Personnel

Current members of the Environmental Performance Authority
(Click each name for details)

Karen Berger is especially interested in the relationship between performance, the environment and local history. Working with the EPA enables her to further research into this area. This year she directed The Many Walls of Edna Walling (Tee O’Neill) staged in one of the gardens Walling designed. In 2013, she was awarded Victoria University College of Arts ‘Most outstanding postgraduate by research student’ for her M.A. in Performance Studies entitled, Performing Belonging: Meetings On and In the Earth and performed on the Merri Creek. In 2008 she toured a storytelling of the Book of Job initially performed around a camp fire at the VCA Wilin Centre for Indigenous students to small communities in the Northern Territory.

She has worked as director and/or music director for productions such as From the Republic of Conscience (based on poems published by Amnesty International, 1998), Walk on Water (Melbourne City Baths, 2000), Nightfalling (Women’s Circus, 2000), Le Petit Prince (Ghanaian tour, 2004; Melbourne French Theatre, 2007), Bremen (Melbourne Fringe Festival Award Winner, 2005), The Golem of Ruckers Hill (2007), Teapot Ensemble of Australia (Melbourne International Arts Festival, 2007; Singapore Children’s Arts Festival, 2009), Semaphore (CultureLAB, 2010), The Parricide (La Mama, 2014) and Barassi – The Stage Show (2014).

Peter Fraser performs widely in dance, physical theatre, improvisation and installations. His performance mainly focuses on body states as they are experienced internally and in relation to the environment. Peter’s work is influenced by Bodyweather (originated by butoh dancer Min Tanaka) and the improvisation practice of dancer Rosalind Crisp. His work with De Quincey Co since 1992 includes extended desert inhabitations, theatre projects, and durational performance. His original dance works focus on themes and problems of bodily movement (Tarkovsky’s Horse. 2008, Zeno’s Overcoat, 2009, and Lizard – a box of gaps, 2013, were based , respectively, on a rolling horse, the paradoxical state of ‘not being able to move’, and a goanna confined in a glass case. Recent projects include the duet project Sounds Like Movement, with instrument-builder/musician Dale Gorfinkel, which explores the relationship of movement, materials (such as paper) and sound; About Now (Shaun McLeod and others), an authentic movement and improvisation practice; eXchange, a Taiwan-Australian Residency; and a research/performance project in Kathakali dance.

Peter is co-director and performer with Environmental Performance Authority and recently completed an MA, Monash, on Strategies for truthful performance.

Examples of his work shown here:

Lizard – A Box of Gaps

CLOCK IT

Stuart Grant is a site-specific performer and practice researcher. He has a wide experience in practical performance-based methodologies. He has been a site-specific performer for 15 years, during which time he has worked on multiple projects in natural and built environments. Between 1999 and 2007 he worked on a number of collaborations with De Quincey Company including Triple Alice III, Alice Springs, 2001, Form of Scent, FIRT Conference, 2001, and Bugger We at the Art Gallery of NSW, 2005. Stuart has published extensively on site-specific performance and was a member of the Advanced Seminar on Place and Performance at the University of Sydney. He is a founding member and director of the Environmental Performance Authority (EPA). Stuart designed and implemented the primary working method of the EPA, bringing together close phenomenological analyses of the experience of place with social and cultural histories and qualitative third-party methods of analysis of the affective experience of place. He has worked as performer and dramaturg on all EPA productions. He is lead singer and composer with Melbourne’s legendary, seminal electronic punk band The Primitive Calculators who have just finished an extensive tour of China.
Alana Hoggart is currently completing a PhD in Butoh Performance at Monash University. Alana has trained extensively with many Butoh companies in Australia and in Japan, including training and performing with Dairakudakan Butoh Company in 2012. Her Australian stage production credits include ‘Bliss’ as part of Zen Zen Zo Physical Theatre’s In The Raw season, ‘Lightning in a Kettle’ for the Anywhere Theatre Festival, ‘Ko Re’ and ‘Amoer’ for EightWing Theatre Co and ‘Shift’ for WRUFFnTUMBLE. Alana is part of the Melbourne Butoh Ensemble and has performed regularly for Federation Square Arts and at the Warburton Harmony Festival. Alana is also a part of the Environmental Performance Agency and with them she has performed in ’Distal Fragments’ and ‘Explosive Measures’. Alana also has skills in production: she Stage Managed ‘2012:Apocalypse’ for Dairakudakan and Zen Zen Zo Physical Theatre as part of the Brisbane Festival. She has produced ‘Yarn’ (Green Room Award Nomination) as part of the Melbourne Fringe Festival, ‘Shift’ for WRUFFnTUMBLE and ‘Missfits’ for Skin and Blister as part of the Celebrating Women’s Seasons at La Mama. Alana worked as Movement Coach on ‘My Pet, My Love’ at La Mama as part of their 2015 Midsumma Festival.
Yoka Jones is a Melbourne based performer. She has performed in Australia and Internationally both as a solo artist and in collaborative works. With Tony Yap Company she recently toured her solos, ‘Burnt Treasure’ and ‘Abandoned Places’ as part of the Site Specific festivals, MAP Fest (Malaysia 2009-2014) and the Arts Island Festival (Indonesia 2013-2014).

