Creative Team
Jade Dewi Tyas Tunggal - Co-Creator
Born in Darkinjung country NSW, Jade Dewi Tyas Tunggal is a Javanese Australian dancer, choreographer, director and facilitator. Her work has been made and shared nationally and internationally. She has Australian Scottish Viking convict-settler heritage, kinship ties with Borobudur Temple 800AD and is a direct descendant of Yogyakarta’s first Sultan 1755, Kangjeng Hamengku Buwana. Leaving Angourie to pursue professional studies in classical ballet, modern dance, improvisation and somatic movement education in Sydney, Miami and New York city, and Indonesian dance in Java, propelled Jade into freelance work devising new performances with dance companies, choreographers, directors, artists, composers and music ensembles. Her interest in practice-led research and dance theory guided her in achieving a Master of Choreography with High Distinction from VCA at the University of Melbourne. Researching macro and micro implications of embodiment, cognition and communication in theatre, gallery, video and nature ecologies has supported the collaborative creation of new interdisciplinary performance works made during; international choreographic residencies, global inter-arts projects, youth dance company and tertiary dance choreographic commissions and intercultural exchanges in remote communities.
Kirk Page – Co-Creator
Kirk Page is a proud Munanjali man from South East QLD with ancestral lineage connecting to Yugambeh and the Bundjalung nation, Badu Island – Zenadth Kes, with Polish and German heritage from his matriarchal descendants. Kirk is an interdisciplinary performer extending his practice across the creative sector over the last two decades. He trained at NAISDA and has performed on main stages across the country and toured internationally as a dancer, actor, director and mentor in the arts. He began his professional career with Bangarra Dance Theatre in 1995 as a trainee and has continued on the path as a performer and a theatre maker since then. He is currently developing new works independently, collaborating with local artists, and is living on the unceded lands of the Bundjaulung in the Northern Rivers region of NSW.
“My artistic practice as a physical theatre performer, actor, dancer, singer, teacher has had me work in the professional industry - commercial and independent over the last 24 years. My practice has developed from the need to be employable, relevant and constantly evolving still. I am intrigued by the body and how it can tell story, its history and its future, as a movement based practitioner this project would have me extending on my physical skill set as an interpreter of ancestor and history.”
Katina Olsen – Performer
Wakka Wakka Kombumerri dancer / choreographer, has worked throughout Australia, Canada, UK, USA and Europe with Atamira, Sydney Dance Company, Stalker Theatre, Australasian Dance Collective, Bangarra Dance Theatre, Force Majeure, Erth, GUTS, Meryl Tankard, Martin del Amo, Victoria Hunt, Narelle Benjamin, Vicki Van Hout, Liesel Zink and Wesley Enoch.
Katina’s choreographic highlights include Mother’s Cry for Sydney Dance Company’s New Breed 2018, movement direction for Sunshine Super Girl, the ABC TV series Cleverman 2 and the Walking into the Bigness (Malthouse).
Katina presented her Independent solo work namu nunar at Supercell Festival of Contemporary Dance, Yonder Festival, Horizon Festival, Festival 2018 and Happy Hour as part of March Dance 2019.
Most recently Katina has received participation in the Australia Council for the Arts Future Leaders 2022 - 23 Program and is currently developing the contemporary dance project Preparing Ground with co-directors Marilyn Miller and Jasmin Sheppard produced by BlakDance.
Janessa Dufty – Performer
Born and bred on Yaegl Country, Yamba NSW, of Australian and Filipino heritage, Janessa is a recognised and acclaimed contemporary dancer, choreographer and educator. From a strong classical training background with Adele Lewis, achieving Solo Seal while on scholarship at Queensland Dance School of Excellence, Janessa went on to graduate with a Diploma of Contemporary Dance from New Zealand School of Dance.
Over the last two decades Janessa has toured Australasia, the Pacific, Asia, Europe, the Americas and the world with New Zealand’s Black Grace, Artistic Director Neil Ieremia and Sydney Dance Company, Artistic Director Rafael Bonachela. In 2018 Janessa premiered her choreographic debut, TELOPEA at Carriageworks for the Sydney Dance Company New Breed Season receiving rave reviews.
Since living back on Yaegl Country Janessa has become a mother of two, taught dance and choreographed locally, learned skills in Lomi lomi Hawaiian massage and also joined with Jade Tyas Tunggal creating a Youth Dance Program called Angourie Dance.
