First Dance

Adolfo Aranjuez is an editor, writer, speaker and dancer. He is currently the Melbourne International Film Festival’s publications and content manager as well as Liminal magazine’s publication editor; previously, he edited the magazines Metro and Archer. Adolfo’s essays, criticism and poetry have appeared in Meanjin, Right Now, Screen Education, The Manila Review, Cordite and elsewhere, and he has worked with numerous organisations including the Melbourne Writers Festival, Midsumma, ABC TV and Arts Access Victoria.

Ash Flanders is an award-winning writer and performer. As well as acting for other people and creating his own solo work, he runs DIY queer theatre outfit Sisters Grimm with Declan Greene. 

Brodie Lancaster is an author and essayist from Melbourne. Her work has appeared in publications including the New York Times, Vogue Australia, the Guardian and New York magazine. Her first book, the pop culture memoir ...

Danny Katz, Canadian-born, came to Australia at a young age. After failed careers as a musician, stand-up comedian and car washer, he finally turned to writing and became a newspaper columnist for the Age, the Sydney Morning Herald and the Western Australian.

He is also the author of S.C.U.M., Spit the Dummy, Little Lunch, and The Poppa Platoon series for children.

Working under their legal name of Sarah-Jane Norman, Onyx Carmine has been hailed as one of the most challenging and rigorous Australian experimental artists of their generation. Over the course of their 13 year solo career, Onyx has created a diverse body of interdisciplinary work spanning durational, intimate and body-based performance, dance, installation, sculpture, text, sound and moving image.

Also an accomplished writer and editor, Onyx’s poetry, prose and ficto-critical work has seen publication in Meanjin, Overland, The Cultural Studies Review of Australia, Stylus and Realtime to name a few. They have placed in numerous awards including the Overland/Judith Wright Prize for Poetry and the The DJ (Dinny) O’Hearn Award. Their forthcoming short story collection is currently shortlisted for the inaugural Kill Your Darlings Unfinished Manuscript Award. They have also co-edited publications on Indigenous film are the co-editor and lead writer on a forthcoming publication on Indigenous Australian experimental art practice.

Born on Gadigal land of Wiradjuri, Wonnarua and Anglo-Celtic ancestry, Onyx has been based in Berlin since 2009. They currently divide their time between Berlin and un-ceded Wurundjeri land.

wāni is a proud descendant of the Bashi peoples of Walungu, as well as the current Incarnation of the Afronaut. He spends his times teleporting through Universes and time-scapes navigating between dreams of becoming the fire-fist pirate king Hokage master of all four elements, and unfolding tales from a generation who quite honestly might be too good for this Universe.

Niharika Senapati is a freelance artist who works in a variety of contexts as a dancer, actor, sound designer and teacher. Since 2012, she has been performing and touring with Chunky Move, working closely with director Anouk van Dijk as a dancer and choreographic assistant. She has performed extensively in Chunky Move works, some including An Act of Now (2017 and 2012), Anti-Gravity (2018 and 2017), Rule of Thirds (2016) and Depth of Field (2017 and 2015). 

She was also choreographic assistant for Safe Places (Schauspiel Frankfurt, 2016) and Complexity of Belonging (Melbourne Theatre Company, 2013). Niharika most recently performed in Trustees by the Belarus Free Theatre for Malthouse Theatre (Melbourne Festival, 2018) and Replay by Eszter Salamon (Abbotsford Convent, 2018). She was sound designer for DanceQuietRiot (Emma Fishwick, 2018), E/Merge (Lauren Langlois, 2018) and Our Sandman (Rebecca Riggs-Bennett, 2019).

Throughout the years Niharika has had the pleasure with working with Ian Strange, Ho Tzu Nyen, Prue Lang , Lucy Guerin, Rachel Arianne Ogle, Emma Fishwick, Jacob Lehrer, Jessica Arthur and Didem Caia. Alongside performing, Niharika is a Senior Countertechnique teacher, teaching extensively around the world and also creates her own work.

Niharika presented IMAGINATION/VACATION (SIGNAL Arts, 2017), Follow Your Dreams (No Vacancy Gallery, 2017) and POSITIVE Reinforcement (Blak Dot Gallery, 2018). In 2018 Niharika attended two artist led residencies in 2018 with Arts House for 'Time Space Place - Nomad 2018' and at Bundanon Trust with Matt Shilcock and Daisy Sanders.

Raina Peterson is a dancer-choreographer, writer and theatre-maker who was born and raised on Gunaikurnai land and currently lives and works on Wurundjeri land.

Their works include the critically-acclaimed ‘Bent Bollywood’, and an Indian contemporary dance show exploring trans identity at Arts House, ‘Third Nature.’

Raina was in the original cast of Hot Brown Honey Burlesque, and is one-third of feminist cabaret troupe the Ladies of Colour Agency, which toured sell-out productions across Australia. Raina teaches classical Indian dance at Studio J Dance in Richmond, and their appearances as a performer, choreographer, director, and writer include the Victorian Arts Centre, Melbourne International Arts Festival, Melbourne and Adelaide Fringe Festivals, Woodford Folk Festival, and Melaka Arts and Performance Festival (Malaysia).