Meet the team
ROLLERCHIMP | Dr Andrew Bluff
Andrew Bluff is a new media interaction artist specialising in technology to enhance live musical performance, physical theatre and interactive art installations. Seamlessly blending software engineering, sound design and digital projection to create live synesthetic audio-visual events. Andrew has recently completed his doctoral research at the UTS Creativity and Cognition Studios, producing his Phd thesis Interactive Art, Immersive Technology and Live Performance.
David Clarkson
David Clarkson is a theatre director, producer, mentor, leader and innovator in his field. He co-founded physical theatre company, Stalker in 1985 which has enjoyed national and international success since that time. His poetic, conceptual, image based and highly physical performance work has been at the high end of physical theatre practice and influenced many artists working in this field.
David established a working relationship with University of Technology Sydney artists and researchers Dr Andrew Bluff and Dr Andrew Johnson in 2011.
Together they have created a cutting edge approach to integrating technology, audience interaction and physical performance.
He is a visionary artist, who lights a path for his peers and the artists he has mentored and worked with.
David Clarkson’s works have toured to over 30 countries globally and have been seen by hundreds of thousands of people. David’s work has varied between solo performances, professional ensemble work, large and small scale community outreach projects and Olympic Opening Ceremonies.
He has been awarded the NSW Rex Cramphorn Scholarship for Theatre, and has undertaken numerous intercultural exchanges including artistic exchanges in Bogotá, Boulder and Seoul.
He was awarded the inaugural Create NSW Art and Technology Fellowship in 2015, for his research into the use of interactive and digital technology in theatre.
Dr Andrew Johnson
Andrew Johnston is a researcher and interaction/software designer based in Sydney, Australia. His work focuses on the design of systems that support experimental, exploratory approaches to interaction, and the experiences and practices of the people who use them.
He has qualifications in music (B. Arts) and computing (Master of IT) and a PhD combining the two. As a musician he has performed professionally with ensembles such as the Melbourne and Sydney Symphony Orchestras and many other ensembles. His PhD research, completed in 2009, involved the creation of interactive software for use by expert musicians in live performance.
Andrew has had a long and productive collaboration with Stalker Theatre, a Sydney-based dance and physical theatre company. With PhD researcher Andrew Bluff he developed large scale interactive projections for the productions 'Encoded' and 'Creature: A Retelling of Dot and the Kangaroo', which have toured nationally and internationally to the Netherlands, South Korea, the United Kingdom and Hong Kong. Publications describing these works and the relationships between interactive technologies and creative practice have been published in SIGGRAPH, Leonardo, Digital Creativity, New Interfaces for Musical Expression, Movement & Computing conference and others.
Andrew is Research Director of the UTS Animal Logic Academy, a unique, professionally-equipped studio focusing on the creative application and design of digital technologies.
Stalker
Stalker is one of the longest standing and most respected physical theatre companies in Australia and is led by Artistic Director David Clarkson.
We make high quality physical and visual productions that range from small, mobile street theatre productions to large site-specific outdoor work and both intimate and large-scale indoor works.
Our approach is unique, combining robust physicality and stunning imagery to explore the human condition. Our work is rigorous, researched and poetic.
We are at the forefront of multidisciplinary theatre practice, utilising interactive technology and projection fused with aerials, dance and acrobatics, to tell stories.
For over twenty years Stalker has toured internationally with performances in Europe, the Americas, Asia alongside performances in its home base in Australasia. Stalker Theatre has performed to hundreds of thousands of people around the world.
Recent works: Mountain / Encoded / Dot and the Kangaroo / Frameshift
Boris Bagatinni
Boris Bagatinni studied Design at UNSW, Digital Cinematography at AFTRS & Advanced Character Animation with Disney feature Animator Murray Debus. He was Director of the traditional animation studio Flix Animation from 1998 – 2001. He founded Soma Design in 2004, a visual effects, post production and design studio. He has directed and led visual effects teams on a myriad of film, TVC and broadcast projects. Since 2011 he has been working primarily in large and small scale theatre, projection mapping, event video, live television and interactive artworks. His films have been shown at Sundance, Toronto Film Festival and Sydney Film Festival. He has collaborated with Stalker, Legs on the Wall, Strings Attached, De Quincey Co, Synergy Percussion, Victoria Hunt, The Chaser and SCO, and has had major work commissioned by Sydney Festival, Vivid Festival, Nike and Apple.
