Yuiko Masukawa, Sam Mcgilp, Harrison Hall, Makoto Uemura & Kazuhiko Hiwa

Yuiko Masukawa is a Japanese choreographer based in Melbourne, working with the classical form in contemporary contexts.

In 2019, she was awarded an Ian Potter Cultural Trust Grant to undertake a series of structured choreographic secondments with the New York City Ballet, Milwaukee Ballet and Japanese contemporary choreographer, Toru Shimazaki.

She was recently selected to participate in Dancehouse’s Emerging Choreographers Program throughout 2021 as well as Lucy Guerin Inc and Phillip Adams BalletLab’s new showcase program Out of Bounds. In 2021, she received funding from Creative Victoria and the Besen Family Foundation for her second development for After Party, an audio-visual installation with retired ballet dancers.

In 2022 her new work “Why we are who we are” will be presented at the Bowery Theatre supported by the Be Bold Residency and Sidney Myer foundation.

Sam Mcgilp is a media artist working collaboratively in contemporary performance contexts, based on Wurundjeri country in Naarm. His work spans film, performance, installation and online spaces. In 2020, he created BONANZA! with Harrison Hall and Juzzy Kane as part of Chunky Move’s Activators Program, which was screened at the Melbourne International Film Festival in 2021 and was selected as a finalist for the Green Room Awards.

In 2019, he was awarded an Australia Council professional development grant to undertake residencies at Kinosaki International Art Centre and Do-So Residency, Fujiyoshida. In 2021 he received a Creative Victoria Creator’s Fund grant to investigate how emerging technologies can create new dramaturgies for performance that centre the body.

Harrison Hall is a Choreographer, Performer and Digital Artist who’s work situates contemporary performance and dance in experiential art environments. With recent works traversing states of flux between the digital and physical realms utilising new technologies to augment and abstract the body.

In 2020, he was awarded a Solitude1 Residency from Chunky Move and the Tanja Liedtke foundation in which he created Maelstrom alongside Luca Dante, a multi-channel digital choreography installation premiering at MARS Gallery (Melbourne) and Metro Arts (Brisbane) in late 2021.

Through Chunky Move, he also presented BONANZA! with Sam Mcgilp, a PerformancexDialogue media artwork that included conversations with NAXS corp (Taiwan) and Lu Yang (China). This work was a 2021 Green Room Award Finalist and selected for the Melbourne International Film Festival 2021.

Makoto Uemura is a director and lighting designer for contemporary performance based in Tokyo, Japan. His work focuses on giving voice to the memory of site and context while expanding the frame of the theatre through collaborations with musicians, choreographers, artists.

He undertook undergraduate studies at the Faculty of Art and Design, Nagoya Zokei University, as well as a research degree investigating Advanced Art Expression at the graduate School of Fine Arts, Tokyo University of the Arts. Since graduating he has worked as a director and lighting designer for contemporary performance and a researcher at Tokyo University for the Arts’ Performing Arts Centre.

Recent works include: ”Egmont” (Tokyo University of the Arts Sogakudo / 2021), “Blind Letter 2020” (online / 2020), and the exhibition “Unmanned Theatre Festival” (Nakamachi no Ie / 2019).

Creating as “hiwadrome”, Kazuhiko Hiwa makes video works on the theme of physicality and installation works using a wheelchair, which he himself uses. In addition, through “play”, a direct intervention in the public, he performs and makes work that questions various boundaries, relationships, and accessibility.

Recent exhibitions include “Kanon : Kazuhiko Hiwa + Shiyoko Hiwa” (Taro Okamoto Memorial Museum /2020), “ARTISTS’ FAIR KYOTO 2021” (The Museum of Kyoto /2021), “Ripples in Water 2021” (Triangle Park, Former Minato Ward Children’s Museum / 2021), “Drawing Experiment 01 (Watari-Um Museum, On-sunday’s /2021)”.