Through training and performing in Australia, America, Europe, Asia and New Zealand, Yoka has evolved her practice using improvisational structures in response to specific sites. Her work is strongly informed by Butoh and Body Weather Practices. Yoka has worked with many Butoh Masters both in Australia and Internationally. In Australia, Yoka regularly works with Tess de Quincey, most recently in ‘Inner Garden’ (UNSW), ‘Seven Women Dance’ (Casula Powerhouse) and the workshop/performances: ‘Impro Exchange’ and ‘Tank,’ both at (Sydney University) 2015. Yoka has been involved with EPA since its inception, performing ‘Body of Water’ on the Yarra, ‘Distal Fragments’ and ‘Explosive Measures’ in Hobsons Bay. She is currently touring Europe, involved in ‘Advanced Research Laboratory’ with Rosalind Crisp, ‘eX…it Dance Exchange’. She regularly participates in ‘Body Landscapes’ with Frank Van de Ven.

Bronwen Kamasz is a Melbourne based artist working within multiple disciplines in both the performing and visual arts. Kamasz has a solo practice based in improvisation and performance, creating site based durational works that traverse the territories and histories of monuments, stories and moments in time deemed culturally significant as “Australian”.

Bronwen works collaboratively on many projects in a variety of artistic fields; she has been working with EPA since late 2013 on site specific, historical, social and environmental participatory dance works at different sites around Melbourne. Currently Kamasz is studying in the MCA Masters of Contemporary Art program at VCA Victorian College of the Arts. Kamasz recently performed Stand and Deliver: nothing but a sigh at Little Con-ference 2015 at Deakin University.

Jonathan Sinatra has a BA (honours) from the Western Australian Academy of Performing Arts. His solo works include Testing 1-2-3;languid yet; sometimes I fear touch; Passing By; and Burning In. Since 2001, he has been working and dancing with Russell Dumas (Dance Exchange). He was the principal performer for Dumas’ in the room series at The Studio (Sydney Opera House), Helsinki and Liverpool. Previous Dance Exchange projects include In Available Light at Dancehouse, Larret Projects (in France and Touch and Go (The Performance Space).

In 2004 he received an international travel grant from NSW Ministry of the Arts to travel and study in USA, Europe and Asia. In 2006 he received a Skills Development grant from the Dance Fund of Australia Council to work with Russell Dumas. Jonathan finished a Summer Space grant at Dancehouse (February 2013) and is currently on an Arts Start grant from the Australian Council. Most Recently Jonathan has been performing duets with Dance Exchange in Dance Massive and was a performer for 13 rooms in Sydney with French choreographer Xavier Leroy.

Helen Smith is a physical theatre performer and Butoh teacher. She started out with Brisbane-based Zen Zen Zo with whom she has taught, performed and toured internationally since 1993. During 2007-2010, Helen studied and performed with several Butoh masters in Tokyo. She has completed an MA, Monash University, researching Transformation in Butoh. She is a guest teacher in a number of universities and performs with Yumi Umiumare in Dasshoku Shake.

Helen is the founder of Melbourne Butoh a site-specific, dance-theatre performance group using Butoh techniques and philosophies to engage with the environment and spectators in new, experiential ways. The company develops new works for festivals, galleries and other non-traditional performance spaces and enjoys the liminal space of possibilities. Helen has been a member of the Environmental Performance Authority since its conception. She has enjoyed creating and performing in diverse environments, from salt plains to historical buildings on an explosive reserve, beguiling audiences with immersive experiences. She looks forward to many more.

Gretel Taylor has explored relationships of body, place and identity through site-specific art and performance for over a decade. Her performance practice draws upon movement improvisation and live art. Gretel has performed with Tony Yap Co since 2000 and is currently performing with Environmental Performance Agency, with whom she created ‘Body of Water’ for Maudie Palmer’s Birrarung Project in 2014. Solo work includes ‘Still Landing’ video installation and a series of works about non-Indigenous relationships to place in Australia (2013-14). She performed solo works for Melaka Art and Performance Festival, Malaysia and ‘Mapping Melbourne’ at the State Library in 2014. She currently has a grant through Shire of Yarra Ranges to create multi-artform exhibition Dances with Lyrebirds, with photographer Kate Baker and Wurundjeri dancers. Gretel has lectured and tutored in Performance Studies at Monash (2013) and Victoria University (2004-10), including several units facilitating student site-based performance. She has established arts/ cultural projects with Northern Territory Aboriginal communities 2006-2013 (Southern Ngalia Dance Project). She is currently Artist/ Research Fellow at University of Melbourne, investigating potentials at the juncture of site-specific art and community cultural development. As part of this position Gretel has a residency in partnership with City of Wyndham, who have supported her facilitation of 3 community exhibitions, as well as ‘Flash Frogs’, a flash mob performance celebrating local wetland fauna (2015).
Examples of Gretel’s work are at:

Body Place Project (Facebook)
Art and About in Wyndhamvale (Facebook)

Others who have performed with EPA include:

Caroline Briggs
Alice Hui-Sheng Chang
Rod Cooper
Dale Gorfinkel
Kevin Lo
Uncle Larry Walsh