Phil Slater is an award-winning jazz trumpeter, composer, improviser and educator based in the Illawarra region of New South Wales. He has been a central figure in the Australian contemporary jazz scene since the 1990s, leading or co-leading influential ensembles such as the Phil Slater Quartet, Band of Five Names, Daorum and The Sun Songbook. Across a diverse career he has performed and recorded with artists including the Australian Art Orchestra, Archie Roach, Missy Higgins, Lou Reed, Vince Jones, Sandy Evans, Paul Grabowsky, Katie Noonan and Jonathan Zwartz. His compositional work extends into theatre, film and television, with music featured in productions by Sydney Theatre Company, Belvoir Street Theatre, Bangarra and Legs on the Wall. His 2019 album The Dark Pattern received critical acclaim and an ARIA Award nomination for Best Jazz Album, while his 2023 release Immersion Lure has been celebrated as a landmark in Australian jazz. Slater is a three-time winner of the Australian Jazz Bell Awards and recipient of the National Jazz Award, the Freedman Fellowship and the Limelight Award. He is also a senior lecturer in jazz at the Sydney Conservatorium of Music.

Dylan Daly is a Naarm-based dancer currently completing his third year at the Victorian College of the Arts. His love for dance began on queer dance floors and club spaces before evolving into a contemporary dance practice. Prior to VCA he attended classes at Chunky Move, which inspired him to audition for the program. Since beginning his studies he has performed repertoire from Stephanie Lake’s Auto Cannibal, worked as a roving performer in club contexts and recently travelled to the United States to participate in workshops and training. Dylan’s developing artistic practice seeks to merge the influences of queer dance floor culture with choreographic work.

Amelie Carrie is a passionate and dedicated performer who began training at the age of three in a variety of dance styles. During her teenage years, she developed a strong passion for contemporary dance. Since the age of 12, she has been involved in several youth companies, including Loredo Dance Company (Sydney, 2016–2019), Wild Hearts Company (Sydney, 2018–2019), and Dance Doctor (Sydney, 2020–2023). Through these experiences, she gained valuable performance skills ranging from improvisation to repertoire work, as well as opportunities to collaborate with other artists. She has further developed her contemporary training at Newtown High School of the Performing Arts and Rhapsody Studios, with a focus on contemporary technique and choreography. Since commencing her studies at the Victorian College of the Arts (VCA) where she is now in her finale year, she has continued to challenge herself through additional classes and performance opportunities, including both solo and group work in Stephanie Lake’s Auto Cannibal repertoire. In 2025, she was fortunate enough to attended the B12 Summer Intensive in Berlin and performed in James Bachelor’s work ‘Resonance’, further expanding her training and international experience.

Lucy Salter is originally from Wollongong, NSW, and has studied contemporary dance and classical ballet from a young age. She previously trained with Austi.Dance and Physical Theatre, Ev & Bow Youth Company and Sydney Dance Company Youth Ensemble. Lucy began tertiary training at the Victorian College of the Arts in 2024 and is currently in her third and final year. Since commencing tertiary education she has undertaken training and secondment opportunities across Australia and internationally. In 2025 she participated in professional development with Humanhood Dance Company (Barcelona & UK) and Chuthis Ideas (USA) through Orsolina28’s summer intensive program. She has also participated in workshops with B12 Research or Die in Berlin and continues to expand her contemporary dance practice.

Jack Bridseye (he/him) is a contemporary artist based in Naarm, working across improvisation, choreography and performance. Since 2021 he has been a member of CoExist Collective, a group of emerging artists committed to bridging the gap between student and early-career practitioners and creating platforms for artists to share their work. He collaborated with Kayla Douglas on the duet G2D, presented at CoExist Collective’s multidisciplinary arts event ARTECA. Recent performance credits include working with Jayden Wall for Melbourne Fashion Week’s Fashion X Theatre and appearing in an acting role in The Australian Ballet’s Melbourne season of Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland. Jack and collaborator Jel Menta presented a double bill at Melbourne Fringe Festival including VOYAGER #3, first realised at Out of Bounds, and were commissioned by Transit Dance for their new work 1OF9/1TO9. Late last year Jack spent a month in Dubai under the direction of Sian Kelly for the Al Ain Museum Inauguration Ceremony performance. He has also completed secondments with Stephanie Lake Company, Australian Dance Theatre and Dancenorth, and teaches casually at Transit Dance.

