Artists
Western Edge works with a diverse, expert team of highly experienced community artists with whom we have established long term professional relationships. We also work with many young people in their late teens and early twenties, most of whom are from CALD backgrounds and previous participants in our programs, who are interested in establishing themselves as community artists. Western Edge has a long-term commitment to these young people and supports them in a number of ways: through the provision of mentored work opportunities alongside experienced artists; through project-based training; and through the provision of support and encouragement to pursue higher education.
The 2011 Artistic Team
Western Edge's 2011 team of artists includes:
EDUCATION PROGRAM
Jo Trevathan – Teaching Artist:, Choral Musician, Installation Artist, Theatre Devisor.
Jo is a professional performer, musician, devisor, workshop leader, theatre technician and arts administrator. She has had extensive experience in bringing together different personnel and expertise across the arts communities in large and small-scale events. She has toured both nationally and internationally with The Teabags and Spindrift Music Theatre. Since 2004 she has worked for Western Edge Youth Arts as a Lead Artist devising, scripting, and directing school shows. In 2007 she was the installation artist for Old Ghosts New Land and in 2009 she was project coordinator and installation artist for Home Is Where…as part of the Big West Festivals. Other large-scale community projects include Spirit of the World (Musical Director, Geelong Ethnic Communities 2002/03) and This Point in Time, Angels, and Voices in Harmony (Artistic/ Musical Director, Williamstown Festival 97-2000). In 2009 she received assistance to study with the Ubuntu Choirs Network in Canada and now teaches multi-ethnic and community choirs. She is currently working at Big West Festival as their Community Arts Coordinator.
Jane Rafe – Teaching Artist: Theatre Devisor and Poetry/Creative Writing
Jane Rafe is a leading teaching-artist with a strong track-record of work with Western Edge Youth Arts, Footscray Community Arts Centre, the Victorian Arts Centre’s Education program and Nexus Arts. She received the Drama Victoria Award for best touring theatre for schools show in 1999 for Dog Theatre’s Buckley’s Chance. Jane has run arts residencies across the state with Nexus Arts and directed community performances for the Mallacoota Festival and the High Tide Festival on the Surf Coast. Jane is also a designer who has designed work for FCAC (One Nation 1999) and the Geelong Courthouse (Underworld 2000). Jane has a Masters in Theatre from University of Leeds UK (1990) and is a fully qualified drama teacher. Jane has recently authored three research reports – The Odyssey (2010) The Tale of Troy (2009) and The Government Project (2008) - based on participant interviews evaluating Western Edge schools projects. Her recent work has involved the development of poetry and other creative writing integrated into a performing arts process.
Susan Barlow – Teaching Artist: Visual Artist
Susan is a vastly experienced, hugely respected award winning visual artist. Her 2006 Much of Susan’s innovative practice is grounded in Asian culture. Her GREEN TURTLE DREAMING PROJECT was Winner of 2005 Museums Australia Publication Design Award and 2005 Museums Australia Victoria Project Award. She coordinated the BOROBODUR Project in Indonesia and Australia was awarded Most Outstanding Professional Project in the Victorian Museum Sector 2002. Susan has worked part-time as a lecturer in Fine Art at the Gordon Institute in Geelong, and as Education Officer for Geelong Gallery as well as teaching at Torquay College.
Vanessa O’Neil - Performer, Writer, Director
Vanessa is a performer, writer, director and teacher. She trained as an actor at the Ecole Philippe Gaulier and at the Drama Centre in London. She then worked for the U.K. Theatre-In-Education Company, Classworks and the Cambridge Shakespeare Festival. Vanessa devised a show of Shakespeare’s Women that she has performed in schools throughout Australia over the last twelve years. She wrote the one-woman-show Happy With Half Your Life that toured festivals in Australia, the U.K. and Europe. Vanessa has worked as an actor for a range of Australian theatre companies. She has taught at The Australian Theatre For Young People and The Australian Academy of Dramatic Art in Sydney and worked as a Teaching Artist for the Arts Centre in Victoria and for Bell Shakespeare Education. Last year Vanessa completed a Masters of Teaching at the University of Melbourne. She currently tutors at The University of Melbourne Graduate School of Education, teaches Drama at a Secondary School in Melbourne and works as an Education Officer at The State Library of Victoria.
Hoang Tran Nguyen – New Media Artist
Hoang is an artist working in film and other digital media who has created exhibited his work as part of the Next Wave Festival, the Big West Festival, the Fringe Festival and at Art Play and Footscray Community Arts Centre. He has won arts awards from the Australia Council and Maribyrnong City Council. He has worked in a range of community and education contexts and is a regular member of Western Edge’s team of teaching artists with whom he has made a number of documentaries and films with young people. Hoang has a Bachelor of Industrial Design and a Diploma of Photography from RMIT.
David Cuong Nguyen – Teaching Artist: Writer/Director and CALD Specialist
David is a very experienced and widely acclaimed community artist who works with the Centre for Multicultural Youth, North Richmond Community Health, Big West and Phunktional Theatre as well as being a leading teaching-artist with Western Edge. David’s recent work includes collaborating with Dave Kelman on Searching For Lear and Black Face White Mask in projects that connected Debney Park Secondary College and the Flemington Community. Dave is a talented award winning script writer (Malt House Emerging Writer) who helps young people write their own, high quality, original scripts. Dave was recently recognised by Castanet (Arts Victoria Advisory Committee on community arts) as a leading artist working with culturally and linguistically diverse communities.
