Staff
Dave Kelman, Artistic Director – Education Program
Dr Dave Kelman has worked for the last twenty-five years as a director, writer, researcher and drama educator in Melbourne Australia and Leeds UK. In his current role as Artistic Director of the Schools Program of Western Edge Youth Arts (2004 – present), he runs a complex artists in schools program working in a wide range of primary and secondary schools, developing rich pedagogic processes and creating at least six original worked each year that are successfully performed to large community audiences.
Lecturer and Researcher
Kelman is currently a regular lecturer in arts education and performance at the University of Melbourne and has a background in teaching drama in schools. His research has been widely published in refereed books and journals and he is a regular contributor to drama education and community arts conferences both nationally and internationally. He was recently awarded a PhD in Drama Education at the University of Melbourne (2009) as part of an Australian Research Council project examining the impact of community arts partnerships on schools. He also has a Masters in Theatre Studies from Leeds University U.K. Kelman has delivered professional develop programs for the Victorian Arts Centre (1998/9), Art Play (2009), UTS (2002) and Travancore mental health/educational service (2006-9). He is currently an artist member of Castanet the Arts Victoria community arts advisory committee.
Youth Theatre Director
Recent stand out directing work for Western Edge includes: Harry’s Game (2004); Broken Pieces - documented as best practice by Victorian Department of Education (2006)- and Searching For Lear – also performed in the UK (2009) and The Tale of Troy (2009). He has also directed a number of youth theatre performances at Footscray Community Arts Centre including the innovative Casino City (1996) and 1 Nation (1999) and has directed community plays in Mallacoota (1998) and Winchelsea (1997) and has run many theatre residencies in schools across Victoria. In 2002, he directed Missing a play for performed by young emerging artists that toured schools in Melbourne’s West He has created original youth theatre and outdoor events in his hometown of Torquay (High Tide Festival 2000 – 2004) and initiated youth theatre work at the Court House in Geelong (Underworld 2000, Terra Nulius 2002). In the UK he established and directed the nationally acclaimed South Leeds Youth Theatre (1985-94).
Performer/Writer
He has toured nationally with his own award-winning Theatre-In-Education Company Dog Theatre (1996-99, Buckley’s Chance Drama Australia, Best School’s Show 1998) through Nexus Arts and pioneered hip-hop theatre in UK -Union City, 1995, for the Yorkshire Dance Centre- and Australia - Casino City, 1996, for Footscray Community Arts Centre. He has written work for the West Yorkshire Playhouse (All The Helicopter Night, 1995) and he is currently a dramaturge and writer for Mongrel Theatre at The Sage Music Centre in Newcastle UK (Tides Of Humanity 2008). He co-wrote and performed in There Is Nothing Here (2002) a play about asylum seekers at La Mama in Melbourne.
Animateur
Kelman co-founded SCRAYP, an artists in schools/community program based at Footscray Community Arts Centre (1996-2003). This work has involved the mentoring and training of young artists from diverse backgrounds to work in education and community. Working with SCRAYP he has created dozens of original performances throughout Melbourne’s West working with hundreds of young people in demanding culturally diverse, inner city settings over the last twelve years and playing to extensive community audiences.
Cymbeline Buhler, Artistic Director – Community Program
Cymbeline Buhler has been Artistic Director of Western Edge Youth Arts Community Programs since 2008. She has worked as a director, scriptwriter, actor, storyteller, producer and facilitator in nineteen countries across Australasia, Europe and North America. A graduate of the Victorian College of the Arts (Melbourne), University of Technology (Sydney), Drama Action Centre (Sydney) and the School of Playback Theatre (New York), her work has centred on theatre for social change, community dialogue and peace-building with an emphasis on devised work. She is a current recipient of the Australia Council’s Cultural Leadership professional development grant.
Since arriving at Western Edge, she has mounted a number of major projects including:
Beagle Bay Chronicles, a large scale cultural exchange project that took young people from Melbourne up to the Beagle Bay Aboriginal community in the Kimberley, WA.
Chronicles: Searching for Songlines, a major production based on participants’ family histories, taking its audience on an interactive immersive journey through the Phoenix Youth Centre.
Space Invaders, a theatre in education production teaching young people about legal their rights and non-violent methods for avoiding and de-escalating conflict situations.
Frolic, an major production exploring how differently people celebrate across cultures.
On the Radar, an innovative program working to reduce conflict between police and young people in Braybrook.
Playback West, an on-going improvisational performance group, functioning as a semi-professional mini company since early 2009.
Playback Theatre
Having trained with Jonathan Fox at the School of Playback Theatre in New York, Cymbeline has developed a specialisation the playback form, which she has expanded on and utilised in a wide array of settings. These have included using it as a devising technique in the creation of new work; using it as an actor training methodology (Arturo Acting School in Cologne, Germany); using it as an element within larger theatre productions; and using it as a tool for peace building. Towards this end, she launched a peace-building project in Sri Lanka in 2006, working with young people from Sinhalese and Tamil backgrounds. This project ran for two years before pausing as a result of war having broken out once more. This project is re-launching in early 2012 when four groups from ethnically divided groups will come together to practice playback theatre skills together, learning about each other’s lives and building bridges across the divides left by the civil war. Cymbeline was recently invited to become a member of the International Playback Theatre Network Board. She is presenting her work at the IPTN conference in Frankfurt in November 2011.
Award Winning Director
Cymbeline’s work has received awards from the Liverpool International Theatre Festival (Canada) for Best Director, Best International Act and People’s Choice and from the Yakumo International Theatre Festival (Japan) for Best Director, Best Production and Best Ensemble.
International Networks
Cymbeline has built an extensive international network, working with companies as diverse as the Japan Theatre Directors’ Network (Tokyo); The School of Playback Theatre (New York); Arturo Acting School (Cologne, Germany); the International Film School (Germany); Purple Broccoli Theatre Company (London, UK); Aquatoria Institute (Moscow) ; Asian People’s Theatre Festival, Hong Kong and the TAK Theatre Festival, Opole, Poland.
Criena Gehrke, General Manager
Criena Gehrke has a diverse background in arts management. She has worked with the Programs Unit of Creative New Zealand, as an artists’ agent, production manager and as the Artistic Coordinator for Queensland Theatre Company. Criena is a previous Executive Director of Arts Access Victoria. Under her leadership, Arts Access developed a range of key initiatives including The Other Film Festival and an Industry and Audience Development Program that worked in partnership with the arts and cultural sector to increase opportunities for people with a disability. For many years, Criena was a director of Arts Access Australia and a member of The Village Festival Board. She has also participated in peer assessment panels for Arts Victoria. In 2008, Criena was the recipient of the prestigious Harvard Club of Australia Scholarship attending the Strategic Perspectives in Not for Profit Management Short Course at Harvard Business School and researching US models of best practice in access to the arts. Most recently Criena was a Senior Project Officer at the Victorian Department of Planning and Community Development responsible for the Victorian Arts and Disability Research Partnership Project.
