BIOGRAPHIES
MARLO BENJAMIN
Marlo Benjamin is an Australian based contemporary dancer. Born and raised in Sydney, she began her professional career at the age of 13 performing with Force Majeure, touring both nationally and internationally. In 2014, Marlo began her first year of study at the Victorian College of the Arts, and continued her training at Sydney Dance Company’s Pre Professional Year.
Since graduating, Marlo has had the opportunity to perform both nationally and internationally with a variety of major companies and renowned independent choreographers, some of which include: Chunky Move, Australian Dance Theatre, Dancenorth, Stephanie Lake Company, Force Majeure, Sydney Theatre Company, Alisdair Macindoe, Australasian Dance Collective, Narelle Benjamin, Martin Del Amo, Gideon Obarzanek, Kynan Hughes, Sara Black, Sydney Dance Company, and Sydney Symphony Orchestra. Marlo was nominated for best female dancer at the 2018 Greenroom Awards for her performance in Chunky Move’s Anti— Gravity. She was also nominated for best performer at the Performing Arts WA Awards in 2019 for her performance in love/less. Marlo won an Australian Dance Award for outstanding performance by a female dancer in 2020 for her role in Stephanie Lake Company’s Skeleton Tree.
MICHAEL SMITH
Michael Smith is an artist working within contemporary dance, dance-theatre, film and installation. While delving into themes across gender, fantasy, queerness, persona and paradise, Michael’s work also questions the traditional roles of audience and space - traversing active participation and audience as allies.
Michael’s choreographic work has been performed across platforms such as Brisbane Festival, Dance Massive Site Responsive Showcase, Ars Electronica (Austria), TanzZiet (Berlin), AGITART Figueres Festival MOU (Spain), Japan Media Arts Festival, STRUT Dance WA, Metro Arts, Sunshine Coast Arts Prize and South Bank Corporations ‘Flowstate’. In support of Michael’s emerging choreographic practice, he is currently a recipient of the Brisbane City Council Lord Mayors Fellowship (20192020), enabling opportunities across Europe and Israel.
Michael worked as a core artist and continues to collaborate with dancetheatre company The Farm which significantly shaped and developed his artistic ethos as a performer/maker. He has also worked for companies and organisations such as STRUT Dance (DecaDance, Ohad Naharin), QAGOMA (William Forsythe’s Fact of Matter, Nick Cave’s HEARD) and Opera Australia (King Roger). As a freelance performer and maker, Michael has worked with independent artists including Ashleigh Musk, Liesel Zink, Cass Mortimer-Eipper, Paul Selwyn Norton, Guy Shomroni and Yaniv Abraham, Matt Cornell (Dirty Feet), Lizzie and Zaimon Vilmanis (Prying Eye), Nerida Matthaei (Phluxus2), Gareth Belling (Collusion Music and Dance), Amalia Pica (IMA), Courtney Scheu and Liz Lea.
Michael graduated with a Bachelor of Fine Arts Honours, First ClassDance Performance in 2014 from Queensland University of Technology (QUT).
KYLE PAGE
Kyle Page is an Australian director, choreographer and performer. Throughout his career he has performed in over 20 countries and collaborated with renowned choreographers including Meryl Tankard, Lucy Guerin, Gideon Obarzanek, Garry Stewart, Gavin Webber, Paea Leach, Gabrielle Nankivell, Stephanie Lake, Ross McCormack, Kristina Chan, Thomas E.S. Kelly, Melanie Lane, Jo Lloyd, Daniel Riley, Lee Serle, Alisdair Macindoe and Rianto.
At seventeen Kyle was already a professional dancer with Dancenorth Australia and just ten years later in December 2014 he returned to Townsville to assume the role of Artistic Director. He has co-directed a suite of works for Dancenorth alongside his wife and long-time
collaborator Amber Haines, including Wayfinder, RED, Communal Table, NOISE, Tectonic, Dust, Syncing Feeling, Spectra and Rainbow Vomit. Kyle has also produced a range of smaller site-specific works including awake, and worked on large scale productions including the finale of the Gold Coast 2018 Commonwealth Games Opening Ceremony.
In 2013 Kyle and Amber received an Asialink residency and spent three months in Varanasi, India. In 2015 the pair took part in the prestigious Arctic Circle Residency, sailing a barquentine tall ship around Svalbard for three weeks. In 2017 Kyle and Amber spent four weeks at the Aajuna Artist Residency in Qaqortoq, Greenland.
In 2015 Kyle was awarded the coveted Australian Institute of Management 30 under 30 and was listed as one of North Queensland’s top 50 most influential people. In 2016 he was chosen to participate in the Australia Council’s Arts Leaders Program, recognized as the AIM Emerging Leader of the Year for the North / Far North Queensland Region and was again listed as one of the top 50 most influential people in North Queensland. Kyle was awarded a 2017 Sidney Myer Creative Fellowship and in 2019 received the Townsville City Council Arts and Culture Award.
AMBER HAINES
Amber Haines is currently the Associate Artistic Director of Dancenorth.