In 2016-2017 he has been engaged as Screen Graphics and In-Camera Interactives Programmer for Ridley Scott’s Alien Covenant , Guilermo Del Torro’s Pacific Rim Uprising, and the DC Comics production of Aquaman.
Margie breen
Margie is a director, producer, performer, teacher, and project manager who has worked on projects in Australia, Singapore, Korea, Europe, and the United States.
She was the Performing Arts Producer/Animateur for a national performing arts development program in regional Australia. She was the Director/project manager of Milk Crate Theatre, in Sydney, working with people who have experienced homelessness and Darlinghurst Theatre Company. She was a core member of Erth Visual & Physical Inc. She has taught, directed and performed for Stalker in Australia and internationally. She was co-director of a Perth Festival project in the Pilbara, WA, and has co-directed two outdoor spectacle performances in Tennant Creek, N.T, a joint project between Nyinkka Nyunyu Aboriginal Art & Culture Centre and Australian Theatre for Young People. She has worked with young people in schools, youth theatres, in remote indigenous communities and in the Juvenile Justice system on a number of theatre related projects. She was employed by Performance Space as project manager for an international artists laboratory, Time_Place_Space.
She was dramaturge and assistant director for Teatro Taller de Columbia’s Exedo (One Way Walker’s) commissioned by the Festival Iberamericano in Bogota, Columbia. She ran the Women's Program for Milk Crate Theatre, an outreach theatre project working with women who have experienced homelessness and/or marginalisation. In 2013 she was artist in residence at The Penasco Theatre in New Mexico and taught dramaturgy at the Aerial Dance Festival in Boulder, Colorado. She is currently a teacher and director for the NIDA Open Program, a devised theatre specialist for Belvoir Theatre, and is Associate Artist at PYT, Fairfield, Sydney.
Jenevieve Chang
Jenevieve Chang is an author, performer and story developer. Jenevieve has created and presented shows in Berlin, London, Montreal, Vienna, Beijing, Shanghai and across Australia. Recently, Jenevieve was Creative Executive at Arclight Films, running the company’s China-Australian co-production script development initiative, and she is currently Development Executive at Screen Australia.
Jenevieve’s writing has appeared in Sydney Morning Herald, Mascara Literary Review and Silk Road Magazine; and she has been a guest at the Sydney Writer’s Festival, Bellingen Writer’s Festival, Bendigo Writers Festival and Bookworm Literary Festival in China. Her storytelling performances have been programmed at the Sydney Writer’s Festival, Casula Powerhouse as well as Shanghai, Beijing, Suzhou in China and Hohhot in Inner Mongolia. She has written radio stories for the ABC, and appeared in conversation with Richard Fidler in 2017.
Jenevieve’s memoir, The Good Girl of Chinatown reflects on her time living in Shanghai during the Global Financial Crisis. It was published by Penguin Random House in 2017 and has been described as a story where “heritage and hedonism collide.”
In 2018, Jenevieve played Lady Capulet in Bell Shakespeare’s production of Romeo and Juliet at the Sydney Opera House and Arts Centre. Melbourne.
tricia clarke-fookes
Tricia’s research and practice is situated in the field of Arts Education with special interest in the practice and development of teaching artists.
She is a member of the Drama study area, but teaches across the range of arts curriculum areas. Tricia has trained as an artist and educator working in positions across the arts and education sectors. Working as a teaching artist she continues to work with theatre companies both locally and nationally bridging the fields of arts practice and arts pedagogy. Her PhD studies examine the intersection of teaching artistry, arts pedagogy and technology.
In addition to her artistic roles, she has experience teaching from Prep-12, and the tertiary sector. Tricia has shaped key arts curriculum in Queensland schools through engagements with the QCAA as curriculum writer, state panelist, chief examiner and a range of other roles.
Anne-marie dalziel
Annemaree Dalziel
Annemaree is a designer, dramaturge, curator, producer and visual artist. From 2008-2012 she curated the Contemporary Theatre program at Campbelltown Arts Centre, commissioning and producing award winning new works. She has worked as an independent collaborative artist in contemporary performance (1983-present), notably with Stalker Theatre, The Opera Project and regionally based Lingua Franca.