Angelica (Jel) Menta is a contemporary artist based in Naarm. Graduating from Ev & Bow in 2018 and Transit Dance in 2021, she has collaborated with artists including Marlo Benjamin, Cass Mortimer Eipper, Chimene Steele-Prior, Kayla Douglas, Olivia McPherson and Paea Leach. Her professional journey includes the remount of Stephanie Lake Company’s Colossus at the Melbourne International Festival (2019). In 2022 she performed in CoExist Collective’s inaugural piece In [The] Making, and later co-choreographed Unapologetically, Me with Jack Birdseye, commissioned by CoExist for Melbourne Fringe Festival. In 2023 Jel performed in Transit Company’s Opus, choreographed by Jayden Hicks. She later debuted her first full-length work Layered Point for the Co-Exist event Give Me a Microphone and Some Warm Bodies, with creative assistance from Jack. Late last year Jel was commissioned by Transit Dance to present a new work 1OF9/1TO9. In 2021 she seconded with Lucy Guerin during the development of Flaux Job and Stephanie Lake Company’s Manifesto, followed by an extended secondment with Dancenorth in 2023. In 2024 Jel received the Transit bursary for Strut Dance’s Perth Moves program, spending three weeks working with international and Australian choreographers.

Aimee Raitman (she/her) is an emerging choreographer based in Naarm (Melbourne). Aimee’s practice is greatly informed by her training in Contact Improvisation, Gaga and Somatics, and she holds a Bachelor of Fine Arts (Dance) from the University of Melbourne, Victorian College of the Arts, where she received the VCA Choreographic Award. Aimee’s practice centres lived experience, seeking to create relevant and universally accessible work. Aimee’s recent choreographic work has been supported by Australian Dance Theatre, CreateSA, the Adelaide Fringe Foundation, Geelong Arts Centre, City of Greater Geelong and other local councils. She is currently an Artist in Residence at The Space Dance and Arts Centre.

Amelia Watson (they/them) is an artist based between Naarm and Kaurna Yerta. Amelia has traversed creative landscapes across Europe and Australia, working in dance, puppetry, choreography and dance theatre. A graduate from Adelaide College of Arts, Amelia received the 2023 Helpmann Academy Fellowship to study in Bologna, Italy. Here Amelia developed a strong multi-disciplined approach to storytelling. Their choreographic work includes: Ceremonial (2023), Sentiments (2024), Tortion (2024) and Sentiments of Sentiments (2025). These shows utilised movement, voice and anthropologic research, premiering at festivals including Adelaide Fringe, MELT Festival, ResiDanza Di Primavera and in Australian Dance Theatre’s RAW Season. Amelia has worked as a dancer under notable artists Tanya Voges, Gabrielle Nankivell, Jill Crovisier, Lina Limosani, Martina La Regione, Stephanie Lake, Rosemary Meyers, Alison Currie, Daniel Jaber, Motus Collective and Tobiah Booth-Remmers. Amelia currently studies a Master of Arts Management at RMIT and acts as an intermittent guest lecturer at Adelaide College of the Arts on Kaurna Yerta.

Soleil Harvey is a contemporary dancer, maker and educator based in Magandjin (Brisbane). She attained an Advanced Diploma in Dance in 2018 through the Australian Dance and Performance Institute and completed Sydney Dance Company’s Pre-Professional Year in 2019. She has performed in works including Colossus by Stephanie Lake, SAND by Courtney Scheu and Itamar Freed, Raise The Roof: Dionysus Redux with Legs on the Wall, Hot & Heavy with The Ironing Maidens, AIDA with Opera Australia and performance collaborations with James Barth (Stone Milker) and Karina Smigla-Bobinski (ADA). Soleil has been a collaborator and performer with VOiiiD Collective since 2022, most recently performing in SKIN at Adelaide Fringe. In 2023 she began development of her first solo work SEED in collaboration with audiovisual artist Finley Wegener, which premiered at OUTBOUND Live Art x Dance Festival. Her work seeks to honour the complexity of lived experience while fostering dialogues that are intimate, political and embodied.

