Acclaimed International disabled choreographer, Artistic Director and dancer, Marc Brew trained as a professional dancer at the Victorian College of the Arts Secondary School and The Australian Ballet School. He has been working in the UK and Internationally for over 20 years as a director, choreographer, dancer, teacher and speaker; with the Australian Ballet Company, State Theatre Ballet Company of South Africa, Infinity Dance Theatre, CandoCo Dance Company and AXIS Dance Company. Marc was Associate Director with Scottish Dance Theatre, Associate Artistic Director with Ballet Cymru in Wales and was Associate Artist in 2015 at Tramway Theatre in Glasgow. Since 2008 Marc has been dedicating time to his own choreography with Marc Brew Company and his recent choreographic commissions include San Francisco Ballet School, Dancing Wheels, Scottish Ballet, Ballet Cymru (Wales), YDance (Scotland), AXIS Dance Company (USA), Candoco Dance Company (UK), Touch Compass (NZ), Amy Seiwert’s Imagery (USA) and Scottish Dance Theatre (Scotland). Marc was presented with a Centenary Medal for Outstanding Contribution as a dancer and choreographer. His work Remember When was nominated for an Isadora Duncan Dance Award for Best Performance (individual) and his recent solo work For Now, I am… was listed in the Guardians Top 10 Dance Shows for 2016. Marc was Artistic Director of AXIS Dance Company 2017-2021 and is currently Associate Artistic Director at Ballet Cymru.

Joel Brown ​(Lead artist) is a paraplegic dancer and singer-songwriter. He has toured extensively throughout the USA and internationally with Brown-Rice Productions and AXIS Dance Company from 2011-2014. He is currently a dancer with Candoco Dance Company since August, 2015. He has performed work by and collaborated with choreographers such as Trisha Brown, Alexander Whitley, Arlene Phillips, Yvonne Rainer, Marc Brew, Victoria Marks, and Graham Brown. He has produced two solo music albums and composed for Graham Brown’s A​ppl​e Falling (2013) and You (2015). He was nominated for an Isadora Duncan Award ​for Outstanding Individual Achievement in Performance in 2013.

Bus Stops Films has been in operation since 2009, teaching adults with disabilities and others from marginalised communities film studies. We use filmmaking and the film industry to change community attitudes globally around the rights and contribution to society of and by people with disability.

The Chameleon Collective are a boutique offering of artistic excellence in the inclusive  and accessible arts field. The collective epitomizes the vision of a forward looking, Canberra. The next generation of artists being invested in by the current generation of artists living with and without disability.  The Chamaeleon Collective was founded in 2020, named after the constellation and reptile, both constant and adaptable. The first of its kind in the ACT, Chamaeleon becomes the link between community/youth dance and professional practice. We commission internationally recognised artists of all abilities, sharing the work on stage, screen and online to develop awareness and networks with a view to employment, further engagement and networking opportunities. Chamaeleon commits to 70% of our commissioned and collective artists living with disability, chronic illness, and/or PTSD.  Chamaeleon arises from the need for community dancers living with disability to channel their energies and talents into a professional parts development program that is supportive, accessible and at the leading edge of contemporary performance.

Claire Cunningham is a performer and creator of multi-disciplinary performance based in Glasgow, Scotland.  A recent Factory Artist with Tanzhaus NRW Düsseldorf, Germany she is also an Affiliate Artist with The Place, London. One of the UK’s most acclaimed and internationally renowned disabled artists, Cunningham’s work is often rooted in the study and use/misuse of her crutches and the exploration of the potential of her own specific physicality with a conscious rejection of traditional dance techniques (developed for non-disabled bodies).  This runs alongside a deep interest in the lived experience of disability and its implications not only as a choreographer but also in terms of societal notions of knowledge, value, connection and interdependence.  A self-identifying disabled artist, Cunningham’s work combines multiple art forms and ranges from the intimate solo show ME (Mobile/Evolution) (2009), to the large ensemble work  12  made for Candoco Dance Company.    In 2014 she created Give Me a Reason to Live, inspired by the work of Dutch medieval painter Hieronymus Bosch and the role of beggars/cripples in his work, and the full length show Guide Gods, looking at the perspectives of the major Faith traditions towards the issue of disability. Awarded one of the Unlimited Commissions in 2016 she created the duet The Way You Look (at me) Tonight with choreographer Jess Curtis.  The piece has since toured world-wide, was selected for the 2018 Tanzplattform in Germany and was nominated for an Isadora Duncan Dance Award.  