Rick Everett
Rick Everett is a highly skilled and multi-talented physical theatre and circus performer with specialised skills in tumbling, stilt acrobatics, adagio, trapeze, flying trapeze, fire performance, aerial harness, bungee and specialised movement. Rick has been involved with the creation and development of many touring productions with Australia's top physical theatre companies including, Legs on the Wall, Stalker Theatre, Opera Australia, Circus Monoxide, Theatre of Image, Dance Circus, Empress Stilts and Strings Attached. Rick has also worked on the television productions Rove Live, X-factor, Good News World and Everybody Dance Now.
Dr Merrill Findlay
Merrill was born in Condobolin, a small country town in central western New South Wales, in the 1950s, and spent most of her childhood on her family’s farm in the neighbouring shire of Parkes. After living in coastal cities for decades, she returned to the inland to be close to her family and the farm she grew up on. She now lives in the small country town of Forbes.
She left boarding school in the early 1970s to spend a couple of very bohemian years in inner-city Sydney before beginning her professional writing career on a country newspaper. Her work since then has included a critically acclaimed novel, Republic of women and numerous essays, speeches, multimedia works, feature articles and scholarly papers published in Australia and overseas, an opera libretto, The Kate Kelly Song Cycle, Homelands, a creative PhD project completed through the Creative Writing Program at Canberra University, an essay based on her PhD research, How Long Must I Wait, published by Griffith Review, and, most recently, Big Skies Collaboration and the Skywriters Project.
Merrill’s work is distinguished by her deep commitment to a range of progressive social movements in Australia and elsewhere. It is within this context that her writing is best understood, because her publications and other creative endeavors don’t fit comfortably within any single ‘genre’ or domain. As a friend once commented, “People don’t known what to do with you, Merrill, because you don’t fit into any single box!” (And, indeed, why should I conform to market norms? )
MATTHEW Hughes
Matthew is an emerging Sydney based audio-visual artist, software designer and musician. During his composition study at the Australian Institute of Music, Matthew’s works included a series of audio-visual experiences for visualising music. After his degree he started working for ScoreAddiction, a software development company working on real-time manipulation of library music. He also helped to present graphics for numerous interactive physical theatre performances with Stalker Theatre.
He has recently been working closely with Alon Ilsar, including in works such as The Hour, presented at Vivid Sydney, and Trigger Happy Visualised at the City Recital Hall. In 2019, Matthew’s work on the AirSticks with Alon received the audience awards for ‘Best Performance’ and ‘Best Overall Instrument’ in the Guthman New Musical Instrument competition at the Georgia Institute of Technology. He is currently working on his PhD in partnership with UTS’ Animal Logic Academy in Sydney, and the Audio Communications Group at TU in Berlin.
Peter kennard
Peter is a composer, producer and musical director with a career in theatre and musical performance spanning 25 years. He holds a Masters in Contemporary Improvisation degree from Macquarie University and has composed and recorded countless soundtracks, and has created sound designs and musically directed live performance for many of Sydney’s major theatre companies, high profile public events, film and video.
Clients include Darling Harbour (SHFA) New Year’s and Australia Day Fireworks – Sydney Olympic Park, children’s theatre company Theatre of Image, Bell Shakespeare, Legs on the Wall and Q Theatre to name but a few. His compositions and performances have been heard throughout Australia in multiple productions for Sydney, Adelaide, Perth and Brisbane Arts Festivals as well as extensive international touring through major arts festivals in Europe, Asia and South America since 2001. Peter tours internationally regularly with Stalker Theatre Co. and has on numbers of occasions toured with performances for Dept. of Foreign Affairs and Trade.
He is also highly regarded as a percussionist in the Sydney “world music” scene – playing regularly with Lulo Reinhardt (German based gypsy guitarist) the late Kim Sanders (Turkish and Balkan styles), the exciting Mongolian / Arabic fusion of Equus, Bobby Singh (tabla), Kurdish Turkish fusion band Heval and pioneering Australian “world folk” legends Sirocco.