Luka Rayment is a contemporary dancer and emerging choreographer based in Sydney, Australia. She completed her full-time training at Ev & Bow in 2023 and 2024 before continuing her professional development with Dance Formation in 2025 under the direction of Georgette Sofatzis. Luka has performed with leading Australian companies including Catapult Dance and FORM Dance Projects, appearing in works presented at the Sydney and Adelaide Fringe Festivals, including pieces recognised with “Best in Dance” awards. She has collaborated with independent artists including Samantha Hines, Maxine Doyle, Omer Backley-Astrachan, Victor & Mia Zarallo, Madeline Harms and Holly Doyle. Most recently she performed an excerpt from GNMC Company’s international repertoire in Time Tells Time. In 2025 Luka travelled to Europe to deepen her training, studying and performing repertoire by Ohad Naharin, Crystal Pite, Sofia Nappi and Marco Goecke. She performed Venezuela under Naharin’s direction at Orsolina28 Arts Foundation and made her choreographic debut with Void, supported by FORM Dance Projects and later presented at Impact Festival in Warners Bay.

Jacob Coppedge (b. 1996, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania) is a multidisciplinary artist of African American and Dutch-Indonesian-Malay heritage. Their practice is shaped by the complexities of cultural displacement and the search for understanding within these fractured lineages. Through-lines in their work include self-discovery, explorations of cultural identity and loss, and the intersections of queerness, sensuality and liberation. Working in so-called Australia across different art forms, Coppedge investigates the internal and external forces that govern the self and the other within a colonial context. Their practice creates space for reimagining belonging, navigating tension, and exploring the liberatory possibilities of both material and embodied expression.

Joyce Liu (they/she) is a Chinese-Australian artist based in Naarm, working mainly as a choreographer, performance artist and movement director. Their movement, founded in street-style choreography, explores ritualistic flow and creaturesque textures. Joyce’s work often leans into the surreal and incorporates technological elements to create world-building performances.

Branden To (he/him) is a Naarm-based artist exploring aesthetics and interactions between the spaces where the organic and inorganic meet. These expressions often manifest through the lenses of generative and algorithmic processes, as well as artefacts and world-building in both digital and physical landscapes.

Sam Osborn is a freelance dancer based in Naarm/Melbourne. Their practice is rooted in a desire for liberation, truth and reconnection to the joy of dance—both as personal expression and as a catalyst for social and political change. Sam has worked across contemporary dance, art and film, collaborating and performing with artists including Alisdair Macindoe, Melanie Lane, Amelia Jean O’Leary, Lauren Brincat and other Australian independents. A graduate of Sydney Dance Company’s Pre-Professional Year, Sam has collaborated with artists including Jenni Large, Gabrielle Nankivell, Lucy Guerin and Melanie Lane. Creatively, Sam enjoys working in ways that are both playful and honest, challenging their desire to exist with both strength and softness. Their work often explores tenderness, queerness and the tension between comfort and discomfort, seeking movement that feels like both release and return.

Hugo Poulet is a multidisciplinary independent artist based in Melbourne. A versatile and distinctive mover, he draws on a wide range of movement practices to push contemporary dance forward. He has performed with Stephanie Lake Company in Auto Cannibal, with ADC in CODE OF CONDUCT, Sydney Dance Company in Ohad Naharin’s Decadance, as well as in Drenched by Caetlyn Watson and The Ring Cycle with Opera Australia. Hugo has collaborated with leading choreographers including Rafael Bonachela, James Vu Anh Pham, Larissa McGowan, Omer Backley-Astrachan and Gabrielle Nankivell. As a choreographer, he has received Best Duet Choreography at FORMS’ Sharp Short Dance Awards and won DUTI’s 2025 Profound Choreographic Competition. In 2024 he debuted his first full-length work orbital at PACT Centre for Emerging Artists and is currently developing SIGIL, a solo work combining dance and his music practice.

Serena Graham is a full-time dancer with The Australian Ballet, a position she has held since 2018 following her graduation from The Australian Ballet School. Alongside her performance career, Serena is an emerging choreographer creating original works for both The Australian Ballet and The Australian Ballet School. Her choreographic practice explores the intersection of classical ballet technique and contemporary movement, reflecting a strong interest in innovation within tradition.

Katherine Lanterna (Katherine Hegeman) is a movement-based artist based in Naarm (Melbourne) with a curiosity toward the intersection of grace and rebellion. Existing between these realms informs both her movement style and a practice that aspires to merge grit and poise, exploring themes of self-contradiction, irony and vulnerability. Upon graduating from the Victorian College of the Arts, Katherine received the Orloff Family Trust Award as well as a Graduate Artist Residency at Lucy Guerin Inc., where she further developed her first choreographic project At the Hands of Men. Katherine has since performed in works by Melanie Lane, Joel Bray and Amelia O’Leary and collaborated across disciplines including music, visual arts, film and fashion both locally and internationally.

