Your Daybill

Contents
Creative Team
A Note from the Choreographer
A Note from the Composer
Creative & Team Biographies
Dancer Biographies
Drummer Biographies
About Stephanie Lake Company

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Creative Team

Creatives

Choreographer Stephanie Lake
Composer Robin Fox
Lighting Designer Bosco Shaw 
Set Designer Charles Davis
Costume Designer Paula Levis

TEAM

Production Manager Emily O'Brien
Associate Producer Beth Raywood Cross
Consultant Producer Vivia Hickman
Assistant Lighting Rachel Lee
Sound Engineer James Wilkinson
Costume Maker Fiona Holley
Prop Maker Emily Adinolfi

Dancers

Rachel Coulson
Marni Green
Samantha Hines
Melissa Pham
Harrison Ritchie-Jones
Robert Tinning
Josie Weise
Kimball Wong
Jack Ziesing

Dancer Understudy Franky Drousioti

Drummers

Robbie Avenaim
Nat Grant
Alon Ilsar
Maria Moles
Tina Nguyen
Rama Parwata
Rohan Rebeiro
Alex Roper
Jen Tait

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A Note from the Choreographer

Stephanie Lake

The seed for Manifesto was planted many years ago. I went to an intimate gig, an experimental drum solo, and was seated on the floor right next to the kit, my head just centimetres from the bass drum. The power of the sound was overwhelming and completely enlivening. I knew I wanted to make a work with drums.

Over the years, the idea started to incubate. I imagined a grand array of nine drummers and started to envisage grandiose staging with a Busby Berkley-like opulence. From there, Manifesto started to crystallise - nine dancers and nine drummers on nine drum kits. A beautiful, simple symmetry. I wanted to create a show that only used live sound - and blisteringly loud sound at that. As the pandemic wore on, that urge only got stronger. I wanted surging liveness; a show powered only by human energy and endeavour.

The Melbourne lockdowns gave me an unusual amount of time to dream on this show. Whilst we waited for rehearsals to become possible, I imagined whole scenes and planned the beginning and end of the show. I had the luxury of time for long, involved conversations with Robin - dreaming up what was possible and what we might play with once we could. A lot of Manifesto existed in my imagination before we set foot in the studio. After many, many months of heartbreaking delays we finally made it to the rehearsal room and began to create. The noise in the studio made the suburb quake.

Gathering eighteen astonishing performers together was pure joy and electricity. The creative process has been very collaborative, a rich creative exchange with ideas ricocheting between dancers, choreographer, drummers, composer and lighting and costume designers. Robin's brilliant composition cleverly elicits nuanced tone and even emotion using only one instrument - a remarkable feat. Charlie's set design is bold and exuberant; Bosco's lighting sculptural and exciting; Paula's costumes sophisticated and textured.

Since my earliest choreographies, I have been drawn to rhythm. Manifesto strips performance back to its most basic elements - rhythm and movement; drumming and dancing. There is something primal about this show. It is to be experienced, not analysed or intellectualised. It is unmediated energy and force.

The byline for Manifesto (in my own mind) is "A Tattoo to Optimism". It is a show about history, rebellion, obedience, joy, wonder and tenderness, as well as sorrow and rage. But, ultimately, it is optimistic - a rallying cry for solidarity.

I want to thank Adelaide, RISING, Brisbane, Perth, Sydney and Auckland Festivals for their incredible support of Manifesto through the Major Festivals Initiative, as well as the Canny Quine Foundation, Humanity Foundation and all of the wonderful individual donors who have contributed to this work. A show of this scale is a massive team effort and I am humbled by the backing from all the people, funders and organisations that helped make Manifesto a reality.

My deepest thanks goes to the dancers, drummers, collaborators and production team members who have all given their heart and soul and vast talent to this show. It has been a devastating two years for the performing arts and we are ecstatic to finally bring Manifesto to you, our audience. It comes alive when we share it with you in the theatre, so thank you for coming on the ride.

