The Artists

HARRIET GILLIES is an award-winning performance artist working across a range of performance modes. She has completed artist residencies with Robert Wilson at the Watermill Centre and Marina Abramović at Kaldor Public Art Projects, as well as solo residencies with La Serre: Arts Vivants in Montreal, and the Bearded Tit in Sydney. Her performances have been presented across Australia, New Zealand, and North America. Her most recent solo performance, The Power of the Holy Spirit, won the Best Experimental Show Award at the Melbourne Fringe Festival and had 2 sell-out seasons at the Flying Nun in Sydney. in 2020, Harriet made a new digital performance with collaborator Xanthe Dobbie in a new partnership between Griffin Theatre Company and Google Creative Labs that went on to be presented at 2021 Sydney Festival.

SOLOMON THOMAS is a theatre maker and performer currently situated in Sydney. He explores the intersection between the physical and digital in theatre, experimenting with how theatre and film can co-exist in a live context. He works as a performer, puppeteer, theatre maker and video designer and is driven by how these practices meet formally. He graduated with BCA Honours in Performance from the University of Wollongong in 2013 and for the past six years has been actively engaged in creating and performing work for both independent and main stage theatre. He is a core member of re:group performance collective, Monday Night Cards and Woodcourt Art Theatre. Solomon is currently a puppeteer with Erth Visual & Physical Inc (2014-19) and has toured with them throughout the UK, UAE, Hong Kong, Singapore, Australia and Japan.

ALEXI CREECY is a multi-disciplinary effects and props artist working out of Sydney Australia. Specialising in effects that involve the human body as inspiration or a canvas Alexi has created an array of objects and images to intrigue, fool, and horrify audiences both on stage and on screen. With a background in traditional manufacturing techniques, Alexi has since begun developing a stronger digital skillset to both augment or even replace many of his previous analogue techniques. This delicate combination of the two worlds we all now live in, is the realm in which Alexi hopes to develop his creative energy and his final products solving traditional effects problems, using modern techniques and technology.

ADRIANE DAFF is an actor, writer and theatre-maker. She is also a founding artist of The Last Great Hunt. Some notable theatre credits include "Lé Nør" which was nominated for two 2019 Helpmann awards (including best new Australian work) and "The Irresistible", which was also nominated for a 2018 Helpmann Award (best new play) and had a seasons at Dark Mofo (2019) and the Sydney Opera House (2019). Adriane has studied in Perth (WAAPA BA in Theatre Arts), New York City (Ward Meisner Studio), Paris (Ecole Philippe Gaulier) and Sydney (Kim Farrant and Force Majeure). In 2018, Adriane wrote, produced and performed in "Era of New Paradise" for the Griffin Theatre’s Batch Festival in Sydney. Adriane also co-wrote the audio works "Into the Jungle" (DreamBig festival in Adelaide), "The Turners" (Sydney Writer’s Festival), and "The Confidence Man" (Arts House and Perth Theatre Company).

ELIZA SCOTT is an interdisciplinary artist working across performance, drag, sound and film. Their practice integrates technology and sound into live performance - through the use of loop pedals, live-feed and audio-trickery.
Eliza has performed as an actor and musician, alongside devising, collaborating and writing their own work. In 2020, Eliza was an Artslab Artist in Residence with Shopfront Arts Co-op where they initially developed a multidisciplinary piece, POLLON.
Eliza has performed in a multitude of shows in the Australian Theatre scene, including, CHORUS (2019), Homesick, (2019), The Lady or the Tiger (2019), Her (2018), Wasted (2017) and wrote & performed in their one person show, Blackstrap Molasses at the Sydney Fringe in 2017.
Eliza is a proud member of the Little Eggs Collective, having Assistant Directed their recent production of Symphonie Fantastique (KXT, 2021). They are currently shortlisted for the Griffin Incubator Fellowship for 2021. They have completed residencies with Sydney Fringe 2020, Griffin Theatre Company 2021 and Brand X 2021. They have trained with Force Majeure, Holly Mandell (The Groundlings) Victoria Hunt in Body Weather. '

ALISON BENNETT holds a Bachelor Performing Arts (Drama) from Monash University and trained at the Lecoq Internationale School of Theatre in Paris. She is currently the Program Manager for Adult Learning at the National Institute of Dramatic Art in Sydney (NIDA). At NIDA she is also a tutor on the BFA (Acting ) program teaching comedy, grotesquerie and clowning. Alison has recently collaborated with the Sydney Opera House/Sydney Festival/Spiral (Japan) on Join the Dots, a cross cultural digital drawing and performance project. She has performed The Magic Hat (Casula Power House), TROUPE (commissioned by Bestival Music Festival UK), Roadkill Confidential (Lies,Lies & Propaganda) & This is Not Mills & Boon (Glorious Theating Theatre Co), and recently appeared in Zelos (Painted Gate Pictures) and The Lonely Hearts Variety Hour (Platon Theodoris). She has directed and produced TRADE, Roomba Nation, The Seagull and Frenzy for Two. She recently directed 'The Duck Pond' by Tabitha Woo and co-produced 'Our Blood Runs in the Street' for Chopt Logic. She is currently re-developing Roomba Nation as part of her creative practise Honours program at UNSW.

