I am an Australian Dancer, Choreographer and Filmmaker, in which I use the medium of film to create visual installations. I founded Finsart Inc, in South Australia to make and create work. Since co-collaborating on multiple cross-disciplinary performances. Notably winning the South Australia Living Arts Festival (SALA) Moving Image Award for “Shatter Perfection”. Finsart Inc. supported research and touring KALI to India at the Delhi International Festival and the World Dance Congress in Mumbai in 2018. Under Finsart Inc., I produced flash mobs with the community to celebrate International Dance Day (IDD), first sponsored by the Adelaide City Council in 2014. IDD is a global celebration of dance by UNESCO International Dance Council. Finsart Inc. Studios ethos was to connect Adelaide businesses, dance entrepreneurs and independent artists with the celebration of dance throughout the streets and locations of Adelaide. In the heart of Adelaide CBD supported by Renew Adelaide, Finsart Inc. Studio was established in 2014 – 2019 that provided residencies, rehearsal space, produced local, national and international artists workshops, re-ignited the Adelaide Contact Improvisation scene, established classes for well-being and mental health such as Pilates and Yoga, was an Adelaide Fringe and SALA Venue.
“Finsart Inc. Studio has become a place for the community of dance to connect. The community has expressed that there is no other place in Adelaide like Finsart Inc. Studio, expressing a deep sense of gratitude for access to a charming historical building.”
As an artist, I use my physical body as a medium to transcend visceral experiences. I have created dance performances for Adelaide and Melbourne Fringe, South Australia Living Arts Festival and Guitars and Bars outreach program. As well as working with aerial dance, in which I obtained my advance riggers licence in 2022.
A notable solo dance performance that I have developed is Kali, the Hindu Goddess, which I toured and performed in Australia (2010-2022) and at the Delhi International Arts Festival (2018). In 2024, I created a dance film called Translucent, that was filmed by a Chinese architect Tian, located at the Korean buddhist monastery and surrounding landscapes of the UNESCO world heritage site in Lumbini, Nepal. The editing process of this dance film enabled me to connect to my unconsciousness processing. Where the subjective consciousness experiences to become present within the making and viewing process of the dance film. That enhances my experiences to become deeply connected within the moment.
Artistic Statement
My artistic statement for over the last 17 years has been how our social environment impacts the nervous system. In December 2019, I completed vipassana and this unlocked the darkness inside my body that had clouded my heart. As my practice continued, I found myself seeking justice (which is what is not suggested to do). This created an internal layer of conflict of taking action or being passive. Since experiencing the criminal justice system, I took a major step back from my arts management of events, and I have turned towards Buddhism. By enabling myself to become fully-aware of the unconscious forms of reality. To bring love and kindness into my view of the world that enables me to reconnect my body of existence into a safe environment.
My artistic process of filming, dancing and editing, enables me to have a visceral experience of the social world that is documented and can be easily shared. More recently, I have noticed that I have been more drawn to the natural landscapes that organically stimulate the nervous system within the body. This changes the way that I connect to the embodiment of space and has given me some time to reflect on my original artistic statement. That is how the body connects to the social environment, but how does it connect to the natural landscapes. The use of the film lens, with the eye of the camera, captures the details of the space that surrounds us. This is stimulated through my own internal dialogue and current social experiences that impact my nervous system. This artistic process enables me to be connected to the natural environment and to visually embrace this environment into my mind, by transcending this into the nervous system.
To feel all the emotions, from the ups to the lows, to expand my emotional human experience, that assists in regrounding myself into a safe, secure space of my parasympathetic nervous system.I find now, my artistic practice is to unveil the hidden emotional, spiritual scars and wounds for them to be released. This enables me to be liberated from the torments of the violence of my past. To recalibrate my nervous system into a safe, secure form of existence through natural experiences.
When I am filming a space, I like to connect viscerally with the space that I am in. To feel how it connects inside my body. When I am dancing within the space, the movement arises, either from an internal thought or stimuli, or is impacted by the external spaces around. Over time, I have struggled with being bound by the historical past of the colonised dancers’ body of structure and technique, that is then searching, seeking the freedom within the spiritual world.
The psychological processes that I am currently interested in, is how fear and safety control the nervous system. How the mind creates elements of fear, and what impact that cortisol injections into the body that induces fight, flight, and fawn responses. I want to explore through dance and film, how this is reflected in bodily structures, how the mind and body carries these experiences psychologically and physiologically. How this is impacted by the natural environment that we experience and inhabit. I’m interested in physiological changes that can occur within the body, when we embrace the space of the unknown through the shades of darkness that expand to the limitless dimensions of the light.
Isolated spaces and places, evoke the paradoxes of emotional experiences of both fear and safety. For you don’t know what is the darkness of the unknown from the distance of humanity. Wide open spaces liberate the nervous system, which embodies both a sense of safety and fear. In which the mind creates these emotional experiences that are regulated through the nervous system.
My previous performances have sometimes been quite literal about the speaking of violence, or social structures. Specifically how I have viewed the constructs and deconstruction of the shape of the feminine. I have often taken a socialised approach to my work. When I looked at my previous versions of my live performance, I was quite surprised to hear people say how this work was so connected to the elements of nature. The fire, water, earth, were all very much present in the visualisation of the work. Then creating Translucent through such an ease of organic process, and literally seeing trees merging within the body, made me feel this elicit experience of being connected to nature.
Le Requin 