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A Note from the Composer

Robin Fox

Making music for nine drum kits feels like the culmination of a long, slow burning teenage fantasy of mine. I was a passionate (though, you could argue, mediocre) metal drummer for most of my teenage years and have continued drumming for pleasure ever since. I sometimes think I am happiest when playing free behind a kit. So, when Stephanie said she wanted to work with percussion, I was dead keen to be involved. As the project grew in scope, it became clear that this would be a substantial ensemble. Stephanie was interested in the drum kit initially, so, as a limiting factor, I decided to replicate that nine times rather than put together a multi-timbral percussion ensemble. The kits are standard four-piece with hats, crash and ride. The challenge became to extract an entire score from these resources.

Working with four core drummers, Nat Grant, Robbie Avenaim, Rama Parwarta and Alex Roper, to develop the work was a sonic joy. All amazing players from a cross section of genres, they informed so much of how the final work has taken shape. The ensemble then expanded to nine players with the inclusion of Maria Moles, Rohan Rebeiro, Alon Ilsar, Jen Tait and Tina Nguyen. Again, an amazing group of musicians who brought so much to the piece and, at times, produced the sonic equivalent of an earthquake. I thank them all for their musicality and patience. This has been such a special score to work on.

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Creative & Team Biographies

Stephanie Lake
Choreographer

Stephanie Lake is a multi-award winning choreographer and the artistic director of Stephanie Lake Company based in Melbourne. Her major works include Manifesto, Colossus, Skeleton Tree, Pile of Bones, AORTA, Replica, A Small Prometheus, Double Blind, Mix Tape and DUAL. 

Her works have toured across Australia and internationally to Theatre Chaillot Paris, Germany, Denmark, Spain, Scotland, Ireland, Singapore, Hong Kong, Belgium, Luxembourg and New Zealand. Lake has created many works for other companies including Sydney Dance Company, Chunky Move, Queensland Ballet, Dancenorth, New Zealand Dance Company, Tasdance, Frontier Danceland (Singapore), Expressions Dance Company and Beijing Dance/LDTX. 

Lake is a recipient of the prestigious Sidney Myer Creative Fellowship, Australia Council Fellowship and Dame Peggy Van Praagh Choreographic Fellowship. She has been awarded Helpmann, Australian Dance and Green Room Awards for Best Choreography. Lake danced for Lucy Guerin, Chunky Move and BalletLab for nearly twenty years, touring widely. She collaborates across theatre, film, visual art and music video and has directed many large-scale public choreographies involving over 1500 participants.

Robin Fox 
Composer

Robin is a leading Australian audio-visual artist working across live performance, exhibitions, public art projects and designs for contemporary dance.  His laser works which synchronize sound and visual electricity in hyper-amplified 3D space have been performed in over 50 cities worldwide. The new manifestation of this work RGB LASER SHOW premiered at Mona Foma 2014 (Hobart) and recently featured at Tramway (Glasgow), Vivid Festival (Sydney) and the Barbican (London). His groundbreaking work with Chunky Move Dance Company has contributed to the work Mortal Engine receiving a Helpmann award for best visual production and an honourable mention at the the illustrious Prix Ars Electronica 2009. Other works with Chunky Move include Gideon Obarzanek’s Connected, Antony Hamilton’s Keep Everything and Stephanie Lake’s AORTA. His recent sound work Interior Design: Music for the Bionic Ear, in association with ANAT and the Bionic Ear Institute, was shortlisted for a Future Everything award in the UK 2011 and selected by the Paris Rostrum of Composers in 2012.

He has collaborated with some of the world’s leading improvisers and directors from Anthony Pateras, Jon Rose, Jerome Noetinger, Oren Ambarchi and Lasse Marhaug to Gideon Obarzanek, Antony Hamilton, Lucy Guerin and Stephanie Lake. He has released numerous sound works on labels across Europe, Australia and the US and recently released a limited digital edition of a new AV work Magnetic Trap through s[edition] in the UK.

