Dance Panel
Angela Conquet - Panel Co-Chair
ANGELA CONQUET is a Melbourne-based independent curator and dance specialist working across and within a multiplicity of disciplines, contexts and territories, locally and globally. Her 20-year career spans two continents and brings artistic and executive expertise in performing arts, festivals, arts leadership, publishing, arts policy and advocacy. She is the former Artistic Director/CEO of Dancehouse Melbourne (2011-2020). Prior to relocating to Australia in 2011, she led the dance AIR programs of Mains d’Oeuvres, Paris’ largest independent arts centre. She is currently the Managing Editor of Dancehouse Diary, a free publication connecting the body to the social and the political. She is a member of AND+/Asian Network for Dance and a recent fellow of the Saison Foundation Japan. Educated in Public Administration and Arts Management at France’s most politically engaged university (Paris8), she considers art and culture as a socio-political practice to activate imagination, creativity and change.
Victoria Chiu - Panel Co-Chair
VICTORIA CHIU trained at the VCA, Melbourne, Australia. Chiu’s practice investigates physicalising concepts in relation to histories of self, peoples and place and she works at intersections of dance, screen and technology. Chiu’s work is culturally significant and will continue giving voice to diverse bodies as they contribute to today’s global movement landscape. Chiu has collaborated, performed and toured extensively with European, Australian, Singaporean, Chinese and New Zealand companies and artists including Cie Gilles Jobin, Micha Purucker, Cie Nomades, Jozsef Trefeli, Roland Cox, RDYSTDY, Rudi Van Der Merwe, Kristina Chan, Candy Bowers, Linda Sastradipradja, Fiona Malone, Amelia McQueen, Gabrielle Nankivell, Bernadette Walong, Australian Dance Theatre for Superstars of Dance, Liu Ya Nan, Arts Fission, Yinan Liu, Mindy Meng Wang, Nebahat Erpolat, Ma Haiping and Cate Consandine. Collectively her choreographic work including The Ballad of Herbie Cox, Floored, Do You Speak Chinese?, Fire Monkey, Grotto, Viral, What Happened In Shanghai, Genetrix and Soursweet have been presented in Europe, North America, China and Australia.
Philipa Rothfield
PHILIPA ROTHFIELD is Adjunct professor of Dance and Philosophy of the Body at the University of Southern Denmark, and Honorary Senior Lecturer in Philosophy and Politics at La Trobe University. She is Creative Adviser at Dancehouse, and Co-editor of the Dancehouse Diary. She is co-author of Practising with Deleuze, Design, Dance, Art, Writing, Philosophy (2017, Edinburgh University Press) and co-editor of Choreography and Corporeality, with Thomas DeFrantz (2016, Palgrave). She is also co-convenor of the Choreography and Corporeality working group (International Federation of Theatre Research). She also reviewed dance for Realtime magazine over many years.
Marco Cher-Gibard
MARCO CHER-GIBARD is an artist working with sound to explore contemporary culture and art. His practice foregrounds live process and often employs DIY approaches and custom software solutions to sound making process. He is a constant collaborator in performance contexts and an occasional performer. Marco currently teaches Studio Production for the School of Art at RMIT University, Melbourne.
Hellen Sky
HELLEN SKY is a digital choreographer, performer, writer, researcher, and visual artist recognised internationally as a leader in the digital performance field. She is valued for her research and reflection on dance embodiment and human-computer interaction. Her work transcends the paradigms of investigating choreographic forms, giving dancers agency to shape sonic and visual elements as an expansion of artistic expression.
In her installation and performance projects, Hellen places equal value on the movement between all aspects of the work—sound, light, objects, body, texts, screen, textures—considering the potential of the site; and the potential of a gesture. Her projects are complex and multi-layered—articulated and refined over a number years and advanced through multidisciplinary collaborations.
Hellen Sky was the co-founder and artistic director of Dancehouse Melbourne; and the co-founder of internationally recognised new media performance company, Company in Space. With Hellen Sky & Collaborators, Hellen develops and presents her work in Australia and overseas.
Samuel Harnett - Welk
SAMUEL HARNETT- WELK, is a Non-Binary Australian dancer living and working with Aspergers. Their extensive experience with leading Australian and International dance artists creates a framework for them to explore improvisation and performance. Samuel has trained with Rambert Ballet (UK), The Royal Ballet (UK), Sydney Dance Company, Australian Dance Theatre, and The Australian Ballet. As a company artist Samuel has worked and performed for Daniel Jaber and Dancers, Melbourne Ballet Company, Chunky Move, and Phillip Adams Balletlab. Highlights include dancing in William Forsythe’s “One Flat Thing, Reproduced” for STRUT Dance in 2017. As an independent artist, Samuel has worked, created, and performed with STRUT Dance, Opera Australia, Loughlan Prior, Prue Lang, Kristina Chan, Melanie Lane, Natalie Allen, Anastasia La Fey, Harrison Hall, and many more. Samuel has also contributed to written publications such as Andrew Westle’s “Turning Pointe, Gender equity in Australian Dance/Delving into Dance and Harald Giesler's “2.1 - there is no dance which is a prior true”.
Samuel is an artist with a developed craft that is unique and powerful in its expression, speaking to a relationship between queerness and the classical form spoken through an Autistic body. An artist loaded with an incredibly rich history and sensitivity, their work seeks to use the body as a reflective mode of communication to find bold and complex physicalities that reflect a thoughtful rendering of the human experience.
Ngioka Bunda-Heath
Ngioka Bunda-Heath is Wakka Wakka, Ngugi from Queensland; and Birrpai from New South Wales. She graduated from the Victorian College of the Arts, as the first Aboriginal woman in dance. Ngioka received both the Hutchinson Indigenous Fellowship and Residency and the Chloe Munro AO/Lucy Guerin Inc Independent Artist fellowship. She worked for Bangarra Dance Theatre in “Rekindling” their youth education program; and is the First Peoples Partnership Coordinator at Chunky Move. Ngioka has performed works by Mariaa Randall, Sarah Aiken and Rebecca Jensen, Amrita Hepi and will dance for LGI in 2023. Internationally, she’s participated in dance conferences, festivals, and residencies in New Caledonia, France, Canada, and America. Ngioka’s choreographic work includes Blood Quantum (2019), Birrpai (2021) awarded Dance Best Duo/Ensemble at the Greenroom Awards, Bridge (2022) and Footprints (2022).