In 2006 Amber attained her Bachelor of Dance from the Victorian College of the Arts graduating with the Mary Orloff Prize for Most Outstanding Dancer. Since then she has worked with many of Australia’s most acclaimed companies and choreographers including Chunky Move / Gideon Obarzanek, Australian Dance Theatre / Garry Stewart, Lucy Guerin Inc / Lucy Guerin and Stephanie Lake Company. She has performed throughout Australia, Europe, United Kingdom, North, South and Central America, Canada, Indonesia and Japan. Amber is a multi-award nominee for the Australian Dance Awards, the Helpmann Awards and Greenroom Awards for Best Dance Performance by a Female.
Over the past 6 years, Amber and Kyle Page, her partner and long-time collaborator, have co-directed eight full-length works for Dancenorth including Syncing Feeling, Spectra, Rainbow Vomit, Dust, Communal Table, RED and Wayfinder. These critically acclaimed works have been performed across Australia, Japan and France including major international arts festivals - Sydney Festival, Brisbane Festival, OzAsia Festival, Ten Days on the Island, MOFO, RISING and at The Théâtre National de Chaillot Paris. Their works have received numerous award nominations from the Helpmann Awards, Australian Dance Awards and Greenroom Awards. Amber was also Associate Choreographer for Gideon Obarzanek’s acclaimed work One Infinity premiering at the 2019 Melbourne Festival.
Amber and Kyle together have participated in numerous prestigious artist residencies for creative research including 2013/14 Asialink residency consisting of three months in Varanasi, India, 2015 Arctic Circle Residency onboard a Barquentine Tall Ship sailing around Svalbard and 2017 Aajuna Artist Residency in Qaqortoq, Greenland. Amber is also Dancenorth’s company photographer.
ALISDAIR MACINDOE
Alisdair Macindoe is an independent multidisciplinary choreographer living on Woi Wurrung country (Melbourne, Australia). With an interest in extending the boundaries of choreographic practice, Alisdair’s work spans dance, sound, electronics, coding and text. Recent works have seen him explore automated dance and Artificial Intelligence; new technology for music expression; trans-humanism; waste and climate change; and identity in the age of narcissism.
Alisdair’s independent and collaborative work has been commissioned and presented widely, including Forgery (2021, Australasian Dance Collective & Brisbane Festival); Progress Report (2021, with co-director
Alison Currie for Vitalstatistix); System Error (2021, co-created with Chamber Made & Tamara Saulwick for Arts House); Reference Material (2021, Darebin Speakeasy); Noncompete (2018, The Substation); Meeting (2015, with co-creator Antony Hamilton, commissioned by Arts House, presented across 35 international seasons) and Bromance (2010, Next Wave, Arts House & Performance Space). Over 2020-21, Alisdair developed the training and creation tool, A.I.D., to facilitate computer generated choreographic instruction. Collaboration with presenting partners and educational institutions influence the design of each new project and the system is also available as a remote, online experience, A.I.D ONLINE.
Alisdair has received 5 Greenroom awards; an Australian Helpmann Award and a New York Performing Arts Award ‘Bessie’. He was the 2019 Resident Director for Lucy Guerin Inc; the 2019 Ausdance Peggy Van Praagh Fellow; the 2020 Dancenorth NO SHOW resident and a 2020-21 Sidney Myer Foundation Creative Fellow. He is a current board member of Ausdance Victoria.
ELLEN ARKBRO
Ellen Arkbro (1990, Stockholm) is a composer and sound-artist primarily working with intervallic harmony in just intonation. Her work includes long duration compositions for ensembles as well as electronic sound environments in the form of installations and live-performances, employing both traditional acoustic instruments as well as digital algorithmic sound synthesis. Most recently, Arkbro released for organ and brass on Subtext Recordings, a set of recordings of her compositions in just intonation for renaissance organ, horn, trombone and microtonal tuba. In all of her work, Arkbro focuses on the qualities of harmonic sound that reveal listening to be an active process of participatory construction rather than mere observation, inviting the listener to gradually transform into the sound itself.
NIKLAS PAJANTI
Niklas Pajanti is an award-winning lighting designer whose practice ranges across contemporary art forms and performance styles including theatre, dance, opera, circus, musical theatre, comedy, events, exhibitions and public spaces.
Niklas has designed for a range of leading Australian and international companies including: Sydney Theatre Company, Belvoir Theatre, Melbourne Theatre Company, Malthouse, Chunky Move, Victorian Opera, Brink, Ilbijerri, Dance North, Dancehouse, The Eleventh Hour, Ranters Theatre, BalletLab, Australian Centre for the Moving Image, Melbourne Festival, Sydney Festival, Adelaide Festival, Melbourne International Comedy Festival, Commonwealth Games Festival Melbourne, Federation Square and Waterfront City.
He designed lighting for the Helpmann Award winning production of Angels in America as well as The Wild Duck for Belvoir which toured to the Vienna Festival, Holland Festival and The Barbican London; and lighting RUPERT for Melbourne Theatre Centre which went on to commercial seasons at Sydney’s Theatre Royal and The Kennedy Center, Washington DC.