He also holds a PhD in composition from Monash University and an MA in musicology which documents the history of experimental music in Melbourne 1975-1979.

Bosco Shaw
Lighting Design

Bosco works primarily as a Lighting and Set Designer. His interest is in work that involves bodies and movement, how light feeds and influences the performing space and collaborations that propose alternate light sources and means. In 2016, he co-founded ADDITIVE, a collaborative lighting design company. He is the recipient of three Green Room awards for visual design. Projects include: Antony Hamilton - Meeting, Tim Darbyshire - More or Less, Concrete Dance North - Attractor, Chunky Move - It Cannot Be Stopped, Token Armies, Lucy Guerin Inc. - Pendulum, Stephanie Lake - Double Blind, Replica, Colossus, Luke George - Erotic Dance, Chamber Made Opera - Permission to Speak, Between 8 and 9, Asia TOPA - XO State, Nick Power - Between Tiny Cities, Mel Lane - Nightdance, Mona Foma - Faux Mo 2018/2019/2020, Dark Mofo - Night Mass 2018, Alex Harrison/Paea Leach - The Difficult Comedown.

Paula Levis
Costume Designer

Paula is a Melbourne-based costume designer who has previously designed costumes for Stephanie Lake Company’s Skeleton Tree and Replica. She has also designed for choreographer Antony Hamilton on his works Token Armies, Forever & Ever, Meeting, Sentinal, Black Project 2 & 3, NYX, Keep Everything, Drift, RGB, Blazeblue Oneline, I Like This and for Gideon Obarzanek at Chunky Move (Two Faced Bastard, Mortal Engine, GLOW, Singularity, I Want to Dance Better at Parties), Lucy Guerin (Human Interest Story, Corridor, Structure & Sadness, Aether), KAGE Physical Theatre (Sundowner, Headlock, Nowhere Man), and Melanie Lane (Re-make, and the Keir Choreographic Award winning work Personal Effigies). She has worked with companies Lyon Opera Ballet, Melbourne Theatre Company, Skånes Dansteater, Sydney Dance Company, Victorian Opera, Australian Dance Theatre, Danceworks, Dancehouse, TasDance, DanceNorth, Red Stitch Actor’s Theatre and La Mama.

Charles Davis
Set Designer

Charles is a set and costume designer for theatre, dance, opera, and film. His designs for theatre include: No Pay? No Way!, Rules for the Living, The Real Thing, The Wharf Revue 2018-2020 (Sydney Theatre Company); Buyer and Cellar, The Kitchen Sink, Widow Unplugged (Ensemble Theatre); An Act of God (Darlinghurst Theatre Company); Smurf in Wonderland (Griffin/National Theatre of Parramatta); The Whale (Old Fitz); set design FLY, the Lano and Woodley National Tour (Token Events); A Smoke Social (Darwin Festival); and Melbourne International Comedy Festival’s television and stage Galas 2019-2021. Charles’ designs for opera include: Medée, Artaserse, The Coronation of Poppea (Pinchgut Opera); for Sydney Chamber Opera, Breaking Glass, Biographica design (with Sydney Festival), Oh Mensch! costume; Ned Kelly (Perth Festival/Lost and Found Opera); and Hansel and Gretel directed by Michael Gow (Queensland Conservatorium). Charles was awarded a Mike Walsh Fellowship. A graduate of NIDA, Charles also studied architectural design at Monash University. Charles is lecturer and mentor for NIDA’s undergraduate design program.

James Wilkinson
Sound Engineer

James works as a musician, sound engineer and educator. A graduate of the Victorian College of the Arts and Charles Sturt University, his teaching experience includes lecturing in audio technology at RMIT University Melbourne, LASALLE College of the Arts Singapore and University of Melbourne. As a trombonist, his festival performances include the Gaudeamus Festival (Holland), World Social Forum (Brazil), Yogyakarta Arts Festival (Indonesia), Daidogei World Cup (Japan) and The Big Day Out Festival (Australia).

