YOKE Program
YOKE refers to the act of joining together, coupling, and attachment. The word’s origin comes from a device used to share a weighty load - a life made easier by that which is shared, a life that requires navigating together.
As La Boite Artists in Residence, Aha Ensemble have been developing a series of investigations, exploring the nature of interpersonal relationships. YOKE is an emergent conversation reflecting on the collaborating artists’ diverse experiences, how we view the mechanics of relationships, and how lived experiences of both visible and invisible disability shape the parameters of connection.
For the last 12-18 months we have been working together, in what has been an unpredictable and unsettling time. We have rescheduled developments, we have zoomed, we have been together and we have been apart. We are incredibly grateful to be making new work at this time. I am incredibly grateful to be working with a group of artists who continue to be resilient and flexible.
The ways in which we connect and relate to one another is important. It is woven into the fabric of societies and communities all over, in nuanced and different ways. I believe this work has come at a unique time to reflect upon how we come together, how we relate and communicate, and the parts of ourselves we share with others. YOKE is a small defiance, where values, needs and connection are prioritised - perhaps differently to those more conventional or familiar.
It is incredibly valuable to share a work-in-progress showing with a live audience. It allows the work to grow and develop, as well as for ourselves as artists. So, thank you for supporting this process, we greatly appreciate it.
We would love to receive any feedback you may have and created a short google form here.
Aha Ensemble acknowledges the country on which we work, and the traditional custodians of the land on which YOKE is presented - the Turrbal and Jagera people. We give our respects to their Elders past, present and emerging.
Daniele Constance
CREDITS
CREATIVE & PRODUCTION
Director Daniele Constance
Dramaturg Ruby Donohoe
Creative Producer Emma-June Curik
Sound Designer Anna Whittaker
Lighting Designer Johnathan Harrison
Stage Manager Anika Vilee
Creative Support Worker Rebecca Dostal
‘Swimming’ text by Tara Heard & Ruby Donohoe
Auslan Interpreter (Fri 25 June): Adele Greedy-Vogel
CAST
Kayah Guenther
Allycia Staples
Mitchell Runcie
Tara Heard
Ruby Donohoe
SPECIAL THANKS
Sanja Simic & the La Boite team, Meg Cooper & Mad Dance House Dr. Bree Hadley, Madeline Little, Hana Tow, Jorge Serra & the parents, carers and supporters of our artists.
We would like to specially thank and acknowledge Megan Louise West for her contribution to the creative development of YOKE.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
The first stage development of YOKE was developed in collaboration with Phluxus2 Dance Collective artists choreographer Nerida Matthaei, performers Charles Ball and Nadia Milford and producer Sandi Woo.
This project is supported by Access Arts and Queensland Theatre through the Queensland Government – Arts Queensland.
BIOGRAPHIES
Allycia Staples
Collaborating Artist | Performer
Allycia's passion for dance began with her involvement with Fitness and Dance on the Sunshine Coast when she was eight. Having been born with a rare chromosome deletion on the 18th chromosome, Allycia's prognosis was bleak due to the multiple physical and intellectual challenges the condition presents. In spite of this, she has continued to thrive, having benefited greatly from her involvement with dance and the performing arts. As a long-standing member of the Sunshine Troupe Inc - an all-abilities performing arts troupe, and the Aha Ensemble (an inclusive and participatory performance ensemble) she has had the opportunity to train, develop and perform in significant productions. She has travelled to Mont Dore, New Caledonia, as ambassadors for the Sunshine Coast Troupe's Sister City program in 2012 where they ran workshops for people with disabilities and last year Allycia was the recipient of Accessible Arts Australia's Catalyst Program at Carriageworks in Sydney. Allycia recently co-facilitated an inclusive dance workshop at AusDance Educators Queensland Conference at the Judith Wright Centre of Contemporary Arts with Daniele Constance (Director, Aha Ensemble).
Allycia was recently awarded the Access Arts SAFE grant and undertook training with Back to Back Theatre in Geelong.
Ruby Donohoe
Dramaturg | Performer | Collaborating Artist
Ruby Donohoe (she/her) is an interdisciplinary performance-maker whose work offers defiant acts of sensitisation and is rooted in the politics of encounter. With a background in contemporary performance and a body-based practice, her work investigates humankind’s simultaneous radical alienation from and radical intimacy with the personal body and the ways in which this paradox is an important hinge in unpacking our conceptions of ‘other’. Her performance work proposes re-imaginings for this relational phenomenon and the ways in which the live act implicates both audience and performing bodies as mutual co-creations. Ruby works with text, choreography, sculpture, installation, and participatory practices to create work for theatre, gallery, and digital spaces.
Ruby is based on Gubbi Gubbi country (Sunshine Coast) and has created work in New York, Porto, Seoul, Tokyo, Vancouver and throughout Australia. She has had the pleasure of working with artists such as Anne Bogart + SITI Company (NYC), Bad Company (Jeremy Neideck + Younghee Park), Dairakudakan (JAP), Dancenorth, Dead Puppet Society, Doppelgangster (UK/AUS), Gogi Dance Collective, Kerith Manderson-Galvin, Lucas Stibbard, Margi Brown Ash, MKA: Theatre of New Writing, Phluxus2 Dance Collective, Playlab Theatre, Strings Attached, The Good Room, Younes Bachir (SPN), and Zen Zen Zo. Ruby has performed at Brisbane Powerhouse, Dixon Place (NYC), Flowstate, HOTA, Institute of Modern Art (IMA), La Mama, Metro Arts, MidWinta Festival, New Ohio Theatre (NYC), Placemakers*, Queensland Theatre’s Undercover Festival, Seoul Arts Centre, Supercell Dance Festival, and Sydney Fringe Festival.
