COMPANY

PERFORMERS

Janice Florence

Janice is the Artistic Director and Co-Founder of Weave Movement Theatre. She trained in dance in Australia and the USA. In 1983 she completed a Graduate Diploma of Movement and Dance at Melbourne University.

For 10 years, she was a performer, teacher and researcher with State of Flux, one of the first Australian companies to include a Disabled dancer. Janice has worked and had residencies with Karen Nelson, exponent of ‘diverse dance’ in the USA and with Blue-Eyed Soul, Touchdown and CanDoCo in the UK.

Janice is the recipient of the inaugural 2019 Disability Arts Award for an Established Artist from the Australia Council for the Arts.

Anthony Riddell

Anthony Riddell is a performance artist, writer and visual artist. He has written and published 24 books with surreal narratives and images. He trained in Sculpture and visual arts. He was highly involved in the experimental music scene in the 1990s including in Vol Vox. A retrospective of Anthony’s work was staged by Liquid Architecture in 2018. He gained a fellowship from Writers Victoria.

Anthony has been with Weave since its early years in the early noughties and has performed in all original stage works created by Weave since then.

David Baker

David completed Ignition theatre Training (2005, NMIT), VCAL Arts and Multimedia (2007, Swinburne TAFE) followed by a Diploma of Theatre Arts (2009, Swinburne TAFE). David performs as a stilt walker and balloon artist at various events across Melbourne.

In 2011 David completed a two year Internship at Red Stitch Actors Theatre, in the role of ASM when this production was remounted at the Fairfax Studio, Melbourne Arts Centre in 2012. David is a founding member of Rollercoaster Theatre, and volunteer artist with FOG Theatre (City of Port Phillip), RAG Theatre and Dream Theatre.

In 2013 he was a member of the cast of “Casa Del Crip,” a pilot sit com about people with disabilities. He was selected for a Professional Development opportunity at the Unlimited UK Arts Festival in London in 2012 where David learned techniques for body mapping, which he shared in masterclasses in Melbourne in 2012/13. David is employed as an Usher at The Melbourne Arts Centre. David joined Weave in 2015.

Emma Norton

Emma completed the Ignition Theatre course at Melbourne Polytechnic. Emma’s passion is to become a performer and develop her own dances to be seen by wide audiences. Already, Emma has taken lead roles in various performances including as a member of BoilOver Inc.

In 2009 /10 Emma performed at the Awakenings Festival and participated in Rawcus Flashmob at Federation Square. In 2013 she was a street performer at Sunfest where she developed an improvised routine to engage local attendees. Emma is developing her public speaking skills and performed for several years with BoilOver Theatre and was a member of their committee. Emma joined Weave in 2015.

Uncle Greg

We pay tribute to Uncle Greg who sadly passed away in 2024. He was a loved, committed and energetic performer in the company for 12 years. He was a true artist-an award-winning and prolific painter as well as a performer. His artwork was widely exhibited.

We miss Uncle Greg but we celebrate that he kept going to make a multimedia installation with his collaborators Zya Kane and Tan Kang Wei for Weave: The Solos in 2024 at Dancehouse, the highlight of which was the film of Uncle Greg’s beautiful Bunjil dance in the bush by the Yarra River. On that day we saw him flying as we feel he is now flying free with Bunjil, a spirit with whom he always felt a close connection.

Leisa Prowd

Leisa is a writer, public speaker and performance artist. Known for her blog, ‘Life At My Level’, Leisa writes about her musings on everyday observations, the habitual and the intriguing. Nominated as one of 6 emerging writers by Writers Victoria (Writeability 2014), Leisa was a regular contributor to ABC Ramp Up and appears in 3CR – Smalltalk, among others.

She also performed with Rawcus for 4 years. Since 2019 she has been living between Berlin and Melbourne performing throughout Germany and Europe.

Trevor Dunn

Trevor graduated with a Bachelor of Dramatic Arts from the Victorian College of the Arts/Melbourne University in 1995. Trevor was a co-founder of Weave Movement Theatre, and has performed in all Weave productions since 1997.