Niklas’ lighting for theatre includes: for Melbourne Theatre Company, Berlin, Cosi, A View from the Bridge, Astroman, Doll’s House Part 2, Rupert, The Cherry Orchard, The Best, Queen Lear; for Belvoir, My Urrwai, Angels in America, Wild Duck, Baby Teeth, Who’s afraid of Virginia Woolf?, The Promise, Baghdad Wedding, The Pillowman, Yibiyung; for Sydney Theatre Company, Cosi, When the rain stops falling (with Brink Productions), Australia Day (with MTC), Spring Awakening, and I Want to Dance Better at Parties (Chunky Move/STC); for Malthouse One Night the Moon, Kitten (with Jenny Kemp), Not like Beckett; for The Eleventh Hour, Endgame (with Melbourne Festival and tour to Enniskillen International Beckett Festival), The Song of the Bleeding Throat, Othello, King John (with Adelaide Festival); for Bell Shakespeare, Much Ado About Nothing; for Ranters Theatre Affection; Holiday (with Griffin Theatre), Intimacy
(Germany and Portugal tour Nooderzon Festival Groningen Netherlands); Crossing Live and The Hive (Chamber Made); Which Way Home (Ilbijerri); Bass Bath (Dark Mofo); The Experiment (Melbourne, Sydney, Adelaide Festivals); Semaphore (Arts House); When the Rain stops falling (Brink Productions); Spring Awakening (The Hayloft Project/B Sharp); The School for Wives (Bell Shakespeare); and Sunday in the Park with George (Victorian Opera) and Rembrandt’s Wife (Opera Australia, upcoming).
For dance, Niklas’ work includes: for Dancenorth Australia, Wayfinder, Red, Communal Table, Dust, Spectra (Sydney Festival, Brisbane Festival, Japan and France tour); Martin Hansen’s It’s All In My Veins (Dance Massive/ Dancehouse); Nicola Gunn’s Piece For Person And Ghetto Blaster (Australian National tour, Performance Space 122 New York; international tour 2017); for Chunky Move, Complexity of Belonging (with Melbourne Theatre Company, Schaubühne, Melbourne Festival and Brisbane Festival), An Act Of Now, Black Marrow 247 Days, Singularity, I Want to Dance Better at Parties, For Kage, The Collapsible Man; Appetite; Shaun Parker’s This Show Is About People (Melbourne Festival); Axeman Lullaby (BalletLab); Skeleton Tree for Stephanie Lake.
Niklas has extensive experience in exhibition lighting and events including: for State Library of Victoria, Victor Hugo: Les Misérables – from Page to Stage; for Melbourne Museum, Make Believe; for Melbourne’s Science Gallery, Blood, Perfection; for Australian Centre for the Moving Image, Wonderland, Game Masters, William Kentridge – 5 Themes, Star Voyager: Exploring Space on Screen, Dreams Come True, The Art of Disney’s Classic Fairy Tales (which also showed Walt Disney Animation Research Library), Tim Burton The Exhibition (which also showed at the Museum of Modern Art New York), Hollywood Costume (which also showed at Victoria and Albert Museum London).
Events and shows include: for the Commonwealth Games Arts Festival, Circus Events, 15 Big Top and Outdoor Aerial Rig Shows, Alexandra Gardens Area Lighting; at Federation Square, International Puppet Carnival and Advent Calendar; Shaun Micallef’s Good Evening national tour; Tripod world tour; Spicks and Speck-tacular and Spicks and Specktacular – The Finale national tour; Icehouse Christmas on Ice Spectacular. Niklas designed lighting for the theatre interiors of Fred Schepsi’s film The Eye of the Storm.
He was principal lighting designer at production and design company Traffic Light for 10 years delivering projects nationally and to Europe, Scandinavia, North America and Asia.
Niklas has won 3 Green Room Awards and received 11 nominations across all categories, including Best Lighting Design for A View From The Bridge for Melbourne Theatre Company. He has also been nominated for Helpmann Awards, Sydney Theatre Awards and APDG Awards for his lighting design.
Niklas holds a Bachelor of Arts from the Victorian College of the Arts and has a postgraduate qualification in Lighting Engineering from the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology. He has attended the Broadway Lighting Design Master Classes in New York. Niklas has an ongoing interest in architecture, architectural lighting design and luminaire design.
HARRIET OXLEY
Harriet Oxley, based in Melbourne, Australia, designs and creates costumes for dance, opera, musicals and theatre. She has designed for contemporary dance companies and artists across Australia such as Lucy Guerin Inc, Gideon Obarzanek (Chunky Move and Sydney Dance Company), Anouk Van Dijk/ Chunky Move, Dancenorth, and Stephanie Lake. She has designed several productions for Victorian Opera, winning a Green Room Award for one of her designs for VO in 2011. She has also designed musicals and circus/ physical theatre performances, contemporary performances and theatre pieces. Harriet studied design at VCA (theatre design) and RMIT (fashion).
CAST
Performers/Choreographers: Marlo Benjamin and Michael Smith