He has appeared as a session musician for Kimbra, Lior and Bertie Blackman and worked for many performing arts companies including Chunky Move, Malthouse Theatre, Polyglot, The Village and Snuff Puppets. Creative work with other artists includes Anthony Pateras, Robin Fox, Natasha Anderson, Erkki Veltheim, Kate Neal, Franc Tetaz, David Franzke, Peter Humble and many others.

Rachel Lee
Lighting Design Assistant

Rachel is a lighting designer based in Melbourne and her hometown, Singapore. She works primarily with new writing and is a member of the theatre collective, New Working Group. Recent credits include Hello, World! (Malthouse Theatre), Virtual Intimacy (Asia TOPA), Gender Euphoria (Sydney Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras), Single Ladies, Ulster American (Red Stitch Actors' Theatre), She Is Vigilante, Love/Chamberlain (Theatre Works), Oh No! Satan Stole My Pineal Gland!, Surge, Lou Wall’s Drag Race, Baby Bi Bi Bi (Melbourne Fringe Festival), The Three Graces (The Anchor), The Honouring, Blood Quantum (YIRRAMBOI Festival), World Problems, Fallen (She Said Theatre), and Romeo Is Not The Only Fruit (Melbourne International Comedy Festival). Rachel was an associate on MORAL PANIC (Darebin Arts), and Considerable Sexual License (YIRRAMBOI Festival). She was part of Melbourne Theatre Company’s 2019 Women in Theatre Program and was awarded Best Production (Green Room Award) for 落叶归根 (Luò yè guī gēn) Getting Home.

Emily O’Brien
Production Manager

Emily has worked extensively in the field of production both locally and internationally, working primarily in theatre and dance, cultural and corporate events, and festivals.

Emily was awarded an undergraduate degree from the VCA School of Production in 2002 and in 2012, she completed a Masters in Arts Management at the University of Melbourne. In 2019, she completed an Advanced Diploma in Public Safety (Emergency Management).

Emily’s clients, collaborators and projects include: All the Queens Men, Antony Hamilton, BalletLAB, Boogie Festival, Dark Mofo, Emily Goddard, Federation Square, Ilbijerri Theatre Co, Insite Arts, Lucy Guerin Inc, Luke George, Madeleine Flynn & Tim Humphrey, Melbourne Festival, Melbourne Fringe, MONA FOMA, Nat Cursio Co, Nat Randall (Hissy Fit), Next Wave, Nicola Gunn, Tamara Saulwick, and White Night Melbourne, amongst others.

Beth Raywood Cross
Associate Producer

Beth is a producer for dance and theatre. Since 2021, Beth has worked as the Associate Producer for Stephanie Lake Company, working across Stephanie’s projects/works, including Manifesto, Colossus and Multiply. Beth also currently works at Insite Arts in producing and administration coordination, working across their suite of artists and projects (including Justin Shoulder, Alison Currie, Sally Chance, ACMI, Philipa Rothfield and Priya Srinivasan, and Larissa McGowan). In addition to her work at Insite Arts and Stephanie Lake Company, Beth produces the Emerging Choreographers Program with Dancehouse, an annual capacity building program for 20 emerging choreographers in Melbourne/Naarm. She has previously produced independent works for various dance and theatre artists and premiered her own work Pink Matter in 2019 to a sold out season. Beth studied at Monash University in theatre, performance and journalism and undertook an honours thesis in 2019 exploring queer feminisms and utopia in performance.

Vivia Hickman
Consultant Producer

Vivia has over 25 years’ experience in executive leadership roles throughout the arts and cultural sectors. Vivia began her career in arts management, and from 2006- 2010 was CEO of Melbourne’s major arts event the Melbourne International Arts Festival. She has worked with several of Melbourne’s most prominent arts organisations and institutions, including three years as General Manager of Melbourne International Film Festival, Development Manager of the Melbourne International Comedy Festival, Executive Producer of Chunky Move and Executive Producer at Sydney Festival. She is currently the CEO of Melbourne Writers Festival.