Claire is a former Artist-in–Residence at the Women of the World Festival at the Southbank, London and of the Ulster Bank Belfast Festival at Queens.  In 2016 she was Artist in Residence with Perth International Arts Festival, Australia and Associate Artist at Tramway, Glasgow.   

 In 2019 Claire was commissioned to do her first piece for gallery spaces, taking part in Automatise Ambulatoire: Hysteria, Imitation, curated by Amanda Cachia for Owen’s Art Gallery, Sackville, Canada.  In July 2019 Claire premiered the ensemble piece, Thank You Very Much at Manchester International Festival which went on to win CATS awards for Best Ensemble and Best Sound and Music.  In 2021, Claire was honored for her Outstanding Artistic Development in dance at the German Dance Awards.

We are a community initiative by Maya Dance Theatre (MDT) started in June 2018 to create a co-existing space for persons with disabilities and art-makers. Drawing from MDT’s training, we develop dance techniques inspired from Bharatanatyam and contemporary dance. Our members also develop skills related to employment in the arts, such as costume management, administration and teaching at preschools.

In our practice, we believe in:

• Collaboration – Encouraging interaction across abilities through exchanging and co-creating with the members.

• Connection – We also reach out to international partners/collaborators and platforms where we connect through our passion. 

Chris studied painting at the Sydney College of the Arts, filmmaking with Bus Stop Films and dance at the Adelaide College of the Arts. Chris was a founding member of the First Flight Crew, an 8-piece hip-hop outfit led by Aussie B-Boy Morganics, with over 30 performances under their belts, including Carriageworks, Government House and the Powerhouse Museum. He was awarded a scholarship to attend the AusDance Youth Dance Festival (AYDF) in 2012 and performed in The Shades of Us. In 2013 Chris moved from Sydney to Adelaide to join Restless Dance Theatre to pursue his dream of becoming a professional dancer. In 2013 he also began to work with mentor Kyle Page, and in 2015 was appointed Dancenorth National Disability Ambassador. Chris has subsequently travelled to Townsville twice a year to work with Kyle and the Dancenorth ensemble. Collaborative works include; Lionheart, which premiered at AYDF 2017 in Melbourne and was performed during Dancenorth’s Tomorrow Makers 2018 season, as well as the Australian Dance Theatre (ADT) ‘Rough Draft’ season; and Common Colours (short film) which premiered at the Bold Contemporary Dance Festival in Canberra and at ADT’s Rough Draft season. Chris has also performed in many other works, seasons and festivals, including but not limited to; Intimate Space directed by Michelle Ryan at the 2017 Adelaide Festival and at the 2018 Bleach* Festival, and in the opening sequence of the Commonwealth Games Closing Ceremony. Further performances include; The Audrey’s music video Baby are you there; To Look Away; a short film by Sophie Hyde which premiered in ’24 Frames’ at Carriageworks Sydney; Michelle Ryan’s Touched and In the Balance. Chris also performed in Creating the Spectacle, a collaboration with UK artist Sue Austin for the 2018 Adelaide Film Festival, and in Zizanie, directed by Meryl Tankard for the 2019 Adelaide Festival.

Chris has many projects underway and in development, including; Michelle Ryan’s Seeing through Darkness (slated for release at the Art Gallery South Australia 2020), and Antony Hamilton’s Rewards for the Tribe, in Coventry, UK as part of the City of Culture festivities in 2021. His accolades include; Australian Council for the Arts grant recipient; South Australian Arts’ Carclew Fellowship, and he was a finalist in South Australian Young Achievers Awards.

Claire Fletcher is an editor with over 20 years' experience across documentary, drama and music clips. Her credits include the award-winning feature film Mad Bastards, as well as standout documentaries for the ABC such as Cast from the Storm and Psychics in the Suburbs. Over her years in the industry, Claire has mentored many young directors, teaching master classes at the Singapore Media Academy, Sydney Film School and Western Sydney University. Claire has co-produced many short documentaries and some features including Antunez House, recently screened at both Sheffield Doc/Fest and Antenna Documentary Film Festival in Sydney.