Eloise Wright is a dance artist based in Naarm/Melbourne. Wright graduated from the Victorian College of the Arts with a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Dance (2021). She has worked with Jo Lloyd and Rebecca Jensen in several projects and secondments, notably performing in Jo Lloyd’s Collision with Tasdance and GUTS (2022). Wright’s practice uses ecological thought to place the body amongst systems. She is invested in exploring the intelligence and frequencies of the natural world to expand upon further queer and sentient bodies through movement. With a gripping interest in choreographic encounters that can offer new action and logic, she honours the deep–personal–body archive and allows imagination and memory recall to inform her practice.

Iris Elgar is an independent dance artist working within choreographic and improvised durational modes. Informed by training in ballet and contemporary dance alongside interests in literature and queer theory, Iris moves through imagined worlds filled with dykes, fools and primordial beings. Their primary mode of performance is durational, allowing intimate exploration of the relationship between performer and audience. In 2022 Iris completed a Bachelor of Fine Arts (Dance) at the Victorian College of the Arts and received the Phillip Adams VCA Mentorship Award. Iris collaborates with independent artists including Zoë Bastin, Valentina Emerald, Lucy Eidelson, Charlie Lee and Angie Collins, and has performed at venues including Regent Theatre, Dancehouse, Temperance Hall, Abbotsford Convent, Testing Grounds, Assembly 197, Seventh Gallery, Bus Projects and Unassigned Gallery. They are particularly interested in themes of fantasy, queerness, nature and failure, and aim to responsibly source costuming and set materials within their practice.

Angie Collins (she/they), raised in Lutruwita, creates contemporary works merging movement, sound and theatre to explore the grotesque, the absurd, the natural and the unnatural. Angie recently created her first experimental dance work URCHIN via an artist residency at Assembly197 (TAS). She has worked with companies including Terrapin Puppet Theatre, IO Performance, Yellow Wheel, Assembly197, ROOKE, Mudlark, Three River, The Launceston Players and Stompin. Recent projects include CAMOPANSIES at Dancehouse for Melbourne Fringe Festival and PLAGIARY as part of MAKE with Assembly197. She is currently studying Sound Production at RMIT.

Charlie Lee is a production designer, artist and performance maker from Aotearoa working across dance, text, costume making and film. Guided by queer/trans ecological methodologies and aesthetics of collapse, they create work that inhabits in-between zones and precarious balances. Charlie is interested in how design and costume can act as choreographic agents that challenge dualistic understandings of the body and world. Their recent choreographic project Camopansies (2025) was presented at Dancehouse with support from a studio residency at Lucy Guerin Inc./WXYZ Studios. Costume work includes Requiem (Lucy Eidelson, 2025), Diagrammatica (Jason Maling, 2025) and Time Under Tension (Luke George, 2024). They hold a Bachelor of Fine Arts (Production) from the Victorian College of the Arts and co-facilitate the Trans Ecology Club reading group.

Carlie Shaw is a movement-based artist and theatre maker who loves to explore humour, vulnerability, curiosity and character forms. Originally grooving in Eora/Sydney, Carlie became obsessed with all things absurd and creative whilst training with AUSTI Dance and Physical Theatre. Theatrical expression and processes that prioritise urgency, engagement and amusement became a main focus for her dance practice. In 2022/23, she worked with Emma Saunders in WE ARE HERE Company, performing Saunders’ work ENCOUNTER across NSW and QLD. In 2024, Carlie cartwheeled her way to Naarm/Melbourne to interrogate and refine her artistry. Carlie is currently in her third year at the Victorian College of the Arts studying for a Bachelor of Fine Arts (Dance). Over the last two years, Carlie has presented works through the Union House Theatre, including a performance at the Parkville MPavilion. She has performed with youth company Yellow Wheel, trained at the Melbourne Physical Theatre School with Kimberley Twiner and Lily Fish, and recently performed with the Brunswick East Entertainment Festival.