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Dancer Biographies

Robert Tinning

Robert is an Ecuadorian-Australian dancer and choreographer. To the stage, Rob brings performance steeped in his lifelong intercultural immersion. Robert’s creative bases are the Byron/Tweed region, Perth, and Miami, Florida (pre-covid). He has danced with numerous companies and artists including: Tasdance, Jukstapoz, STRUT Dance WA, Shaun Parker & Co, Gabrielle Nankivell, and Liesel Zink. His career has seen him tour Australia, Europe, the Middle East, and the USA as a freelancing and independent artist.

Rob’s unique talent has seen him be awarded travel opportunities to explore interdisciplinary art practices. These extensive travels have included working with the USA artist Don Lambert and Cuban/American performance artist, and former Jiri Kylian dancer, Lazaro Godoy in the USA. Since 2016, these travels have also included regular trips to Tasmania, Perth and Miami to perform and develop new dance work. Rob’s works have been supported by WA’s DLGSC, Tasdance, AusDance NSW, Deering Estate (Miami, FL), Fountainhead Studios (Miami, FL), Lismore Regional Art Gallery, and Mad Dance House. As a movement director for film, Rob collaborations with Dacre Montgomery have produced and released the short film In Vitro (2019) and the dance short Nightmares (2019), collectively attracting two million views across Instagram and YouTube.

Josie Weise

Josie commenced her training in Hervey Bay at the Pamela Marshall Academy of Dance. In 2013, she graduated from the Queensland Dance School of Excellence and continued training in 2014 at Sydney Dance Company’s (SDC) Pre-Professional Year. Following an apprenticeship with SDC, she joined the company in 2016 and spent three years touring extensively in Australia and internationally, performing works by choreographers such as Alexander Ekman, Gideon Obarzanek, Antony Hamilton, Gabrielle Nankivell, Melanie Lane and Katina Olsen.

In 2019, Josie joined Australasian Dance Collective and received nominations for Dancer to Watch in Dance Australia’s Critic’s Choice and Outstanding Performance By A Female Dancer in the Australian Dance Awards for her role in Natalie Weir’s The Dinner Party. She worked with independent choreographers/creatives such as Phil Hulford and Bruno Guillore for Hofesh Schector’s Cult, Alisdair Macindoe, Maxine Doyle, Kate Harman, Stephanie Lake and appeared in works for stage&film by Jack Lister and Cass Mortimer-Eipper.

Josie most recently performed in Project Animo’s premiere season And Now We Move On and is privileged to be a part of the cast of Manifesto for Stephanie Lake Company.

Samantha Hines

Samantha was born in Sydney where she trained at Ettingshausens and Ev and bow, before attending New Zealand School of Dance. In her final year, 2012, she was hired by Australian Dance Theatre. She performed and toured extensively with the company, both nationally and internationally. In 2016, she left to go on to work with Lucy Guerin, Gideon Obarzanek and Stephanie Lake. Between 2017-2021, she joined Dancenorth full time touring to America, Europe, Mexico and Asia. In 2022, she premiered Grey Rhino by Cass Mortimer Eipper and Charmene Yap in Sydney Festival. Samantha has been nominated for awards such as a Helpmann Award (2017), Green Room Award (2017) and a New York Bessie Award (2019).

Marni Green

Marni was born in Wollongong, where she began her dance training at a young age as a ballet dancer. In 2016, she studied at Queensland Ballet’s Senior Program before attending Sydney Dance Company’s Pre-Professional Course under the direction of Linda Gamblin in 2017, followed by Tr.IPP (Transit International Professional Pathway) in 2018 under the direction of Israel Aloni. She has worked with a range of artists including Stephanie Lake, Chunky Move, Israel Aloni and Lee Brummer. Marni is currently based in Naarm/Melbourne as a freelance dancer.

