Adam Wheeler
Artistic Director of Tasdance

Adam is a Tasmanian born contemporary dance artist. He is a Stompin and Victorian College of the Arts Alumni whose practice is curious on diversifying how dance can be experienced both as a performer and viewer. He has invested the better part of his 20 year career developing programs and projects in the pursuit of enhancing how young people connect with dance and enter the professional dance industry in Australia.

Adam’s performance, making and teaching career have always been closely intertwined with Adam receiving his first Federal grant in 2001 to present his first work before beginning his formal dance training at the VCA.  Adam’s performance career has seen him work with Chunky Move, Jo Lloyd, Circa Nica, 2NDTOE and Opera Australia. In 2007 Adam founded 2NDTOE with long time colleagues Frankie Snowdon, Madeleine Krenek, Benjamin Hancock, Tyler Hawkins and James Andrews. The collective made several works together and created a number of education works including founding the Alice Can Dance program (Alice Springs).

Adam has been commissioned to make work across the country and has choreographed for Lucy Guerin Inc (Pieces for Small Spaces), Stompin, QL2, Steps Youth Dance Company, fLing Physical Theatre, Tasdance and was a Next Move choreographer in 2011 for Chunky Move with It Sounds Silly. The success of It Sounds Silly was the launching pad for Adam to create Yellow Wheel and has only recently stepped down as the Artistic Director.

Between 2014-2018 Adam was working in the VET industry as the Artistic Director of The Space School of Performance Arts (2014-2016) and Head of Contemporary Development at Transit (2018). Over this time he was also commissioned to choreograph the Contemporary System of Training for the Australian Teachers of Dancing, which is taught all over Australia and south east Asia.

Gabriel Comerford
Tasdance Ensemble Member

Gabriel Comerford is an Australian-Malaysian man and independent artist with over 10 years professional experience as a maker and performer. Having spent the majority of his career based in Brisbane, in recent years he has relocated to Launceston, Tasmania.

He is a founding member of MakeShift Dance Collective, is currently an ensemble member of Tasdance and working with Stompin youth dance company in a varying range of capacities. 

He thrives off working across disciplines and is constantly seeking to challenge and extend himself. Whilst his practice is rooted in dance, his experiences have allowed him to learn from and incorporate elements of physical theatre, object theatre, puppetry, visual-arts, site-specific, Butoh, Suzuki integrated practice, installation and durational performance.

His interest lies in collaboration and the creative process; sifting through first impressions to expose the core of the theme or concepts at hand. He has an inquisitive mind, a powerful physicality and a captivating stage presence.

Currently he is working to bring elements of his arts, ritual and spiritual practices together to create and hold, sharing and healing spaces for people.

Kyall Shanks
Tasdance Ensemble Member

Kyall is a Naarm/Melbourne based contemporary dance artist. His career so far has focused on finding a balance of performance, choreography and teaching work. By finding how these three areas can compliment and feed into each other, Kyall is passionate about increasing the accessibility of dance through youth and community work.

He is a graduate of the Victorian College of the Arts 2015 and since then has danced for Tasdance, Antony Hamilton Projects, Chunky Move, Matthew Bourne’s New Adventures, Opera Australia, The Delta Project and Liquidskin Dance Company. In 2017-2018 Kyall undertook an 8 month international residency program with DanceBox in Kobe, Japan, and then spent 3 months in Sweden as a member of ilYoung 2018.

Kyall has engaged with community youth groups and schools as a teacher and choreographer, examples of this being the Arts Centre Melbourne/Matthew Bourne 'Lord Of The Flies' project, the 2019 Dance Massive work 'Simulcast', and Stephanie Lake Company's 2020 Melbourne Fringe work 'Multiply'. Through his work he has represented/taught for The Victorian College of the Arts, Chunky Move, Ausdance Victoria, Arts Centre Melbourne, DRILL, Transit Dance and The Space Dance and Arts Centre.

In 2020 he designed Chunky Move's new set of education offerings "Experiences for Young People", based off of current chunky move repertoire.

He currently works as one of the Tasdance Ensemble members, as well as Artistic Director to the preprofessional youth dance company Yellow Wheel.

Spike Mason
Saxophonist

Music is part of my every day. I spend my time performing at gigs for various bands, composing and recording music, facilitating a weekly jazz jam in my house, hosting a monthly composers group in my house, directing a weekly community free music jam in an art gallery, and teaching Jazz to students at the local high school.

I’ve played music with many musicians over the past 30 years, in Australia, the USA, the UK, Canada, Ireland, Greece, Singapore, Italy, The Czech Republic, Holland, Turkey, and New Zealand.

I've performed at countless festivals and clubs, from stadium stages to people's kitchens, with both famous and unknown musicians, in front of very large and very small crowds. 

I’ve also been a session musician for many diverse artists, helping them make their music a reality, by recording, composing, arranging, and producing on over 200 albums, including soundtracks for film and television. 

I’ve spent many years studying too and have been awarded a Masters of Music In Jazz Performance, a Bachelor of Music, a Bachelor of Education, and an Associate Diploma of Jazz Studies. 

At present I am a full time PhD Candidate at UTAS. My research topic is titled "OXIMETRIC - Random points of resolution in multi-pulsed improvised and composed music." I am researching my OXIMETRIC concept - composing and performing polytempic jazz.