NARCIFIXION FEATURING ANTON AND BRIANNA KELL (2019)

MATT PREST is a performer and director with over 10 year’s experience working across performance, theatre and live-art. Matt’s consistent focus is on the experiential nature of live performance. He holds a BFA in Sculpture, Performance and Installation and has trained at Ecole Philippe Gaulier, Paris. Matt's work includes THE TENT, HOLE IN THE WALL (with Clare Britton), WHELPING BOX (with Branch Nebula), RUNNING UP A SKYSCRAPER, and THE QUEEN ST. RUN. His work has been recognised with a Helpmann Award for Best Visual or Physical Theatre (Whelping Box 2014), and a Creative Australia Fellowship from the Australia Council (2012). He was artist-in-residence at Robert Wilson’s Watermill Center in New York, 2016, and since 2016 he has also been a theatre fellow at the University of Wollongong.

NITIN VENGURLEKAR is a writer and performer from Bankstown who works across the fields of contemporary performance and alternative comedy. He has performed his stories, poems and short comic pieces at various literary and alternative comedy events around Sydney, including Club Cab Sav, Parramasala, Sydney Writer’s Festival, Secret Garden Festival, Penguin Plays Rough and Fabulous Monster. In 2015 he presented his full-length nonsense epic Neville Umbrellaman as part of Bondi Feast, and a collection of his work in The Neville Umbrellaman Variety Hour Featuring Freddy Nietzsche’s Good Time Skiffle Quintet as part of the City of Sydney’s Late Night Library program. He also wrote material for and performed in Nitro Theatre/Bankstown Arts Centre’s large-scale community productions of The Prophet: Remix (November 2015) and The Night Sky (November 2016), directed by Felix Cross. His most recent performances include The Big Day (2016), a staged wedding at Giant Dwarf, and Another Day in Paradise (2017), a reading accompanying an exhibition of Myuran Sukumaran’s art works at Campbelltown Arts Centre. He recently completed his PhD at the University of NSW for his thesis ‘The Choreography of the Gaze: Looking Back at Spectators in Works by Pina Bausch and Jacques Tati’.

MALCOLM WHITTAKER works as an artist, writer, researcher, performer, producer and teacher. He does this in solo pursuits and in collaborations with other artists and non-artists. His work as an artist is mostly made and executed through the engagement of participants and collaborators in the framing of play spaces that adopt social forms and rituals from popular culture and the everyday. His projects have taken the form of theatre and gallery situations, site-specific and public interventions, performance lectures, film shoots, phone calls, support groups, radio programs, elevator rides, teeth-brushing services, walks in the park, games of chess, gift shops, handshakes, newspapers, letters in the mail, digging holes in the dirt and the borrowing of books from the library. He has made and presented work extensively across Australia, as well as in the UK, Finland and Europe. Malcolm recently completed his PhD at The University of Wollongong, where he also works as a sessional teacher of art theory and practice. He is currently a member of the Artistic Directorate of PACT Centre for Emerging Artists.

SEREIMA ADIMATE/STELLY G is a Gadigal-based Fijian performance artist with an anti-colonial practise bringing to the forefront the Pacific-diaspora experience. Stelly interrogates the colonial structures that have invited shame and forced us to neglect selflove, communal care and understanding. “I love my people, I love myself and I am committed to the evolution of returning to a past that meets the future”. Stelly has performed as a solo and collaborative artist in works that have showcased across many established institutions and galleries and is currently working on a production with BlackBirds Creative Arts for PACT Centre for Emerging Artists, Sydney.

TANUMI is a storyteller (aka the shaRman). He uses his music, dance and art to take everyone on a journey. A multidisciplinary artist, Tanumi fuses music from all times and genres to create his sound. Tribal and futuristic, a jungle boi at heart. Expect jaw dropping moments as Tanumi burns up the stage with his Fiji Fire!