Melissa Pham

Melissa has worked in an array of projects including being an ensemble singer for Australia’s Got Talent, back-up dancer on ABC for Aydan Calafiore and George Maple at the 10th Falcona Birthday. She has been a featured dancer in several music videos for Australian artists such as George Alice, Jennifer Loveless, Kite String Tangle, Tash Sultana and Isaiah Firebrace. Recently, Melissa was a part of Lucy Guerin’s Out of Bounds program in a piece choreographed by Yuiko Masukawa, Chunky Move’s new development of a work, and Campari’s short film, which screened at Melbourne International Film Festival 2021.

Rachel Coulson

Rachel is a Naarm-based performer and facilitator. Rachel has performed in works by Antony Hamilton (Yung Lung, Nyx, Blood & Bone), Alisdair Macindoe (Reference Material), Melanie Lane (Death Peak), Shelley Lasica (Grace Note #5), Rebecca Jensen and Sarah Aiken (Overworld), and Stephanie Lake and Robin Fox (A Giant Theremin and Manifesto). Rachel completed her dance training at Newtown High School of the Performing Arts and The Victorian College of the Arts.

Harrison Ritchie-Jones

Harrison graduated from the Victorian College of the Arts with a Bachelor of Fine Arts (Dance) in 2014. In 2013, he was awarded a Victorian College of the Arts Undergraduate Most Outstanding Creative Scholarship. In 2018, he was nominated for a Green Room Award for Best Male Performer for Stephanie Lake's Pile of Bones. He was also selected for Next Wave’s kickstart program and premiered his work Shimmer of the Numinous in the 2018 Next Wave Festival.

He has worked with, and performed in creations by Stephanie Lake, Graeme Murphy, Ohad Naharin, Jo Lloyd, Anthony Hamilton, Alisdair Macindoe, Shelly Lasica, Rebecca Hilton, Lucy Guerin, Prue Lang, Natalie Cursio and Rebecca Jensen, as well as commissions by Chunky Move, Tasdance, Lucy Guerin Inc. and The Australian Conservatoire of Ballet. He has also performed in the frame of Ludwigshafen Pfalzbau (Germany), Pieces for Small Spaces at Lucy Guerin Inc. (Melbourne), Murray White Room Gallery (Melbourne) and Dance Massive.

Jack Ziesing

Jack has performed for and collaborated with many dance companies including Stephanie Lake Company, Dancenorth, STRUT, Expressions Dance Company (now Australasian Dance Collective), Queensland Ballet, Opera Queensland, LDTX/Beijing Dance, Singapore Dance Theatre and Guangzhou Modern Dance Company and The Farm. He has choreographed works with Stompin Youth Dance, QL2 and Adelaide College of the Arts. He has shown works in festivals such as Mona Foma, the Australian Youth Dance Festival and presented a film installation work Brumbies at Umbrella Gallery, Townsville. Jack is a multiple nominee for Australian Dance Awards, Helpmann Awards and Green Room Awards for Best Dance Performance by a Male.

Kimball Wong

Kimball was born in New Zealand and moved to England at a young age where he trained at Millennium Performing Arts. Before travelling to Australia, he worked the English National Opera, Michael Clark, and Phoenix Dance Theatre. In 2007, he joined the Australian Dance Theatre under the directorship of Garry Stewart, performing and developing such works as G, Be Your Self, Proximity, Multiverse, Objekt, Habitus, The Beginning of Nature, Supernature and excerpts from older company rep.

Kimball has received multiple nominations for his roles in these works: Australian Dance Awards for Outstanding Performance by a Male Dancer in 2013 and 2018 for Proximity and The Beginning of Nature, Helpmann Awards for Best Male Dancer in a Physical Theatre or Ballet Work for Habitus (2016), Green Room Award for Best Male Performer for Be Your Self (2019).

After 14 years with Australian Dance Theatre, Kimball will be joining the Stephanie Lake Dance Company for performances of Manifesto throughout 2022.