Charlie MacArthur is a dance artist interested in improvisation, writing and performance, intrigued by joy, text, humour and character. They live, laugh, love and dance in Naarm/Melbourne, immersed in the community of emerging artists here. Charlie is cultivating an artistic practice around social improvisation and play. In 2025, Charlie danced with Forest Collective on their Green Room Award nominated opera Labyrinth, practiced and performed with youth dance company Yellow Wheel, and performed alongside James Batchelor for the Melbourne season of his work Resonance. They support a burgeoning interest in text and academia through studying History and Philosophy of Science and Creative Writing at the University of Melbourne. Charlie completed tertiary dance training at Sydney Dance Company’s Pre-Professional Year in 2023/24.

Lola Borroni is a contemporary dance artist born in France, raised in Namibia and based in Naarm. She began formal training at 20 and graduated from full-time contemporary dance training. She has worked with artists including Chimene Steele-Prior, Kimball Wong, Jayden Hicks, Pamela Frank and Stephanie Lake, and has seconded with Dancenorth and undertaken a residency with TasDance. Her practice is grounded in storytelling, using repetition, sequencing and improvisation as compositional tools. This allows her movement to remain fluid and continuously shifting. She honours her lineage and diverse background through articulation and isolation while merging contemporary and groove-based movement.

Hannah Vella is a 21-year-old LGBTQ+ contemporary artist based in Naarm. She graduated from Transit Dance as a third-year graduate artist in 2025 and has worked with Chimene Steele-Prior, Jayden Hicks, Jo Lloyd, Kimball Wong and Stephanie Lake. Her practice explores sequential and textural movement inspired by sea life and organic forms. In 2025 she created two works exploring these ideas, focusing on collaboration and the sharing of new work.

Opal is currently a company dancer with SCIMM Dance Company and has performed at major festivals including Midsumma Festival, Sydney Festival and Melbourne Fringe Festival. She has performed works by leading choreographers such as Stephanie Lake, Rafael Bonachela and Merce Cunningham, cultivating a rigorous and versatile performance language. Most recently she interned with Chunky Move on U>N>I>T>E>D, which premiered as part of Asia TOPA 2025. She trained at Sydney Dance Company’s Pre-Professional Year on a full scholarship after being a finalist in the Brisbane International Contemporary Dance Prix, and later completed a Bachelor of Fine Arts (Dance) at the University of Melbourne. Over the past year Opal has been practising Krump, representing Scout Fam and Paradox Fam. Krump plays a vital role in shaping her presence, emotional articulation and compositional approach. She also studies Psychology at the University of Melbourne, informing her interest in embodiment, perception and lived experience.

Lucy “Lui” Eidelson is an artist based in Naarm whose work spans dance, theatre and writing. Her practice draws on folkloric imagery and dreamlike physicality, rendering the body a vessel for ancestral memory and emotional metamorphosis. Lucy is interested in creating experimental and multidisciplinary works that merge the poetic with the strange. Her first full-length dance work Air Hunger (2023) premiered in the Magdalen Laundry at Abbotsford Convent. Exploring the experience of invisible chronic illness through the site of the bed, the work featured nine performers with lived experience of chronic illness and drew capacity houses, receiving a four-star review in The Age. Lucy’s most recent work Réquiem (2025) premiered in the Blackwood Box at the Meat Market, blending live vocals, dance and physical theatre to explore grief, myth and memory.

Flynn Dakis is an emerging dance artist based in Naarm/Melbourne developing a practice which considers the body as a provocation, navigating the relationship between space and object after graduating from the Victorian College of the Arts in 2025. Influenced by the mundane and the niche, Flynn has co-devised a work entitled SsYiNnCk, presented in MUSE Festival 2025. Flynn has performed in Phillip Adams’ Fountain presented as part of RISING Festival 2025, followed by his graduating season where he worked with choreographers Jill Crovisier to present le miracle and Melanie Lane’s under oath. He has developed a working relationship with choreographer Jo Lloyd, performing in duo agitato and most recently in Post hoc, premiering in the 2025 season of PIECES commissioned by Lucy Guerin Inc. and the University of Melbourne Arts and Culture (UMAC). Post-graduation Flynn intends on continuing to devise original work and contribute to the independent dance scene.

