collaborators short bios
Hold me closer Tony Danza
Australia council for the arts
ARTS PROJECTS – ORGANISATIONS - Sept 2022
The Farm
Based on the Gold Coast on the lands of the Yugambeh language groups, The Farm have been described as the gateway drug to contemporary dance.
Often characterised as cinematic, our work is based on universal subjects and themes that matter and we are driven by a desire to connect to anyone, from dance and theatre virgins to aficionados and professionals. Finally and perhaps most importantly, The Farm create contemporary performances that transcend expectations of what dance can be, and how and where it should be viewed.
The Farm is a networked dance company with a youth ensemble, residency programs and an annual workshop festival. Our company's artistic nerve centre is led by 6 multi skilled artists aged between 25 and 54, diverse across gender, race and sexuality. Our diversity inspires each of us to look beyond our own perspective and drives us to create projects and programs that seek meaningful connections for all involved.
The Farm have a long history of touring our award winning productions.
CREATIVES ON TONY DANZA
Gavin Webber
Gavin is one of the Artistic Directors of The Farm, a company based on the Gold Coast, whose work has been described as the gateway drug to contemporary dance. He started dancing late after many lost years spent hitch-hiking, skiing, writing, camping and studying. Eventually he decided to start making art instead and joined Meryl Tankard’s Australian Dance Theatre and following that, Belgian company Ultima Vez. Throughout his career Gavin has worked between Australia and Europe and was Artistic Director of Dancenorth from 2005 to 2009. He took the company from regional Australia to national and international touring and then left for Europe once again to join PVCtanz in Germany. He has been nominated twice for a Helpmann Award, was awarded the Sidney Myer Individual Performing Arts Award in 2017 and had a sandwich named after him at Lucia’s Coffee shop in Adelaide in the 1990’s. In 2018 The Farm won a Helpmann for TIDE, in 2019 a Drover’s Award for Cockfight and in 2020 an Ausdance award for TIDE. Gavin still writes, camps and studies but the hitch-hiking and skiing are over for the time being at least.
Kate Harman
Kate Harman is an Australian artist working in the fields of performance, dance & social art. Her work orients around the notion of the body as a cumulative container for personal, genetic, and cultural memory, a living archive, containing limitless realms of possibilities. Through collaborative creation her practice, at its core, looks to relieve the dancers and the audience's bodies from the constraints built by political, cultural and aesthetic hierarchies.
She is a founding member of The Farm; a collective of artists, working collaboratively on the concept, direction and performance of work which strives to connect with anyone from dance aficionados to theatre virgins. From the theatre, to a drive-in performance in a Showgrounds, to a 48 hour performance on a sandbar, their work centres around the fragility and strength of the human condition. Since 2019, together with Gavin Webber, Kate has been creating biographical work with non-professions, such as a retired 2 time world champion wrestler; and siblings experiencing the joy and difficulties of living with down syndrome, to name a few. Her work with The Farm has been presented nationally and internationally.
Her major works have been presented nationally and internationally in the contexts such as Dance Massive, Darwin Festival, Bleach Festival, Festival 2018 (for the Commonwealth Games) The United Kingdom through Dance Touring Partnership, and GAM, Chile. As a performer she has been nominated for a Greenroom Award.
Michael Smith
Michael Smith is an artist working within contemporary dance, dance-theatre, film and installation. Often through an introspective approach, Michael’s work delvs into themes across queerness, persona, gender and nature through the lens of real vs. false real. The work places the body at the centre while using theatrics and strong visual design to encourage/enhance our ‘felt’ senses and perspectives, to intuit and connect beyond the self imposed ‘I’.
Michael's choreographic work has been performed across platforms such as MONA FOMA, Brisbane Festival, Dance Massive Site Responsive Showcase, Metro Arts, Ars Electronica (Austria), TanzZiet (Berlin), AGITART Figueres Festival MOU (Spain), Japan Media Arts Festival, STRUT Dance WA, Sunshine Coast Arts Prize and South Bank Corporations 'Flowstate'. In support of Michael’s choreographic practice, he was a recipient of the Brisbane City Council Lord Mayors Fellowship (2019-2020), enabling opportunities across Europe and Israel.