Peter has a passion for teaching rhythm – and has been involved in many community events and local festivals teaching rhythm skills and drumming. He was sound designer of RUCKUS’ 2013 production See In Me at Riverside Theatres and ran community workshops in regional NSW with ruckus for The Blue Grotto project. Peter is working with RUCKUS on the Speed of Life project.
LeeAnne Litton
Lee-Anne Litton is a Sydney base performance maker, physical performer and collaborator originally from Mandurah, Western Australia who has created and performed in works within the realms of dance, circus and physical theatre.
Lee-Anne’s curiosity in the line between aerial performance and dance theatre and her strong investigation and passion for Contact Improvisation, informs her work both on the ground and in the air which has given her the opportunity to choreograph aerial-dance scenes for several large-scale productions, both nationally and internationally.
2006 Lee-Anne co founded of aerial focused physical theatre company Strings Attached as a way to explore the deep story-level roots of our many sustainability crises. Over the past 13 years with Strings Attached she has presented works apart of Hoopla Festival, Rocks Village Bizarre, Underbelly Arts Festival, Sydney Fringe Festival, Backbone Festival, Carraigeworks program and The Pact Theatre.
Since 2010 Lee-Anne has been a collaborating artist with Immersive Physical Theatre Company Stalker leading her to perform nationally and Internationally in works Encoded, Pixel Mountain, Creature: Dot and the Kangaroo, Mountain and Frameshift both as aerial choreographer and performer.
Lee-Anne begun working for Legs on the Wall in 2008 and stepped into the role as Co-Artistic Director 2016/17. Holding the reins of the company led to the premiere/presentations of Highly Sprung apart of Art and About at Martin Place 2017, Bleach Festival 2017, Sydney Festival 2018, Red Earth Festival 2018 and Santiago Mil 2019.
Over the last few years, she has nurtured her interest in the poetical and expressive possibilities that arise from combining aerial performance and dance theatre, developing a strong technical practice that is reflected in her work as well as on the classes she regularly teaches with Strings Attached.
Her teaching credits include; Sydney Dance Company Pre-professionals, Stalker, Bangarra, Force Majeure, ACPE, USNW, NIDA, Aerialize, LOTW, Touch Compass Co, Dance Integrated Australia, InsideOutside Theatre.
Alejandro Rolandi
Alejandro Rolandi is a Sydney based performance artist, originally from Buenos Aries, Argentina. He has extensive experience working as an aerial systems designer, instructor, creative and technician for many well known Australian companies : Legs on the Wall, Shaun Parker, Force Majeure, NIDA, ACPE, UNSW, PACT Theatre, SDC, Opera Australia and Stalker Theatre.
Alejandro is also a qualified rigger and an independent director who creates his own works through physical theatre company called Strings Attached.
Alejandro has toured nationally and internationally through Asia, Europe and South America both as a collaborating artist, director and most recently as production and tour manager with Stalker Theatre, Branch Nebula and Strut Dance.
He has designed Arts Festival villages for the Adelaide Festival and art installations for Vivid in Sydney.
dr kate Smith
Kate is writer, performer and produced with an extensive background in comedy.. Kate’s extensive career traverses live and screen performance, academia and writing. She is the 2018/19 recipient of Create NSW Creative Development Fellowship.
The fellowship extends her practice, which over twenty years has included touring comedic theatre works extensively to festivals nationally and internationally, cross-sector interdisciplinary arts practice, creative mentoring and profile raising for regional arts.
Highlights include sell-out seasons at Edinburgh Fringe ('Wanderlust'-stand-up, 1999), Hong Kong Fringe, Darlinghurst Theatre, Philadelphia Live Arts, 'Bite' at Seymour Centre ('Bangers & Mash', 'No Chance' 2004-7). Commissioned works by Bathurst Memorial Entertainment Chance in Hell Hotel and The Itch, 2006, 2010). Kate named in top five best actors in comedy, (SuzyGoesSee 'Best of 2016').
Scholarship for PhD (Centre for Research into Complex Systems, Charles Sturt University, 2008), State of Play Ensemble (Founders: Julian Louis, Jess Machin and Nick Enright, 2001-2004). MC Character Rusty Nails-(Cabaret Kite, 2007-present). 'Kate & Julia'- TV comedy with Julia Zemiro-Foxtel-2001, Co-creating new interview methodology merging creative practice and research (with Dr. Michelle Evans, slated for publication in QRJ, 2019).Company member Lingua Franca Dance Theatre, Bathurst, NSW (Dir; Adam Deusien, 2018/19)
MIKE SMITH
Mike is based in the Blue Mountains outside of Sydney and works as a production manager, lighting designer and producer for development theatre projects and major events.