Kayah Guenther
Performer | Collaborating Artist
Kayah’s practice crosses dance, theatre and film. He has had a wide range of experience working with Travers Ross, Philip Channells (Dance Integrated Australia) and Gavin Webber (The Farm) as well as Michael Hennessy and Sprung. Through the Screenworks ‘Createability’ program (2015) he collaborated with HW Collective to create the short film, The Battle which has been shown in 20 countries and performed live at SuperCell Dance Festival in 2018. Kayah was a participant of Accessible Arts’ Catalyst Dance Residency program and last year won a Young Regional Arts Scholarship to attend Impuls Tanz in Vienna. He is one of the 5 Australian male artists working with Paul Gazzola in the project titled ‘Of Boys and Men’. Kayah says communicating through movement is much easier for him than communicating verbally. "Dance is like a friend." Kayah's dance style is confident. It is more than movement in time to a beat; it expresses power, masculinity and his place in the world.
Kayah recently premiered a new dance-theatre work Glass Child, with Gavin Webber and Kate Harman from The Farm, at HOTA.
Tara Heard
Tara is an emerging performance artist based on the Sunshine Coast. She currently trains with Frank Theatre and is a core member of Aha Ensemble. In 2013 Tara wrote and performed in a solo work at 2high Festival (Brisbane Powerhouse) and has since performed in numerous productions on the Sunshine Coast and at Undercover Artists Festival, Anywhere Theatre Festival, Metro Arts and currently featured in 'Positive Exposure' a photographic exhibition on the Sunshine Coast. Tara is a survivor, living with acquired brain injury after a tragic accident when she was younger. She is a strong and passionate performer, with an uncanny ability to list the anatomical names for body parts and loves ACDC. During the first creative development, Tara titled Aha Ensemble's debut work 'Explain Normal'.
Tara is currently developing a solo theatre work in collaboration with Alicia Jones.
Mitchell Runcie
Mitchell has established himself as a very passionate dancer, actor and performer through his work with the Sunshine Troupe, Access Arts and Aha Ensemble in Brisbane. In 2019 he was chosen to participate in an inclusive ballet project with the Royal Ballet in Brisbane – a highlight of his dancing career to date. Currently, Mitch spends a few days a week working at the Compass Institute Farm undertaking horticultural and cooking. Mitch also enjoys dancing, basketball and 10 pin bowling when not performing.
In 2019 he represented Queensland at the National Special Olympics in Melbourne and won a gold and silver medal for 10 pin bowling.
Rebecca Dostal
Rebecca is a force to be reckoned with. She is a Mother of four, a puppeteer, performer, producer, writer, costume maker and disability support worker.
She combines her background in fashion design and theatre with an ingrained love of poetry and storytelling.
She has performed and produced at Woodford Folk Festival, Anywhere Theatre Festival, Horizon and supported numerous independent theatre works in various roles.
Rebecca has been a apart of Aha Ensemble since its inception and played an integral role in providing support and access to our members.
Daniele Constance
Daniele is a participatory artist, performance maker and director with a strong focus on socially engaged art making practices. She creates artistic works that draw from direct experience and storytelling; using verbatim, documentary and contemporary performance practices.
Daniele has trained with artistic companies including: Rawcus (Melbourne), Force Majeure (Sydney), one step at a time like this (Melbourne), Ping Chong+Company (NYC), which has given her a strong and diverse embodied performance language, understanding of and continued practice with: dance theatre, physical theatre, participatory art, site specific performance, public art and engagement, large scale and long standing community arts projects.
Daniele has previously engaged in a formal mentorship (supported by Australia Council for the Arts) with Kate Sulan (Artistic Director, Rawcus) in inclusive performance practices, specifically supporting and developing her skills as a director and dance-theatre practitioner leading Aha Ensemble.
Daniele has presented independent performance works with: Footscray Community Arts Centre, Festival of Live Art, Melbourne Fringe Festival, Testing Grounds, La Boite Theatre HWY, Metro Arts, Supercell Festival of Contemporary Dance, Queensland Poetry Festival and Undercover Arts Festival.
Emma-June Curik
Emma-June is a vibrant, driven creative producer and arts manager with a passion for live performance and community engagement across all disciplines – theatre, dance, music, cabaret, visual art, heritage, immersive arts and everything in-between. She is particularly passionate about the creation of accessible and inclusive live performance works, and invested in her professional development within arts and access.
Having held a variety of roles across 8 years of industry experience, she is equally confident in providing support to executive and programming teams as well as leading the development and delivery of diverse arts projects and initiatives. She has worked with HOTA, Gold Coast Pride House, James Morrison Academy of Music, QMF and Artslink among others.
She has an interest in developing partnerships between artists, stakeholders and business to achieve project outcomes and believe strongly in the inspirational nature of art and its importance in fostering individual expression and social cohesion.
Anna Whittaker
Anna Whitaker 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.
