ARTISTS
Maija Hirvanen (FINLAND)
Maija Hirvanen (FIN) is a choreographer and artist based in Helsinki, Finland. Hirvanen’s solo and group performances have been presented widely in festivals and venues internationally and in Finland. She is interested in performance in it’s broad perspectives and for it’s transformative power. Hirvanen has participated as an invited artist in number of international artist laboratories, most lately the Flying Circus Project in Burma and Singapore and Global City Local City by the FIT network. Hirvanen is also the house choreographer at Zodiak – Centre for New Dance for the years 2013–2015. Maija has been granted a 5 year artistic working grant 2013-2017 by the Arts Promotion Centre Finland / The National Council of Dance.
Satu Herrala (FINLAND)
Satu Herrala (FIN) works as a choreographer and curator, and since the beginning of 2015, as the artistic director of Baltic Circle international festival of contemporary theatre and performance in Helsinki. She graduated with an MA in choreography from University of the Arts Helsinki. Her works have been presented at brut Wien, Tanzquartier Wien, Zodiak Center for New Dance in Helsinki, Spielart festival in Munich and ANTI festival in Kuopio, among others. Her recent works are ‘Nature Dances’ together with Eeva Muilu, Anna Mustonen and Masi Tiitta, and ‘Just Queens’, a drag show with an all-female cast in collaboration with Maija Mustonen and Go-go Dance Group Kuumat putket (Hot Pipes). Her curatorial works include DO TANK programs, Make Arts Policy event in collaboration with Public Movement and a series of Sauna Lectures at various festivals.
Jarkko Partanen (FINLAND)
Jarkko Partanen (FIN) is a Helsinki based choreographer and a performer. In 2012 he graduated from the MA Choreography program at the Theatre Academy of Helsinki. Prior to this he studied at Laban in London and at the MA SODA in Berlin. A key factor for his artistic work is collaboration with other artists, finding new possibilities and strategies to do so and continuing the already started investigation and dialogue with the people he works with. In Finland his choreographic work has been shown mainly at the Zodiak – Center for New Dance. His work has also been shown on international festivals. Among others his collaboration with Anna Maria Häkkinen, DIG MY JOCKEY - Live version (2013) was selected for the Aerowaves touring networks Priority Company list in 2014 and selected for the ICE HOT Nordic Dance Platform in 2014.
Jane McKernan (AUSTRALIA)
Jane McKernan (AUS) is a choreographer and performer who lives in Sydney. She has been a member of the collaborative trio The Fondue Set (with Emma Saunders and Elizabeth Ryan) for over 15 years, and has been making her own work since 2009. Her most recent work, Mass Movement was a finalist in the inaugural Keir Choreographic Award and won the Audience Choice prize. While she has a long history in creating and performing her own work, Jane is currently interested in creating choreography on other dancers, and honing her directorial skills as an artist outside of the performance work. She is interested in strategies to use choreography as a mode of personal and political engagement.
Lizzie Thomson (AUSTRALIA)
Lizzie Thomson (AUS) is a choreographer and performer working across dance and visual art contexts. She has an interest in the dancing body as a site for cultural inquiry. Her work takes the form of live performance, video and sculpture. Lizzie has presented work at Carriageworks, Performance Space, Campbelltown Arts Centre, ALASKA Projects, ACO Air Hong Kong, Eastern Bloc Gallery and Kudos Gallery. She is currently developing new work for Carriageworks’ screen-dance project 24 Frames Per Second; participating in this exchange between Campbelltown Arts Centre and Zodiak Centre for New Dance in Finland; and engaged in a project with Erin Brannigan and Matthew Day researching Dance in Museums. Lizzie has performed in works by artists including Marina Abramovic, Joan Jonas, Jochen Roller, Hans Van den Broeck, Agatha Gothe-Snape, Rosalind Crisp, Jane McKernan, Julie-Anne Long and many others. She holds undergraduate degrees in both Dance (QUT, 1996) and Fine Arts (COFA, UNSW, 2012).
Tim Darbyshire (AUSTRALIA)
Tim Darbyshire's (AUS) works employ physicality, choreography, sound, set and lighting design, visual installations and text, exploring ambiguities and paradox between performative states.
Tim studied Dance at Queensland University of Technology (2003) and Centre National de Danse Contemporaine (France 2006-2007). He has worked with choreographers including Vera Mantero, Emmanuelle Huyhn, Nuno Bizarro, Meg Stuart, David Wampach, Marianne Baillot, Antonio Julio, Christine de Schmedt, Eszter Salamon, Shelley Lasica and Matthew Day. In 2012 he presented More or Less Concrete at Arts House, followed by a remount for Dance Massive in 2013 and a European premiere at Noorderzon Festival in the Netherlands. His new work Stampede the Stampede premieres in Dance Massive 2015, after which he will undertake an Australia Council Residency at Cite des Arts in Paris and research for his next work Entitled TITLE.