Cat Sweeney - Dancer and Choreographer
Cat Sweeney is dance teacher, performer and choreographer who has worked on a range of community dance projects: Superstitious at Footscray Community Arts Centre 2008, Rhythms of the Streets for Maribyrnong Youth Services 2009 and Frolic for Western Edge 2009. She is artistic director of the Jungle City dance project and has worked as a dancer for the Burn City Queens. Cat is a qualified youth worker who has coordinated and developed Cultural Infusion’s Youth Program (2007-9) and did coordination work on Western Edge’s complex On The Radar project in 2009-2010.
Karen Kyriakou – Musician and Composer
Karen Kyriakou is a passionate and experienced violinist, music educator, composer and conductor. With a Bachelor of Music Education from the University of Melbourne and a Masters in Music Education from Monash University, Karen works as a musician, music educator, conductor, researcher, composer and artist-in-residence, in both schools and the community. She is both a performer and a ‘Composer In The Classroom’ with the Musica Viva In Schools program, and also works as a freelance Composer in Residence with community groups as well as school-based ensembles. Karen is an active member of the Austa committee in Victoria, and presents at music education conferences. She is also engaged in freelance work in the education program of the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra and some casual teaching at Monash University in the Education Faculty. Aside from composing educational works for school string ensembles, (with Alfred Publishing), Karen also writes works for theatre and is the composer and arranger for her world-music band Kazband, with her compositions receiving positive media attention and regular airplay on radio throughout Australia.
Luke Matthews – New Teaching-Artist: Director and Writer
Luke is a new addition to Western Edge’s team of teaching artists. He is an experienced teacher who until recently worked as Head of Creative Arts at Hume Central SC in Melbourne. He is an award-winning scholar (The Dwight Prize for Best Honours Student in English at the University of Melbourne) who has conducted research and written and presented papers for conferences and publication and has worked as a lecturer in theatre at the Australian National University. Luke has written original work for the Melbourne Fringe and the Carlton Courthouse Theatre as well as devising and directing a wide range of work in schools.
COMMUNITY PROGRAM
Kerrianne Cox (Singer/Songwriter)
Renowned singer/songwriter, Kerrianne has been recognised by multiple awards including the Next Big Thing Competition (1996), WAMi (Western Australia Music Industry) Award as Best Indigenous Artist of the Year (1997), NAIDOC's (National Aboriginal Independence Day of Celebration) Female Artist of the Year (2000), the Deadly Vibe Female Artist of the Year given by the National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Music Awards (2001), the Australian government’s Centenary Medal for service to her country (2003), the ALMA (Australian Live Music Awards) Songlines Indigenous Award (2003). Kerrianne Cox has performed extensively around Australia and internationally. Kerrianne is also a Beagle Bay community leader, having taken formal roles in the process of capacity building for the local community to self govern following their successful land rights claim, giving them the right to self-govern.
Lorrae Coffin
Lorrae has worked within the Indigenous Music Industry for over 20 years as a musician (currently fronting her own band), singer/songwriter and session musician as well as being involved with the implementation and delivery of music programs and policies in remote, urban and regional communities across Australia.
Born in the Pilbara, and raised in the west Kimberley region of WA, she comes from the rich Indigenous heritage of the Niaparli/Yindjibarndi groups. Lorrae is co-founder of the internationally acclaimed Marrugeka Company as a musician and composer and Music Coordinator or the company’s work since 1996.
Lorrae is an accomplished multi-instrumentalist in guitars, vocals and majors in electric bass guitar.
Kylie Gral
Kylie is a teaching artist and theatre maker based in Melbourne. For the past 7 years Kylie has worked in non-profit arts organizations as a drama workshop facilitator and Associate Director on major productions with Western Edge Youth Arts in school and community contexts. Kylie has directed original performance with a diverse range of young people at the Western English Language School, S.A.I.L (Sudanese Australian Integrated Learning) and Courthouse Youth Arts Centre Geelong. Most recently Kylie has spent time in remote Central Australia devising story books with indigenous children from Karnte Camp (Alice Springs) and has a Post Graduate Diploma in Secondary Education. Kylie worked as a facilitator and performer on Chronicles: Searching for Songlines through 2010.
Casey Nicholls
Casey is a playwright, teacher and theatre practitioner with and for young people based in western Melbourne. Casey studied Theatre and Education at the University of Melbourne and completed an honors degree in Drama Education in 2005. Casey studied Live Production at Julius Media College and has held the position of Performing Arts Coordinator at Victoria University Secondary College in Deer Park, Victoria for the past five years. In 2009, Casey won the Out of the Boot Playwriting Competition for her play Industrial Park. Industrial Park was produced by Urban Myth Theatre of Youth for the Out of the Boot performance season in Adelaide, 2010. Casey won the St Martins National Playwriting Competition in 2009 for her play Boy Stories and was selected for the St Martins Youth Arts Emerging Writers Studio in 2010. Casey worked as writer/director for On the Radar, a community arts program with Western Edge involving African males aged 11-26 aimed at bridging relations between African youth and police performed at the Wyndham Police Station and Phoenix Youth Centre. Casey worked as Associate Director and Stage Manager on Chronicles: Searching for Songlines through 2010.
Check back in coming months for more artist details