In 2007 Mike graduated with a BA in Technical Production for Arts and Entertainment and was awarded a scholarship to move to London and train under a West End producer. Since then Mike has been involved in the development of new interactive live performance projects throughout Australia and Asia, and has toured projects as Production Manager and Lighting Designer throughout Europe, UK, Asia, regional Australia, Canada and the Americas.
In 2014 Mike was the recipient of a development grant by Australia Council to train as an arts producer in Cambridge, UK.
Mike has worked as production manager for organisations such as Sydney Writers’ Festival, Biennale of Sydney and Australian Openair Cinemas, and currently produces an arts and entertainment festival in Western Sydney.
JORDAN O’DAVIS
Jordan O’Davis is a proud Aboriginal Woman, Dancer, Model, and ex Gymnast who recently graduated with a Diploma of Professional Dance Performance from NAISDA Dance College (National Aboriginal and Islander Skills Development Association). She is trained in various dance styles, has done photo shoots along with appearances in music videos and performed at numerous corporate functions.
Jordan has successfully competed, both nationally and internationally, in Woman Artistic Gymnastics. In addition she has years of training in Traditional Aboriginal & Torres Straight Island dance and Indigenous Contemporary dance styles.
Jordan recently completed an Australian tour as a dancer in Hugh Jackman's "Broadway to Oz”.
KATINA OLSEN
Katina Olsen is a proud Wakka Wakka and Kombumerri woman and also has Norwegian, German and English Ancestry.
Katina’s choreographic interests interrogate her Indigenous cultural dance and story through various forms including theatre, moving sculpture, film and installation. She holds a BFA (Dance) from Queensland University of Technology and a Diploma in Dance from Queensland Dance School of Excellence.
Her choreographic highlights include Mother’s Cry for Sydney Dance Company’s New Breed 2018, Yalu Dad and namu nunar Festival 2018, movement direction for the ABC TV series Cleverman 2 and Walking into the Bigness (Malthouse), and collaborating with Dance Makers Collective on their sold out show ‘THE RIVOLI’ for Sydney Festival 2020, Australian Dance Award nominated DADS and Instar as part of Big Dance in Small Chunks (Parramatta Riverside).
As a performer she has worked nationally and internationally with companies, choreographers and directors: Bangarra Dance Theatre, Force Majeure, Expressions Dance Company, Martin del Amo, Victoria Hunt, Vicki Van Hout, bwsene !nmotion Australia, Erth Visual & Physical Inc, Wesley Enoch, De Quincey Co, Frances Rings and Narelle Benjamin. katinaolsen.com
CLOE FOURNIER
Cloé Fournier is a French born Sydney based multi-disciplinary artist. She works as a choreographer, director, dancer, physical theatre performer, actor and now curator.
As a performance maker, Cloé is fascinated by the impact of socialization on our everyday living and the potential of using her art form as activism. Indeed, she believes that art is a way to sensitise the public and stimulate a discourse with fraught subject matter.
She creates content driven works with psychological and emotional edge always aiming at engaging with the broader audience. Cloé’s interest is in exploring human behaviors, the female form and its relationship to modern society, as well as the crucible of life and death.
Cloé has performed in major festivals (Adelaide Fringe, The Biennale of Sydney, Rubaboo Indigenous Arts Festival (CAN), Stockton International Riverside Festival (UK), Sydney Festival, Santiago A Mil Festival (CH) for companies such as Branch Nebula, DirtyFeet, Legs On The Wall, Marquez Laundry, Pearse Projects, Shh Hybrid Art Theory, Stalker Theatre, Strings Attached, The Living Room Theatre, Untitled Collective (USA/AUS) and youMove Company; independent choreographers including Anton, Martin del Amo, Kathryn Puie, Vicki Van Hout and Dean Walsh, independent directors Michal Imielski and Michael Pigott and visual artists Alexis Teplin (USA/UK) and Nick Cave (USA).
