Ashlee Barton (she/her) is a queer dance artist, maker, and researcher based in Naarm. She graduated from the West Australian Academy of Performing Arts (WAAPA) in 2009 and completed a practice-based PhD at Deakin University in 2024. Her doctoral research explored queer feminine subjectivity through reimagining, reconceiving, and re-presenting the queer feminine body across live and digital forms. Ashlee’s practice centres improvisation as both a choreographic methodology and a mode of performance, developing choreographic scores and performance structures that unfold through duration, repetition, and subtle shifts in attention. Her work uses carefully constructed choreographic structures to generate complex and continually evolving performances.

Deanne Butterworth is a Naarm based dance artist whose choreographic, performance, and teaching practice is preoccupied with the investigation of movement and how it relates to the physical, emotional, and sonic space in which it is located. Over the last thirty years her work has been shown across a range of contexts including traditional performance spaces, galleries and outdoors, and can involve still images, sound, music, text and video — whatever the context the process always starts with a continued fascination with dancing. Deanne has performed in the works of other choreographers including Shelley Lasica, Phillip Adams, Lucy Guerin, Maria Hassabi, Jo Lloyd, Brooke Stamp, Sandra Parker, and many more, and performed in the work of many visual artists including Alicia Frankovich, Sally Smart, and Linda Tegg. Throughout her career Deanne has been nominated for multiple Green Room Awards for performance and choreography.

Emily Bowman (she/her) is a dance artist, performer, choreographer, teacher, and researcher based in Naarm/Melbourne. She has taught and performed nationally and internationally including in the USA, Canada, Germany, Malaysia, and India. Emily also performs CI with her collaborator of ten years, Joey Lehrer, see Two For Now, and their 2022 sold-out work Weathering here. Emily’s classes are inspired by working with artists such as Nancy Stark Smith, Nita Little, Ray Chung, Keith Hennessy, State of Flux, Joey Lehrer, Jacob Lehrer, Wendy Smith, Rosalind Crisp, Paea Leach among many others. They are informed by dance practices such as CI, Skinner Release Technique, Flying Low and Passing Through, Contemplative Dance Practice, Authentic Movement, The Underscore, Body Mind Centering, Fighting Monkey, and other somatic modalities. Emily studied BA Dance at the Western Australian Academy of Performing Arts (WAAPA) and BA of Creative Arts at Deakin university. Emily is a current PhD candidate at Deakin university.

Joshua ‘Fale’ Faleatua is a freelance dancer, theatre creator, and filmmaker of Samoan and New Zealand descent. He is the co-director of Threading Frames, an independent creative collective through which he develops and presents both live performance and digital works. His movement practice is rooted in Hip Hop, Krump, Breaking, and Contemporary dance. A member of The Unguided Crew and the Krump fam 12AF, Fale has performed and collaborated extensively across Europe, the UK, the USA, Asia, and Oceania. His work spans across theatre productions, dance events, workshops, and street dance communities. Instagram: @nahyoufale

Yolanda Lowata is a Geidei woman from Iama – Zenadth Kes. She is also Papua New Guinean & Fijian. In 2016 Yolanda was awarded a Helpmann award for Best Female Dancer in a Dance or Physical Theatre. Studying at the Aboriginal Centre for the Performing Arts (ACPA) Yolanda graduated in 2013 with her Diploma in Performing Arts. Throughout her professional dance career Yolanda has danced for Ochre Contemporary Dance Company, Bangarra Dance Theatre, Yt Dingo, Jannawi Dance Clan, Australian Dance Party, Melaine Lane, Hot Brown Honey, Opera Australia and many other freelance choreographers and projects. Yolanda has shared her dance knowledge with many up-and-coming dancers while teaching at Austi Dance & Physical Theatre, Brolga Dance Academy, Ballet Centre Canberra and QL2 Dance, Australian Dance Party, TIDDAHS, Bangarra Dance Theatre and Youth Dance Makers Initiative and Chunky Move to name a few. Instagram: @yolandaonartsy

Yumi Umiumare is an established Butoh dancer, choreographer and creator of Butoh Cabaret works. She has been creating her distinctive style of works for over 30 years and her creations are renowned for provoking visceral emotions and engaging with cultural identities with a sense of humor. Yumi’s works have been seen in numerous festivals in dance, theatre and film productions throughout Australia, Japan, Europe, New Zealand, South East Asia and South America and have received several Australian Green Room awards.  As a choreographer, Yumi has worked with many socially engaged theatre projects in Australia, including communities of First Nations, refugees and culturally diverse people and also inclusive companies. She is a recipient of the fellowship from Australian Council (2015-16) and a winner of the Green Room Geoffrey Milne Memorial Award (2017). Yumi is a key figure of the international contemporary Butoh scene and the artistic director of ButohOUT! festival in Melbourne since 2017, teaching and activating local and international Butoh communities. Yumi ‘s recent works focus on Dance, Tea and Spirit.