Michael is currently a dancer/performer with Dancenorth under the artistic direction Kyle Page and Amber Haines, based on Gurambilburra - land of the Wulgurukaba and Bindal people. Michael worked as a core artist and continues to collaborate with dance-theatre company The Farm which significantly shaped and developed his artistic ethos as a performer/maker.
Michael graduated with a Bachelor of Fine Arts Honours, First Class - Dance Performance in 2014 from Queensland University of Technology (QUT) and has published articles in dance academia through QUT and 'Body, Space, Technology' journal.
Govin Ruben
Govin is a Malaysian/Australian performance maker, designer, director and creative producer based in Melbourne. He is also director of TerryandTheCuz, a Malaysian/Australian company which has created an array of interdisciplinary arts projects around the world.
In recent years, he has initiated, steered, directed and designed multiple international collaborations. These include; ‘Klue,Doh!’, a work in theatre, ‘Flatland’ an adaptation in dance, ‘SK!N’ a contemporary performance based on true stories about Human Trafficking, ‘Citrawarna, Colours of Malaysia 2017’ a cultural spectacle set in the heart of Kuala Lumpur, ‘Thicker Than Water’ and the Off-Broadway season of ‘MADE IN AMERICA’ both presented at The Public Theater in New York City and most recently 'HuRU-hARa', a hybrid concept/venue at the 2020 AsiaTOPA Festival in Melbourne.
Govin has been nominated for a New York City Innovative Theatre Award, 7 Melbourne Greenroom Awards and a Royal Welsh Theatre Award. He is a Greenroom Award winner for Innovation in International collaboration for his work ‘SK!N’ and 5-time winner of the National Arts Award in Malaysia for his productions ‘Klue,Doh!’ and ‘Flatland’.
Anna Whitaker
Anna is an Australian sonic artist with a background as a classical violinist, recording engineer and composer.
As a composer-performer, Anna’s work has been featured front and centre of productions and theatre companies including La Boite Theatre Company, Bleach Festival, Anywhere Theatre Festival, Brisbane Festival and The Farm Company. These works have been written for a variety of formats, including playhouses, music for screen and immersive surround sound installation. The diversity of challenges - ranging from subtle underscoring and subliminal influence to heart-wrenching scores and floor-shaking impacts - share equal appeal.
Mark Isaacs, Ivan Sen and Cameron Patrick list themselves among the ranks of composers to trust Anna’s attention to detail as an audio engineer. A notable highlight includes a co-recording credit on Sen’s 2015 blockbuster sequel Goldstone. Anna’s freelance experience as a front-of-house engineer has led to gigs mixing for acclaimed international pop acts through to touring ballet companies in capacity theatres.
On most given days, you can find Anna in a sonic laboratory, dissecting and distorting sound beyond recognition for her latest musical offering.
Merinda Davies
Merinda (b.1991) is an artist using performance, movement, installation and conversation to ask how we might reorient ourselves towards deeper care and intimacy.
Her work is inspired by the environment, human and more-than-human social and ecological structures and the possibilities available to us in future imaginings. Her practice aims to find clarity and connection in the external world through deep listening, observation, and research into the emotional and physical states in our internal worlds. She grew up in Bundjalung Country, Northern NSW, and is currently living and creating on the land of the Yugambeh language group, in South East QLD.
Merinda's solo and collaborative work has most recently been commissioned by; HOTA, Home of the Arts & ANAT Spectravision (Fully Automated Human Touch, 22), Institute of Modern Art, Brisbane & Blue Mountains Cultural Centre (Imprints, 20/21), Outerspace (Supercut Biollboard, 22, m0ther.online, 2020), The Walls (Take your pleasure seriously, 20, MIAMI/MIAMI international residency, 22) and City of Gold Coast, Situate Art in Festivals (Conversations with the Forest, ongoing).