Trevor has taught drama and dance to young adults with disability at the Art Life program at Footscray Community Arts Centre and has worked alongside many well-known improvisation teachers such as Al Wunder and Nick Papas. Most recently Trevor performed in ‘A Normal Child’, directed by David Woods, performed at the Northcote Town Hall.

WEAVE BOARD

Fiona Seers – Chair

Fiona is an experienced arts administrator having worked in the performing arts sector for many years for various orchestras, opera companies, dance companies and choirs. She has also worked as an instrumental music teacher at numerous schools teaching piano, winds and theory. Fiona has a Bachelor of Music, a Graduate Diploma in Business Studies and a Diploma in piano. She currently works for the Australian Music Examinations Board (AMEB) as Head of Examining.

Ellen Connor – Treasurer

Ellen is a CPA with over 15 years of experience in strategic management accounting, operations, governance and corporate services management. In her day job she designs reporting and analysis to drive process improvement, create efficiencies and enhance performance. Ellen is serving her 10th year on the Weave board and loves the opportunity to bring her finance and governance experience to an organisation with incredible spirit and artistic integrity.

Nikki Zerella

Nikki is an experienced Arts Manager. She worked with Tutti, the Adelaide inclusive performance ensemble. For several years she was the Manager of the Art Life program at Footscray Community Arts. She is currently the General Manager at Arts Access Victoria, the State’s peak body for Disability Arts.

Fiona has worked in the arts and community sectors for over 25 years in NSW, Qld, SA and Victoria including roles as manager, producer, mentor, curator, consultant, teacher and facilitator. She has worked with Arts Access Victoria, Weave Movement Theatre, The Delta Project, St Vincent de Paul, Scope Victoria and numerous other organisations and independent artists. She has held roles as Arts Program Manager, Strategic Projects Manager and Director of Learning Development with Arts Access Victoria, Manager of Community Inclusion and Development with Scope Victoria as well as managing art galleries in Brisbane and Sydney.

Fiona was Co-founder and Manager of Cecil St Studio, performer and facilitator with Weave Movement Theatre and Arts Project Leader for The Multiple Sclerosis Society. She is known for initiating and delivering highly successful professional development, mentoring and employment initiatives in the arts and is passionate about access, diversity and inclusion. Currently she is working as a freelance consultant, mentor and trainer.

Jonathan Homsey is an arts maker and manager interested in the intersection of street dance, visual art and social engagement. Born in Hong Kong and raised in the United States of America, he immigrated to Australia in 2010 where he is a graduate of Victorian College of the Arts (BA Dance) and Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology (MA Arts Management with Distinction); Jonathan is also a Doctoral candidate at Queensland University of Technology (QUT).

His choreographic practice has evolved from a theatrical context with works such as the award-winning Together As One (Arts House, Melbourne Fringe 2013) to an interdisciplinary practice in galleries and public spaces from Footscray Community Arts Centre (Melbourne) to 107 Projects (Sydney), Design Festa Gallery (Tokyo) and most recently his internationally-presented dance film Caca-capitalismo which is audio described in two languages and captioned in one.

Jonathan is passionate about community outreach, using the moving body as a source of empowerment and is committed to expanding his knowledge in the aesthetics of access in the contemporary dance industry.

RECENT COLLABORATORS

Rebecca, well-known dancer and choreographer has extensive performance experience with artists such as Lucy Guerin Inc, Shelley Lassica, Sandra Parker, Sarah Aiken nand Harrison Ritche, as well as her independent works. She received the Keir Choreographic Award in 2016. Since 2022 she has collaborated each year with Weave in developments towards a production called Flesh Mirror, to be performed at Arts House, Melbourne in October 2025.

In 2024, Weave staged a production at Dancehouse titled The Solos-Six performers and 6 directors. Weave performers chose their own directors for this project. Our brilliant collaborators were: Milly Cooper, Peter Fraser, Michelle Heaven, Zya Kane, Leesa Nash and David Woods. This made for an exhilarating array of voices, stories, moods, visuals and styles of performance.

Yumi Umiumare

Yumi, acclaimed Japanese/Australian international ‘Butoh Cabaret’ artist, collaborated with Weave for 6 years (2016-2022) across multiple developments and productions including White Day Dream, Butoh OUT! (2018 and 2019) and Wanna be a Rabbit, 2022.