Amber McCartney
Tasdance Ensemble Member

Amber is a Melbourne-based dancer. She has performed for companies Chunky Move (Token Armies, Accumulation, Red Shift, and It Sounds Silly), Lucy Guerin (Metal), Antony Hamilton Projects (Number of the Machine), Tasdance (Reactor), DanceNorth (OneInfinity), as well as choreographers Prue Lang (Accumulation, Project F, Yoni & Stellar Project), James Batchelor (Red Shift, Island, Deepspace, Multiplication, Violence, and Metasystems), Adam Wheeler, and Gideon Obarzanek. She has created two works for Transit Dance, Yellow Wheel, and Lucy Guerin Inc (Pieces For Small Spaces). In 2020 Amber was a recipient of SOLITUDE 1, Chunky Move’s home-based residency program.

Amber graduated from the Victorian College of the Arts in 2012

Yyan Ng
Taiko Drummer

Yyan Ng is an Arts Curator, Designer and Musician. Yyan is the Creative Associate of MONA FOMA and curator/technical producer of Launceston's MOFO sessions. He also regularly curates multi-sensory food events around Tasmania. Yyan Ng is a Building Designer by trade and specialises in eco-efficient and hospitality design. As an artist, he is a multi-instrumentalist, improviser, composer, collaborator. Yyan is the artistic director and leader of Launceston Taiko group Taiko Oni Jima. He plays in a few Tasmanian-based
music projects; A Japanese-jazz fusion Shakuhachi and Taiko duo with Brian Ritchie (MOFO director) and contemporary folk duo Yyan and Emily with Violinist Emily Sheppard (TSO) and Internationally renowned Shakuhachi player Anne Norman (VIC), The Toilet Brushes (houseband for MOFO King Ubu 2020).

Emily Sanzaro
Harpist

Emily is a solo performing harpist, vocalist, violinist & electronic loop artist based in Launceston, Tasmania. 

Emily specialises in creating original compositions, contemporary arrangements, improvisations and experimentation with  percussive techniques, electronic effects and looping. She also enjoys playing a wide range of musical genres on the harp,  harnessing the versatility of the instrument.  

Emily has experience in numerous solo and collaborative performances, including Dark Mofo, MONA FOMA, MOFO  Sessions, Tasdance, Taste of Tasmania, Beaker Street, ECHO Festival, Faro Experiments, Junction Arts Festival, and live radio  broadcasts. 

Emily attended the Australian Art Orchestra ‘Creative Music Intensive’ in 2019 as recipient of a MONA full scholarship. She is  currently recording her debut album of solo original music with the support of a grant from ‘Arts Tasmania’. 

Emily is also a registered Occupational Therapist and Therapeutic Musician, playing her small harp at the bedside for  palliative patients in the last stages of their life.

Jenni Large
Tasdance Ensemble Member

Jenni is a contemporary dance artist performing, choreographing and teaching on unceded, stolen lands across so-called Australia. Jenni is driven by the personal, political and transformational forces of embodied practice and desires genuine connection and discourse from and within art. 

Jenni has collaborated across independent and company environments, performing extensively regionally, nationally and internationally as well as teaching for tertiary institutions and companies across Australia. As an ensemble member and assistant rehearsal director with Kyle Page and Amber Haines at Dancenorth (2015-2020) Jenni collaborated, performed and toured works by Amber Haines & Kyle Page, Ross McCormack, Stephanie Lake, Lee Searle, Alisdair Macindoe, Lucy Guerin & Gideon Obarzanek and Jo Lloyd. Jenni has also performed works by Aimee Smith, Isabella Stone, Leigh Warren & Dancers, Sue Peacock, Tasdance and was a founding member of The Dance Makers Collective. 

Jenni has undertaken creative residencies at JWCOCA, Tasdance, IndepenDANCE, Dancenorth, Lucy Guerin Inc, GUTS Dance and Metro Arts. Her interest in identity politics, audience participation, improvisation and subversion of subject/object narratives currently inform her choreographic practice. Jenni’s choreographic credits include ‘Baby Heaven Love Voice’ (2017), and ‘Oh, how my soul flares up in a minute!’ (2019) for Dancenorth’s Tomorrow Makers, ‘All Expenses Paid' co-choreographed with Jack Ziesing for Stompin and her first independent full-length work 'White Woman’ premiering at Metro Arts in 2021.

Emma Porteus
Producer

Emma holds a Bachelor of Contemporary Arts (Honours). She believes deeply in the power of art to transform individuals and communities positively. Emma has over 15 years’ experience working as a performance-maker and producer of dance, community, and festival projects throughout Australia and internationally, including with Vrystaat Festival (South Africa), ANTI Festival (Finland), Sydney Festival (NSW), Dancehouse, FOLA, Melbourne Fringe Festival, Next Wave (Vic), Tracks (NT), Dark Mofo, Mona Foma, Tasdance, Ten Days on the Island, Festival of Voices, Junction Arts Festival, and Tasmania Performs (Tas).

Emma began her career in the arts with Tasdance, and considers that her work with the Company was instrumental in her development as an artist, a producer, and an active member of Tasmania’s thriving cultural scene. From 2006 to 2009 Emma led Tasdance’s education arm and in 2010 became Stompin’s Artistic Director where she created and produced six large-scale, highly successful works for the company. In 2014 she was selected as one of four Tasmanians to be mentored as a Creative Producer in the Producing Cultural Leaders Program and in 2015 received the Regional Arts Australia International Professional Development Fellowship. In 2016 Emma left Stompin to forge a career as a producer and independent artist which led to her appointment as the Executive Producer of Situate Art in Festivals and then onto the Artistic Directorship role at Salamanca Arts Centre. Emma is passionate about creating meaningful art that connects people and places and provides enriching cultural experiences. She has a great working relationship with many of Australia’s top arts festivals, organisations and institutions. Emma is currently a member of the Ministerial Arts and Cultural Advisory Panel for Tasmania and a recent graduate of the Australia Council’s Arts Leadership program.