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Tony Yap dancer and artistic director
Born in Ma laysia, Yap is an accomplished dancer, director, choreographer and visual artist. Tony was one of the principle performers with IRAA Theatre (1989-1996) and has worked extensively in Australia and overseas including Agamemnon Festival Colline Torinese, Italy, and The Trojan Woman, Vienna International Art Festival. As the founding Artistic director of Mixed Company (now Tony Yap Company) in 1993, he has made a commitment to the exploration and creation of an individual dance theatre language that is informed by psycho-physical research, Asian shamanistic trance dance, Butoh, Voice and Visual design.
For Mixed Company Tony has directed Icarus, Print of a Pulse, Narcissus’ Dream and St Sebastian. Narcissus' Dream & Icarus were both nominated in the Best Innovative New Form category for the Melbourne Green Room Awards.
Tony has collaborated with many companies and individual in Australia, Indonesia, Austria, Italy, France, Malaysia, Denmark, China, South Korea and Japan. He danced in an international collaborative work in The Silence of the Forest with Company Lian in Paris and The Night Gardener in Marseille for the Mai-diteranee Festival, France.
Tony has received numerous nominations and awards including his solo work The Decay of the Angel which won him a Green Room Award for Best Male Dancer. Tony received an AsiaLink residential grant to work in Indonesia in 2005. He returned to his place of birth to research into the Malaysian shamanistic trance practice for E1 - Evocation of a Lost Boy.
Tony collaborated on a project at Gwanju, South Korea as part of the prestigious LACM (Little Asia Creators Meeting) and Asia Artplex Performing Arts Collaboration Pilot Project. LACM is a cross-cultural, cross-medium collaborative initiative. The result was RIAU, inspired by the plight of the nomadic sea people of the Riau Islands, Indonesia.
Tony received an Asialink residential grant to work in Indonesia in 2005, and in 2008 he received a prestigious two-year Dance fellowship from the Australia Council for the Arts to develop and produce a major body of solo work, The Buddha Body Series, which culminated in the recent work Rasa Sayang, presented in April 2010 in Melbourne to critical acclaim and a sold-out season. Tony is the founding Creative Director of Melaka Arts and Performance Festival.
Kath Papas company produces
 Kath was Director of Ausdance Victoria - the Victorian state office of Australia's dance support and advocacy network - from 2003 to June 2009, having previously been Administrator (from 1999 to 2002). During her directorship, Kath led a major period of strategic development and growth, and developed and produced major projects and sector development initiatives. Examples of projects include: Australian Dance Awards 2008, plus ADAs Public and Industry Programs; Australian Youth Dance Festival 2006; co-curator and producer, Terrain: multicultural contemporary dance festival 2006 & 2008 (partnership with Multicultural Arts Victoria).
Since leaving Ausdance, Kath has extended her practice as a freelance producer and consultant. She produced two keynote projects for the 2009 Melbourne Fringe Festival: site-specific contemporary dance project REVERB (1) and live art/ performance project Take Off Your Skin. In December 2009, she produced a gala performance for the Victoria-Jiangsu Sister Province 30th anniversary celebrations at Government House Ballroom, for Arts Victoria and the Department of Premier and Cabinet.
Currently, Kath is creative producer of the 2010 Australian Dance Awards, event producer of the National Dance Forum (March 2011), and is working as a producer with a range of artists. With dance as a foundation and ongoing specialisation, Kath's interest and practice extends to working with artists who collaborate with dancers, and artists who engage with the body, site, and relationship to audience. She is a Board member of Next Wave and Arts Access Victoria.
Kath holds a Bachelor of Arts majoring in Dance from Deakin University. She maintains a practice in improvisation and collaborates as a deviser/performer of original physical work.
Naomi Ota sculptor and fibre artist www.naomiota.com
 Born in Japan, Naomi is an installation artist based in Melbourne, Australia. Her background in textile / fibre art gives her profound cultural understandings in materials / techniques / processes and the work is a complex cross-over between traditional and contemporary arts. Naomi’s works have been exhibited in various national and international exhibitions in Australia, Singapore, Belgium, France and Japan. Her field also extends into performative installation and she has been collaborating in dance, theatre and cross-artforms.
Ota's works have been showed at exhibitions such as a solo installation of Scent of whiteness at the Esplanade main concourse (Singapore), the 5th Triennial International Textile Exhibition (Tounai, Belgium), Flax & Linen Biennial (Normandy, France), Diaphanous II (Nokia Singapore Arts Festival, Singapore), pins & needles (National Gallery of Victoria), Tamworth Fibre Textile Biennial (touring Australia). the 4th International Textile Competition (Kyoto, Japan) which she received the award grand prix. Her works are included in public collections of NGV, Museum of Victoria, Art Bank, The Royal Blind Association in NSW and Kyoto Nishijin Textile Industrial Association.