Franky Drousioti
Dancer Understudy

Franky graduated from New Zealand School of Dance in 2019. Since 2019, Franky has performed in several Stephanie Lake Company works, including Colossus and Multiply. In 2018, Franky was a performer in Wicked Fish, choreographed by Huang Yi. In 2015, he performed in The Production Company’s West Side Story, Garry Stewart’s Currently Under Investigation and Jonathan Taylor’s Opus 47. Across 2021/2022, Franky has been working with Stephanie Lake Company as understudy for their major work Manifesto. He is inspired by examining movement within the daily, everyday body and transferring this movement to the stage to create meaningful and timely works. 

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Drummer Biographies

Rama Parwata

Rama is a Melbourne-based musician and composer who has a distinguished reputation for his audacious and technical aural explorations in sound, texture, and rhythm on the drum-kit, drawing influence from jazz, extreme metal, and Gamelan music from his Balinese heritage.

Since graduating from the Victorian College of the Arts in 2016, Rama has become an active figure in Melbourne’s underground metal, experimental, and jazz scenes and has been at the very forefront of Melbourne’s underground music scene both as a performer and a curator.

In 2021, Rama released his debut album, Tekanan, on Cassauna / Important Records to critical acclaim. He currently plays drums in Whitehorse, Kilat, Rinuwat and Umlaut.

Robbie Avenaim

Robbie is an innovative Australian musician, drummer, sound, and installation artist with an international reputation for bold, sonic exploration. Over the past 25 years, Robbie has developed a unique and personal musical language on the drums, combining traditional and extended techniques with physical modification of the drums.

After returning from studies in New York with renowned composer John Zorn and observing the vibrant new music NY has to offer, Avenaim was inspired to foster a varied experimental music ecosystem in Australia by co-founding and organising the legendary WHAT IS MUSIC? Festival, Australia’s premier annual touring showcase of local and international experimental music from 1994-2012. Since 2017, Avenaim has developed an experimental music concert series called Safe in Sound specifically for housebound young people with disabilities.

Dr Nat Grant

Nat is a sound artist and broadcaster working on unceded Wurundjeri country with more than 15 years’ experience across live performance, recording, digital arts, and community arts. A drummer, percussionist, and composer, Nat is focussed on creating multidisciplinary, long-form musical compositions, performance events and installations using traditional and graphic notation, as well as improvisation.

As a composer, Nat has created original chamber music and durational sound art works, and has composed and created sound design for theatre, dance, film, and live art. In 2018, Nat received the Age Music Victoria Award for Best Experimental/Avant-Garde Act.

Alex Roper

Alex is a Melbourne based drummer, singer, teacher and composer who performs regularly across many genres, as a session player, bandleader and band member. Having graduated from the performance course at the Victorian College of the Arts, she has a background in jazz and vast experience performing in many different ensembles. Some notable performances include the 2019 Australian tour of Em Rusciano’s Rage & Rainbows, a performance at the Ubud Village Jazz Festival with the Ade Ishs trio, and more recently with bands and artists including Dorsal Fins, Danika, Kylie Auldist & Women of Soul, and Emma Donovan and the Putbacks.

Jen Tait

Jen has been involved in the experimental music community in Melbourne as a drummer, percussionist and vocalist for over 25 years and has played gigs around Australia as well as Japan and New Zealand. Most of these gigs have been in pubs and DIY artist run venues with an openness to noisy, unusual and free form music making. Jen has also been involved in organising and building larger scale performance events involving costumes, body puppets, magicians, film, dancing, and multiple sound stages. Jen loves collaborating and mostly plays and enjoys improvised music.

Rohan Rebeiro

Rohan (My Disco/Downwards) is a musician from Melbourne, Australia. As a solo electronic musician, he explores probability as an artistic methodology to enact rhythmic expression. Combining analogue grit and digital precision using manipulated drum machines and Max/MSP, Rohan exemplifies a musical practice that is simultaneously improvisational and compositional. Generative sound sequencing systems are implemented, with each performance displaying a unique and infinite variety of combinations. Rohan uses rhythm as a temporal art form to explore ideas around cause and effect, variation, acceptance and deep listening.

