three performances of live electronic music, and presented two guest lectures at the Center for Meaningful Learning.  He also designed and produced an eight-channel ambisonic sound installation, Acoustic Intersections and facilitated a multi-disciplinary investigative project called Avenues of Perception to be conducted between RMIT and FUN in 2007.

Funded by the Australia Council.

Film director, composer and sound designer Philip Brophy has initiated a range of trans-cultural projects between Australia and Japan.  Brophy’s residency was hosted the Kyushu Institute of Design, Fukuoka where he developed a number of audiovisual projects involving the recording of source sounds around Tokyo as well as shooting extensive background digital footage for future audio-visual video installations and digital animation.  Considerable time was also spent scripting these projects.  Brophy continued his research into Japanese cinema, music and audio vision, which involved much reading, watching and listening to contemporary and historical work.

Funded by Arts Victoria and the Australia Council.

Paul Gazzola’s interdisciplinary practice operates at the interface of art, architecture,
performance, theory and curating.  Working within Future University, Gazzola undertook research into the areas of artificial intelligence, multi-agent systems and evolutionary robots and the mental and physical spaces that are anticipated and generated from these technologies.  He continued work on series of video concepts, premiering WALK at the university museum and at the Hakodate Winter Art Festival, as well as writing two articles on his investigations into Japanese spatial concepts.

Funded by the Australia Council and Arts WA.

At the time of the residency Sandra Parker was the Artistic Director of Melbourne’s Dance Works. Parker has extensive experience as a teacher, dancer, choreographer and producer of contemporary dance and has worked in Australia and internationally. In Japan, Parker was based with renowned Japanese choreographer Kei Takei and her company Kei Takei's Moving Earth Orient Sphere.  During her residency Parker focused on new contemporary performance as well as the work of Kei Takei.

Funded by The Australia Council and Arts Victoria.

Academic and composer of experimental music, Philip Samartzis has organized three Immersion festivals focusing on the theory and practice of sound spatialisation, as well as Variable Resistance - a series of international sound art presentations for the Australian Centre for Contemporary Art, San Francisco Museum of Modern Art and Podewil Arts Center, Berlin. As a solo artist he has performed widely in Australia and internationally including presentations at the Andy Warhol Museum, Cartier Foundation and Mori Arts Museum.  During his residency in Japan spent three months working at Showa University Of Music.

Funded by the Australia Council and Arts Victoria.

Matthew Crosby has worked in film, TV, Radio and Theatre as a performer, director, writer, designer and manager. He began performing at age seven in such productions as Mame for JC Williamsons, Blue Hills for ABC Radio and The Chant Of Jimmy Blacksmith. A graduate of the National Institute of Dramatic Arts, Crosby was a member of the SCOT/Playbox project involving training in Toga with Tadashi Suzuki in his performance method, culminating in touring production of Suzuki’s adaptation of Macbeth. Crosby has formed the actors furniture group along a style derived from his earlier training. In Tokyo he worked with Shinjuku Ryozanpaku, one of Japan’s leading modern theatre companies performing in two contemporary Japanese productions.

Funded by Arts SA and the Australia-Indonesia Institute.

Peter Wilson is recognised for his valuable contribution to the changing face of puppet and visual theatre nationwide. In 1997 he was presented with the prestigious Sidney Myer Performing Arts Award for his outstanding contribution to puppetry in Australia. Wilson was a founding member of Handspan Theatre and was Puppetry Director, Consultant and Head Puppeteer on the ABC/ACTF series Lift-Off.  He was also a Segment Creative Director for the Opening Ceremony of the Sydney 2000 Olympic Games and was appointed Associate Director and Puppeteer for The Theft of Sita which premiered at the 2000 Adelaide Festival and opened the arts festival at World Expo in Hanover. During his residency Wilson worked with Urinko Theatre, a young people’s theatre company in Nagoya and Theatre Kazenoko in Kyoto to introduce his puppetry / visual style of work creating a new work with them.

Funded by Arts ACT and the Australia Council.

Jonathan Dimond is a Queensland jazz educator, and a performer and composer in the areas of jazz, classical, contemporary and Indian music. His activities in Tokyo whilst hosted by composer, pianist Satoko Fujii, included performing in concerts with diverse Japanese artists from traditional Koto masters to contemporary jazz musicians. During this period he wrote and composed new musical material for himself and his band, and produced material for two books on music. Networks forged with key figures in the music industry in Japan led to  Dimond being invited by the Tokyo School of Music to return with his band Loops to perform and teach in 2003.

Funded by the Arts Queensland and the Australia Council.

Singer, musician, director and performer, Joanna Dudley, works at the Schaubuhne Theatre in Berlin.  During her residency in Indonesia with the Solo College of the Arts, Dudley studied the various singing styles of the wayang kulit, Javanese dance techniques from wayang orang and wayang topeng as well as instruments of the gamelan.  A result of the residency has been the international touring of the German-Australian co-production of The Scorpionfish, a music theatre piece which was developed during her stay in Solo; the creation of The Geisha Big Band with original arrangements of the Indonesian song styles; and the performance of renowned kroncong singer, Waldjinah and her band from Solo, at WOMAD Festival in Adelaide 2007/2008 and at the House of World Culture, Berlin in 2007.

Funded by Arts SA and the Australia-Indonesia Institute.

Kirsty Beilharz is a composer and interactive media designer. Her music has received international performance awards, including a Churchill Fellowship, British Council Music Scholarship, Nouvel Ensemble and Moderne Forum Lauréate. In Japan, Beilharz composed for Japanese instruments, developing her understanding of idiomatic techniques and cultural context, and furthered her studies of the shakuhachi (Japanese bamboo flute) through collaboration with Kaoru Kakizakai of the International Shakuhachi Training Center. She created a site-specific interactive responsive piece using locally collected sound and images, contemplating the intersection of traditional culture and contemporary, technological life.

Funded by the Australia Council and Arts NSW

Tanja Beer is a theatre designer, lecturer and animateur. Over the last 12 years Tanja has completed designs for major theatre companies in Australia and overseas. During her residency at the Centre for the Study of World Civilisations, Tokyo Institute of Technology Tanja will explore sustainable approaches to theatrical design, and their potential to inform new design aesthetics. Tanja will collaborate with Tokyo’s engineering and artistic communities to investigate the use of recycled materials and found objects in performance spaces. (SUPPORTED BY THE AUSTRALIA COUNCIL FOR THE ARTS)