Ota has been working with Tony Yap Company as a core collaborator since 2004. She was involved in successful projects Rasa Sayang (fortyfive downstairs, Melbourne), Melaka Art and Performance Festival (Malaysia), The Buddha My Body – A Palimpsest (fortyfive downstairs, Melbourne / Studio Banjar Mili, Yogyakarta, Indonesia / Arko Art Gallery, Seoul, Korea), Development of Tony Yap’s solo performance of Melangkori (Northcote Town Hall), E1-Aether (Biwako Biennale, Japan), E1-evocation of a lost boy (Asian Arts Mart, Esplanade, Singapore), and Ether (Brisbane Arts Festival).
Ota was also involved in EnTrance, Yumi Umiumare’s solo performance at Malthouse and her installation was nominated for a Green Room Award 2009. She also collaborated with You Soo Yeun for her dance performance Stanza in 2009.
Ota has an MA by research (sculpture) from RMIT University, Melbourne, and an MA (Textile) from Kyoto City University of Arts, Japan. She is currently a PhD candidate at RMIT (Textile).
Tim Humphrey & Madeleine Flynn original music and soundscape
 Madeleine Flynn and Tim Humphrey have established a successful practice as composers and sounddesigners in a wide-range of theatrical performance and installation contexts since 1993. They are previous winners of a Green Room Award for Excellence in Soundscape and Composition in Theatre in 2002, ABN-AMRO International Exchange Award to Edinburgh Festival in 2003, an Asialink Residency at Shanghai Conservatory in 2005, Melbourne International Arts Festival Award in 2006, a Green Room Nomination for Best Sound/Music in 2007, an ANAT Synapse award in 2008 and an Asialink Residency at Future University, 2009.
They created and direct an ongoing installation the megaphone project, presenting it at the FINA Cultural Festival, supported by ArtPlay, and Awesome Arts Festival in 2007,APAM (Australian Performing Arts Market) in 2008, where it provoked great interest and invitations to stage it in Sydney, Adelaide, Singapore, China and New Zealand. Following presentations in at the Sydney Opera House, Regional Victoria, Womadelaide, Darwin Festival in 2009, the work will travel internationally in 2010. www.themegaphoneproject.com
In 2008, the artists were recipients of an ANAT Synapse Residency, working on sonifying genetic processes with Dr Shane Grey, Senior Researcher with the Garvan Institute of Medical Research, Sydney. http://www.anat.org.au/projects/71
Madeleine and Tim conceived and created john cage's musicircus for MIAF in 2007, and for MIAF 2008 a new installation with Californian sound artist Alex Stahl (Pixar productions), Echolocation, and presented a new duet for theatre, This Map is Not to Scale. They have an ongoing collaborative practice in installation with open source technologist, Jesse Stevens, with two new works in creative development, Manuport and Epithet, which have been supported by the Music Board and Interarts Board of the Australia Council.
Tim received his Doctorate from Monash University in 2003 in the systemology of trumpet performance, and since 2004 has taught Composition and Sound Design in the Higher EducationProgram at Victoria University School of Music. He currently lectures in creativity and culture at Griffith University. Madeleine is writing up her PhD on Music in the work of French choreographer Maguy Marin. She has taught Music Analysis and Music Theory at Latrobe and Melbourne Universities, as well as being a long-term artist-in-residence with the Department of Drama at Latrobe University. http://madeleineandtim.net
The artists have maintained a long term collaboration with Australian Dance Fellow 2008, Tony Yap, creating original music for several works with the Tony Yap Company, working also with Australian-Japanese artist Naomi Ota, throughout Australia and Asia from 2001 to the present. They are currently in development for the presentation of Tony Yap's solo work in 2010. Tony Yap Company recently received triennial funding from the Dance Board of the Australia Council, as a Key Emerging Organisation.Tony Yap has worked with their two composers/ musicians in a continuous collaboration from 2001 to the present. madeleineandtim.net
Ria Soemardjo vocalist
Born i n Melbourne of Australian/Indonesian descent, Ria Soemardjo has established herself in Australia as a skilled and sensitive performer of songs in the highly refined and soulful Javanese classical tradition. Ria draws on a deep respect for this tradition in her song writing and collaborative projects. Her distinctive vocal style and ability to absorb a diverse range of musical influences have led to regular collaborations with other highly respected 'world' music performers and composers such as Anne Norman, Adrian Sheriff, Tony Haynes (Grand Union project), Shannon-Goodrich Project, Chris Sprague and Glen Kniebeiss. Ria performs traditional and original repertoire with various ensembles around Australia as well as occasional solo accapella appearances. In the past 2 years, she has featured twice in the Radio National (Paul Petran) Deli Diva showcase performances. In 2006 she has appeared at the Commonwealth Games Cultural Festival as a vocalist with the extraordinary Grand Union Orchestra as well as the Brisbane Arts Festival, as part of the multi-media event - Accented Body. The Melbourne International Arts Festival has also invite her to appear in the 'Second home' series of concerts at the BMW Edge' in October 2006. Sift' is her first solo full length CD recording, released in 2006. It features a mixture of traditional songs and original compositions and improvisations inspired by the modes and textures of Javanese gamelan music. Ria received funding from Arts Victoria to assist with recording this album.
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