Maria Moles

Maria is a drummer and producer who has been strongly active within the Melbourne music community since moving from Tasmania in 2011. Her solo percussion performances weave hypnotic webs from layers of unmetered pulse that slowly undergo subtle textural transformations. In collaborative contexts, ranging from free improvisation, jazz and contemporary composition to experimental pop, Maria contributes an acute sense of touch, placement and timbre, and a powerful rhythmic drive.

In 2017, Maria composed and performed a percussion score for Ben Christensen’s 1922 film Haxan at Dark Mofo festival in Hobart, Tasmania. She has opened for artists such as Clever Austin (Hiatus Kaiyote), Chris Corsano (Bjork, Thurston Moore), and Oren Ambarchi. Her solo LP Opening was released through Nice Music in January 2019. Maria was a recipient of the Art Music Fund in 2020 and a finalist for the Freedman Jazz Fellowship in 2021. She released her second album For Leolanda via Room4o in 2022.

Alon Ilsar

Alon is an Australian-based drummer, composer, instrument designer and researcher. He is the co-designer of a new gestural instrument for electronic percussionists, the AirSticks. He is currently researching the uses of the AirSticks at Monash University's SensiLab in the field of health and well-being, making music creation more accessible to the broader community. Alon holds a PhD in instrument design through the University of Technology Sydney. He has played the AirSticks at Sydney’s Vivid Festival, on Triple J’s Like a Version and at NYC’s MET Museum, with projects such as Trigger Happy Visualised, The Hour, The Sticks, Tuka (from Thundamentals), Sandy Evans Ahimsa and Rockpool, Ellen Kirkwood’s [A]part, Kirin J Callinan, Kind of Silence (UK), Cephalon (US), and Silent Spring. He has played drums in Belvoir Theatre’s Keating! the Musical, Sydney Theatre Company’s Mojo, Meow Meow with the London Philharmonic, Bergen Philharmonic and Sydney Symphony Orchestras, Alan Cumming, Jake Shears and Eddie Perfect.

Tina Nguyen

Drummer of almost any band you see on stage in Melbourne, Tina has been drumming since 2002 and is a master of her trade. She's kept the beat for the likes of Cry Club, Terrible Truths, and Face Face. Since 2018, Tina has been a much-loved drum instructor at Girls Rock! Melbourne, encouraging female, gender diverse and queer kids to grow their confidence and hop on stage. Tina is passionate about the queer community, seeing representation on stage and hitting the tubs as beautifully as possible.

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About Stephanie Lake Company

Stephanie Lake Company is a multi-award winning contemporary dance company based in Melbourne. Known for a gutsy, original choreographic style and striking visual aesthetic, Stephanie Lake Company’s recent works include Colossus, Skeleton Tree, Replica and Pile of Bones. 

Working in collaboration with Australia’s leading dancers and designers, the company has been presented in major festivals and venues around Australia and has toured internationally to France, Germany, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Denmark, Singapore, Scotland and Ireland. 

Stephanie Lake has won two Australian Dance Awards for Most Outstanding Choreography (Pile of Bones and AORTA), the Helpmann Award for Outstanding Choreography (A Small Prometheus) and the Green Room Award for Best Choreography (Mix Tape). She is a recipient of the Sidney Myer Creative Fellowship, the Australia Council Fellowship for Dance and the Peggy Van Praagh Choreographic Fellowship. 

The company collaborates across theatre, film, music video, opera and visual art and has created several large-scale projects for over fifteen hundred participants.

​Staff

Artistic Director Stephanie Lake
Associate Producer Beth Raywood Cross
Production Manager Emily O'Brien, First In Last Out
Financial Manager Bree Nurse, Cloud Business Management
Website Laura Summers
Consultant Vivia Hickman

Board

Jerril Rechter, AM (Chair)
Matthew Lutton
Masha Lewis
Robin Fox
Stephanie Lake

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