Mariska Febriyani is a dancer, teacher, Founder & Executive Director of Ballet.id. She dedicated her life to dancing world in Indonesia. She created many collaborations and cultural exchange program between Indonesian and international dancers. She actively seeking for the support to create a program for Art and Disability.

Riana Head-Toussaint is an interdisciplinary crip/disabled artist of Afro-Caribbean heritage. Often working collaboratively, she employs choreography, performance, film, sound design, text and immersive installation to create works that interrogate entrenched systems, structures and ways of thinking; and advocate for social change.  Her practice sits at the intersection of creative expression, activism, cultural exchange and disability justice, and is deeply informed by her movement language and embodied-experience as a wheelchair-user, and her training as a legal practitioner.  Riana's practice also involves significant, broader curatorial/space-making projects; aimed at increasing creative opportunities and connection between traditionally-sidelined communities, and opening up space for greater embodiment. She is the founder of CRIP RAVE THEORY, a club night outside the club fostering more intersectionally-accessible rave spaces, and Headquarters disability-led digital space. She is a DJ (Aquenta) and Solicitor, and has worked in various investigative, policymaking and executive/research positions at the Australian Human Rights Commission and beyond.  Her work has been commissioned, exhibited and published widely across so-called Australia and beyond, in outdoor, gallery and virtual spaces; and she has facilitated and participated in numerous talks, workshops and panels surrounding art, culture and disability.  Riana currently lives and works on unceded Darug and Gadigal Country.  

Alexandrina’s creative practice lands in the fluid spaces of dance, choreography, writing, facilitating and advocacy. Their interests are both enduring and in expansive states of flux – or just in connection/relation to the processes within life and within living. They turn towards the sensorial, the bodily, the multiple subjective positions of self – and self in intimate relation to self and other selves –  as ways to find breath and voice amidst the unjust and inequitable. 

They work with intricate improvisation scores and vivid performance environments which insist on conjuring embodied enquiries into a multiplicity of voices. This includes work within organisations around  anti-racism, anti-ableism and embodied advocacy. It is a life long, nuanced undertaking. Alexandrina is currently embarking on a slow-burn interdisciplinary solo project Words Collect In my Mouth; All is Fire and Flood which attends to questions of how, one (individual & communities) returns to intimacy – of self, of performing, of expression – within the aftermaths of (continual) violence? The research situates itself across and does not distinguish aesthetic value between dance, writing, film, healthcare and community work. Alexandrina is Associate Artist at Cambridge Junction and International Associate Artist 2020/21 at Dance Ireland. Alexandrina is  a current recipient of Vision Mixers funds, awarded to lead a two-year producer development programme, working with BIPOC dance producers on formalising anti-ableist and anti-racist advocacy through dance production. Her collaborations include Project O with Jamila Johnson-Small (2010 onwards, Sadlers Wells New Wave Associates) and Seke Chimutengwende (2016 onwards) on Black Holes. She collaborated with Rosie Heafford and Helena Webb on Dad Dancing. Her work has been commissioned by and presented at Sadler’s Wells, Battersea Arts Centre, Southbank Centre, Cambridge Junction, MDI, South East Dance, Chisenhale Dance Space and The Yard Theatre amongst others. Her critical writing has been published by Sick of The Fringe,  an introduction into Selina Thompson’s Salt (Faber & Faber), SPILL Festival and new publication exploring queering the future, Hereafter (Unbound). Other publishing includes The Silver Bandage (Bookworks) and LADA’s Live Art Almanac Vol. 5. She has an essay in upcoming publication, Performance, Dance and Political Economy, Eds. Katerina Paramana and Anita Gonzalez (Bloomsbury Press). 

Brett is a Child of Deaf Adults and the only native-speaking Auslan interpreter in Canberra. During the last 20 years Brett Olzen has worked as an interpreter with Territory and Federal Government, with Prime Ministers and the Dalai Lama, and at the ACT Chief Minister’s Inclusion Awards. Brett worked with Canberra Institute of Technology for over ten years and advocated for inclusion and access for Deaf students and has frequently volunteered to interpret for fundraising events, community events, sports clubs and church groups, and worked outside regular business hours including emergency call outs. Some of the events and programs that Brett has made more accessible and inclusive include Rebus Theatre performances, The BOLD Festival, a dance program at Belconnen Arts Centre, computer access programs, and guided tours at the National Gallery of Australia, Canberra are just some of his work. Brett Olzen was a finalist for the Life Time Achievement in Supporting People with Disability award at the 2019 ACT Chief Minister’s Inclusion Awards.