Jesper Harrison (he/him) is an emerging dance artist based in Naarm/Melbourne. Originally from Lutruwita/Tasmania, he was a member of Stompin Youth Dance Company for seven years. Jesper has worked with artists including Jo Lloyd, Phillip Adams, James Batchelor, Jenni Large, Kyall Shanks and more. In 2022 he co-created the full-length work Rival Planes with Sage Price, mentored by Ashleigh Musk and Michael Smith, for Mona Foma. In 2025 he performed in Jo Lloyd’s Duo Agitato, Phillip Adams’ Fountain as part of RISING Festival 2025, and Melanie Lane’s Under Oath. Most recently Jesper performed a new work Post hoc choreographed by Jo Lloyd, which premiered in the 2025 season of PIECES commissioned by Lucy Guerin Inc. and University of Melbourne Arts and Culture (UMAC). His practice and interests extend into sound design and exploring the body as a vessel within multidisciplinary contexts.

Cora Hughes (they/she) is a professional contemporary dancer, choreographer and teacher as well as event organiser and visual artist. Trained in dance at the Victorian College of the Arts (VCA), Cora went on to perform with Lucy Guerin Inc., Helen Herbertson Projects, ButohOut! and Amelia O’Leary and teach for VCA, Dancehouse and Elevation Dance Studios. She has organised events, curated galleries and displayed artwork at venues such as SubClub, Miscellania, Milneys Bar, Cyrus Art Lounge and music festivals such as Mach1. Cora aims to create brave art that speaks to her lineage, her identity as a queer person and facilitates community gathering and connection. They engage in multidisciplinary work that is sensory-evoking, world-building and ever changing. Cora is passionate about diversifying the audience of art and performance and promoting its importance in society.

Helen Herbertson‘s practice spans choreography, performance, training, and mentorship — dance has been a constant in her life since childhood.

Līga Ūbele is a dance artist and scenographer from Rīga, Latvia, recently relocated to Naarm/Melbourne. She holds a BA in Contemporary Dance Art from the Latvian Academy of Culture (2015–2018) and an MA in Scenography from the Art Academy of Latvia (2019–2021). She has also developed her practice through workshops and collaborations with artists including Anton Lachky, Lewis Cooke, Tomislav English, Tina Afiyan Breiová, Sodja Lotker, Anna Nowicka and Daisy Sanders. Throughout her career she has contributed to a wide range of contemporary dance and interdisciplinary projects in Latvia and across Europe as a performer, choreographer, scenographer and costume designer. Her latest choreographic work Untitled Movement Lecture (2022) was featured at the Baltic Dance Platform 2024. In scenography, her recent credits include the Latvian contemporary dance productions Entrails (2024) by Rūta Pūce and Femina (2021) by Sabīne Neilande. Līga is currently a member of the EU-supported project iCoDaCo (2024–2027) and also teaches dance and has worked as a coordinator of dance events in Latvia.

Texas Nixon-Kain and Niki Verrall have been dancing together since 2021. They share an interest in the interdisciplinary possibilities of choreography and the ways the body can be presented and circulated across contexts. Their collaborative work has been supported by Dance Base Yokohama (JP), Studio Kura (JP), Critical Path, Seventh Gallery, Oddaný Gallery, Darebin Arts Speakeasy and the Ian Potter Cultural Trust. As performers, Niki has worked with Ivey Wawn, Angela Goh and Sarah Aiken, and Texas with Rebecca Jensen.

Weichen Cui (崔未尘) is an international movement artist and educator based in Naarm/Melbourne. Originally from China, she began her artistic journey through traditional Chinese dance and martial arts and holds a bachelor’s degree in philosophy from Fudan University. She moved to Australia in 2015 to pursue dance training at the Victorian College of the Arts, collaborating with artists including Gideon Obarzanek, Lee Serle and Ayman Harper. Her practice has expanded internationally, including performances in New York, where she completed dual master’s degrees—an MFA in Dance from Tisch School of the Arts and an MA in Dance Education from Steinhardt School at New York University in 2022. Now a PhD candidate at the University of Melbourne, her choreographic research explores the intersection of somatic practices, embodied cognition and cultural discourse in contemporary dance.

Jiawen Feng (Wendy) is a movement artist originally from Shanghai, China, and currently based in Naarm/Melbourne. She moved to Melbourne in 2012, where the city has shaped her development as a queer diasporic artist exploring cultural intersection and identity. She holds a Bachelor of Fine Arts (Dance) and is currently completing a Master of Dance at the Victorian College of the Arts. Her movement practice blends improvisation, release-based techniques, Chinese classical dance and groove-based movement. Her artistic practice began as an exploration of the dialogue between inner experience and the external world and has expanded to include themes of community, culture and connection. Through her work she seeks to weave identity into performance while challenging conventional relationships between art and audiences.