Max Burgess is a queer choreographer, performer, and dramaturg based between Ngunnawal and Ngambri Country (Canberra) and Naarm (Melbourne). As a performer they have collaborated with independents and companies across Australia including Stephanie Lake Company, Melanie Lane, Lucy Guerin Inc. and Australian Dance Party. Their work as a performer has spanned the worlds of theatre, visual art, site-specific performance, fashion and film. As a choreographer, Max has developed and presented works in collaboration with Dancehouse, You Are Here Canberra, Performance Space and QL2 Dance. Max’s works interrogate their relationship with the world, and their relationship with self. Through exploring themes, Max questions how we connect to one another and ourselves—to find ideas of how we may move towards connection.

Jackie Jenkins (they/them) is a practicing sound artist and designer specialising in creating commissioned work for performance and exhibition. From Boorloo and based in Pōneke Aotearoa, Jackie identifies as non-binary, using this lens of queer experience to influence the creation of sound through experimental measures. With an experienced practice in DJ-ing and designing sound, Jackie has a personal history in contemporary dance, utilising this experience for scoring and producing music specific to contemporary dance. Some of their most recent work from 2023 includes sound design and production for international touring show ‘LOVE/LOVE/LOVE/LOVE/LOVE’ by Tessa Redman, and for dancer and choreographer Sebastian Geilings ‘How Much Of You Is Repetition’, made as a part of Australian Dance Theatre’s ‘Cultivate: One season. Most recently in 2024 they have worked on musical scoring alongside Alexander Scott-Billing and Düm Will for ‘Mesmerous’ by Wellfare State in Wellington New Zealand.

Hamish McIntosh, PhD, is a postdoctoral fellow in the Faculty of Education and Arts at Nord University, Norway. Born in Aotearoa New Zealand, Hamish trained as a contemporary dancer at the New Zealand School of Dance. Completing his PhD at the University of Melbourne in 2023, Hamish’s writing explores arts education, queer theory, and masculinities in dance.

Jack Hancock (The System) has been practicing as a fashion designer and garment maker since 2006. Graduating with 1st class honours at RMIT in 2012, Jack has worked in a number of corners of the fashion and textiles industry, operating as a pattern maker, a bespoke dressmaker, a costume designer for a number of contemporary dance works and as a technical consultant for local brands in Melbourne and surrounding areas. In 2020, Jack established the slow fashion house “The System” which is an exploration into the complex facets of the fashion, textiles and garment making industry. The System is an attempt to find new ways to operate in an industry that feels incongruous with a future that is demanding complete revolution. The System’s ethos explores movement and ergonomics of cloth in the garment making process whilst utilising traditional techniques from a broad array of chapters across history and cultures.

Max would also like to extend their deepest appreciation to Jackie Jenkins, Hamish McIntosh, Jack Hancock, Elekis Teirney, Luke Romero and Melanie Lane for helping bring this work to life.