Stuart Shugg – Performer
Stuart danced in NYC for the Trisha Brown Dance Company spanning a period of 10 years. He holds an MFA in dance and choreography from Bennington College, and was guest faculty member at Sarah Lawrence College and Rutgers University.
Before moving to NYC, Stuart danced for Philip Adam’s BalletLab, Lucy Guerin, Antony Hamilton and Russell Dumas.
Stuart has presented his own choreographic work in New York at the Centre for Performance Research, Gibney Dance Centre, Brooklyn Studios for Dance, Cathy Weis’s Sundays on Broadway, Danspace Project, in Uruguay at Teatro Solis, and in Melbourne, Australia, at The SUBSTATION and Monash University's Museum of Modern Art. In 2021 Stuart Choreographed for the dance film TOKE directed by NONO for film.dance, produced by Jacob Jonas The Company.
He is currently working with a small group of Neuro-diverse artists called Golden Thursdays, helping to produce and develop their own work.
Robbie Tinning
– Performer
Arts Northern Rivers – Producer
Arts Northern Rivers are proud to support SMOKE as a producer.
Arts Northern Rivers is the peak body and support agency for arts and cultural development in the Northern Rivers region of New South Wales. Arts Northern Rivers works with individuals, organisations and government to generate, promote and advocate for the arts and creative industries across Bundjalung, Yaegl, Gumbaynngirr and Githabul nations. Arts Northern Rivers is an independent not-for-profit organisation, supported by Create NSW and Northern Rivers local Governments.
Other Collaborators
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Design Consultant
Joey Ruigrok van der Werven is a freelance designer and performance maker of visual and physical theatre, for both in- and out-door situations, often site-specific and large-scale. The worlds he creates are a mix of design and action-driven performance. His designs involve architecture and structures, lights, sounds, machinery and elements like water and fire.
Joey also teaches site- and community specific performance making to directors, designers and creative producers, using a site-research methodology he developed through his work with Dutch theatre company Dogtroep, his body of work in Australia and through a Theatre Board Fellowship in 2009.
He has designed and build for Stalker, Marrugeku, Legs on the Wall, Gravity Feed, Kantanka, Urban Theatre Projects, Erth, Performance Space, as well as many one-off independent works. Prior to moving to Australia in 1996 Joey was core member, image maker and head technician of world-renowned Amsterdam based large-scale and site-specific performance company Dogtroep, often managing the creative processes of 25 artists across all disciplines. Specific to this application is Joey’s skill in image creations and design of circus apparatuses, spaces, rigging, and capacity to prepare engineer certification.
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Sound Designer
Anna Liebzeit composes for collaborations across installation, theatre, and film. Recent compositions include the feature film The Survival of Kindness (Rolf de Heer 2022), Sleeplessness Carriageworks (Karen Therese 2022), The Darkness of Enlightenment Samstag Museum of Art (James Tylor 2021), kipli pawuta lumi MONA FOMA (2020), and SHIT and LOVE by Dee and Cornelius (45 Downstairs, Venice Biennale 2019, and feature film SHIT 2021). Anna has made music for NAIDOC events nationally and has had work shown at various venues including Malthouse Theatre, Blak Dot Gallery, ABC T.V, Yirramboi Festival, Melbourne International Arts Festival, Ilbijerri Theatre, Bunjilaka Melbourne museum, Footscray Arts Centre, 45 Downstairs, National Gallery of Victoria, AIRPLAY ABC radio, and Linden Gallery.
Her solo practice investigates erasure and becoming inscribed, as a personal and broader (Australian) cultural phenomenon. Her research is linked to the lived experience of Stolen Generations and relationality by drawing on Susan Dion’s educative provocation to complicate empathy when engaging with First Nations peoples. Anna has been an educator in Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander health and education for over twenty years and is an award-winning curriculum writer. In 2021 she received the Creative Victoria Creators Fund grant to research the intersections of her teaching and creative methodologies.
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Sound Designer
Ria Soemardjo is a Melbourne based musician with a passion for collaborating with artists across diverse range of genres and artforms. Her distinct, haunting vocal style reflects her Australian/Indonesian cultural heritage and she draws on her fascination for Indonesian musical traditions in her song writing and collaborative projects. Ria’s most recent works explore powerful contemporary performance/rituals, often in response to natural or urban sites.
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Visual Artist
Aris Prabawa is an Indonesian artist based in Lismore and Yogyakarta. His practice is provocative, delivered with masterful skill and attention to detail through, drawing, sculpture, installation and collage.