Melanie is a choreographer working between Naarm (Melbourne) and Ngunnawal/Ngambri (Canberra) country. She works across visual arts, theatre, music and film. Her choreographic work interrogates physical and social realities to create surreal futures that are confounded, broken and reconfigured. Her artistic engagement moves between Europe, Indonesia and Australia, with her independent work touring internationally. Alongside commissions with WA Ballet, Sydney Dance Company, Australasian Dance Collective, DanceNorth, Chunky Move, Schauspiel Leipzig and HAU Berlin, her collaborations extend to artists; Marrugeku/Bhenji Ra, Clark, Adena Jacobs, Amos Gebhardt, Leyla Stevens, Monica Lim and Rianto. Her choreographic work for theatre and opera includes English National Opera's Salome (London, 2018) and Burgtheater's Trojan Women (Vienna, 2022) directed by Adena Jacobs. Melanie won the prestigious Keir Choreographic Award in 2018 and the 2017 Leipziger Bewegungskunstpreis in Germany, and has been nominated for both Green Room and Helpmann awards as both a choreographer and a dancer including the Shirley McKechnie Award for Choreography (2020).
Melanie is 2023/24 Choreographer in Residence at Chunky Move, Resident Artist at The Substation, 2015 resident director at Lucy Guerin Inc., Associate Artist at QL2 and is a current 2023/24 Australia Council for the Arts Fellow.

Eve Mutso​ (​www.evemutso.com​) is a freelance dancer & choreographer and former Principal Dancer of Scottish Ballet, Scotland’s national dance company. Her repertory with Scottish Ballet included roles in the works of Ashton, Arias, Balanchine, Bruce, Caniparoli, Darrell, Elo, de Frutos, Forsythe, Hampson, Loosmore, MacMillan, Page, Pastor, Petronio and Pickett. In 2012 she created the leading role of Blanche in Meckler/Lopez Ochoa’s A​ Streetcar Named Desire.

Eve was born in Tallinn, Estonia and graduated from Tallinn Ballet School in 1999, going on to join Estonian National Ballet. She returned to Tallinn in 2011 as Guest Principal to dance the title role in MacMillan’s ​Manon. In 2014, Eve choreographed ​and performed e​ lEven as part of Edinburgh Festival Fringe programme. This was follow​ed by ​Ink of Innocence in 2015, also part of the Fringe. In 2016, after leaving Scottish Balle​t, she created ​Unknown, commissioned by Tramway in Glasgow and subsequently also performed at Dance Base in Edinburgh as part of the Fringe. She also choreographed and danced for a short film ​D​eath As a New Beginning (director Leighton Jones) in 2013 and in 2016 collaborated with Emma Flett for a sho​rt film A​ Dancer’s Journey. Eve was nominated by the Critics Circle for the 2015 National Dance Award for Outstanding Female Performance (Classical). She has previously been nominated for Best Female Dancer in 2005 and 2013.

Parable Dance UK deliver inclusive dance classes in the south east of England, Parable Dance NY deliver inclusive dance classes in New York and both companies deliver inclusive dance training, mentoring and consultancy worldwide. At Parable Dance UK we want everyone to have access to art and to work inclusively. We believe that dance has the ability to unite communities, develop confidence, and maximise mental and physical health and wellbeing. People of all ages with disabilities engaging in our dance workshops have the opportunity to be creative, active, and social. Everyone has a unique ability. We hold the following values:

Restless Dance Theatre is Australia’s leading creator of dance theatre by dancers with and without disability. Our artistic voice is loud, strong and original. Restless brings artists with diverse minds, bodies and imaginations together to create contemporary dance theatre from everyday lived experiences; manifested into beautiful art, embedding inclusion into our screens, on our stages and in unexpected places. Restless Dance Theatre is a place where diversity is celebrated, and all artists thrive creatively.