LILY HAYMAN and THOMAS DOYLE are an emerging theatre duo with a strong interest in the role technology plays in the stories of their generation. Coming from a design and performance background respectively, their work aims to integrate new and synthetic media into live performance as seamlessly as they have been integrated into our own everyday realities. Their work has a strong aesthetic focus - using design as a core element of the development process to create daring, multi-modal contemporary performance.

WATERMELON FEATURING HARRIET GILLIES & NATALIE ABBOTT (2017) PHOTO BY DAVID HARRISON

FERAS SHAHEEN was born in Dubai to Palestinian parents and moved to Sydney at the age of 11. Coming from a Hip-Hop dance background, Feras traverses different roles within dance working as a performer, teacher, choreographer and digital artist. He holds a Bachelor in Design from Western Sydney University and in addition to his dance practice works as a freelance graphic designer, photographer and videographer. In his own creative development, Feras is focused on further applying his street dance knowledge within a contemporary dance practice. Feras is also a member of Buggy Bumpers Dance Crew, Groove Therapy Agency, Cultural Renegades and Klappsquad.

BECKS BLAKE is a theatre maker with a focus in new writing and queer works. In 2016 Becks was an artist in residence with the Barbican Centre and Rich Mix Theatre in London developing the political adult puppetry show; Blood & Bone as part of the VAULT Festival. In 2019 they worked as Associate Producer for SKATE with Big hART and The Ethics Centre. Becks is currently Artistic Associate with Kings Cross Theatre (KXT). Becks performs as drag king, Jim Junkie, on the Sydney drag scene and was recently crowded King of Kings at the Heaps Gay Drag King comp.

TASNIM HOSSAIN is a playwright, director and dramaturg. She wrote and performed Boys Light Up Blue Room Theatre, about masculinity, violence and sporting culture in Australia through the lens of a Muslim woman. She also wrote and performed Letters to John, about anxiety and men’s rights activism, incorporating elements of spoken word poetry, Batch Festival, Griffin Theatre, Fringe World, Crack Theatre Festival. As a director and dramaturg, Tasnim has worked on new Australian work for Sydney Theatre Company, Q Theatre, Merrigong Theatre and several independent companies. She is interested in solo theatrical performance as a means to elevate the marginalised voice.

SIREN THEATRE CO is an independent company based in Sydney. Siren has commissions and produces plays, partnering with producing and presenting organisations to create bold imaginative experiences. Always evolving but these things hold true: the work would look ridiculous in other mediums; always tell a good story; keep the actor at the centre of the work; don’t add to the crap in the world; the work will be beautiful, rigorous, imaginative and timely. This is theatre that is intellectually and financially accessible to a diverse community, and promotes equality by normalising feminist and queer experience.

As a Pasifika storyteller in Australia, TAOFIA PELESASA’S practice is anchored in remedying the lack of Pasifika voices in the landscape of Australian storytelling on screen and on stage. Taofia’s response was to found a Pasifika production company based in Western Sydney. The company provides a sustainable and robust platform for Pasifika-Australians to tell their stories, acknowledging the ways in which we as Pasifika share space and story while creating transient and challenging works reflective of the contemporary PasifikaAustralian voice.“Basically, I love my people and we deserve better than the invisibility we have endured in this country".

JOEL FENTON is a professional contemporary dance theatre performer, choreographer, rehearsal director, educator and tour manager working with Shaun Parker & Company, Tasdance, Devize Co and independent projects across Australia. In 2017 he completed his Master of Dance at VCA, where he focused on the process of making contemporary dance theatre through his SITCOMS task based improvisation practice, culminating in his full length solo, ‘Nonsensical’. Joel has taught classes and workshops in contemporary dance, improvisation and performance across Australia since 2009. Joel is passionate about creating and performing works that connect with audiences through actively considering the audience experience.

RANDA SAYED is a Lebanese Australian Muslim writer and performer from Western Sydney who creates theatre and film that expands the possibility of cultural storytelling in Australia and beyond. Randa tells stories that are difficult to tell in entertaining and authentic ways, creating work that invites audiences into mostly private cultural spaces offering them space to be a part of the narrative. Randa does this work because she believes in inclusivity, freedom of expression and positive cultural and social change.

SLANTED THEATRE has taken the Sydney theatre scene by storm since its first production in January 2021. Within the span of 9 months, we have presented the Australian premiere of Lauren Yee’s 'Ching Chong Chinaman', the Australian premiere of Ovidia Yu’s 'Three Fat Virgins Unassembled' in collaboration with KXT bAKEHOUSE, and multiple world premieres of short plays for Short+Sweet Sydney working with over 40 Asian theatre makers, including various directors, designers, and actors. Our aims are to work with Asian casts and crew, create relevant and interesting work, eliminate tokenistic casting, improve representation and to create conversation.