Colossus with Stephanie Lake Company

Stephanie Lake was born in Saskatoon, Canada, raised in Tasmania and is now based in Melbourne, Australia. She has been choreographing for over 25 years and founded Stephanie Lake Company in 2014. She was appointed Resident Choreographer of The Australian Ballet in 2024 and Artist in Residence (AiR) of Semperoper Ballet, Dresden in 2025. Her major works including The Chronicles, Manifesto, Colossus, Circle Electric, Pile of Bones and Double Blind have been performed across Australia and toured to 17 countries worldwide.

Lake has created works for the Nuremberg Ballet, The Australian Ballet, Sydney Dance Company, Queensland Ballet, Dancenorth, New Zealand Dance Company, Chunky Move, Tasdance, Expressions Dance Company, Beijing Dance/LDTX, Stompin and Frontier Danceland (Singapore) among others. She collaborates across theatre, film, opera, visual art and music video and has directed several large-scale public participation performances involving over 2500 participants.

Lake’s works have won Helpmann, Green Room and Australian Dance Awards for Outstanding Choreography and have been nominated for a Hong Kong Performance Award and a Buenos Aires Theatre Award for Best International Show. She is the recipient of a prestigious Sidney Myer Creative Fellowship, the Chloe Munro Fellowship, the Dame Peggy Van Praagh Choreographic Fellowship, and an Australia Council Fellowship for Dance. Her performance career spanned twenty years, during which she toured and danced extensively with Chunky Move, Lucy Guerin Inc and Phillip Adams’ BalletLab. Lake sits on the Victorian College of the Arts Advisory Board.

Image by Pedro Grieg

Nicole is a professional contemporary dance artist based in Melbourne. She trained full-time at Transit Dance where she completed her Certificate 4 in Dance, as well as her Diploma in Dance and Elite Performance. Nikky also went on to acquire her Certificate 4 in Dance Teaching and Training.  Since her studies, Nikky has been working professionally in the contemporary dance scene between Melbourne and Perth, and is Lead Rehearsal Director for Stephanie Lake Company’s Colossus. Nikky has taught and toured Colossus to London, South Korea, Switzerland, Geneva, Toronto, Montreal, Buenos Aires, Taipei, Hong Kong, Newcastle (Aus), Perth, Sydney, France and Germany.  Nikky also performed in the original season of Colossus in Melbourne. 

Nikky has been teaching dance for over a decade in many styles, as well as in choreography and technical development.

Sarah McCrorie is a freelance contemporary dancer with a passion for creative development, improvisation and live performance. Sarah has performed in various works such as Colossus (2018) by Stephanie Lake Company, ‘A study of Being’ (2019) by Kayla Douglas,  ‘Hard-Cover Ctrl’ (2022) by Victor Rottier, ‘Hysterics’ (2023) by Kayla Douglas, and MASS MOVEMENT by Stephanie Lake Company. Sarah has also worked extensively with choreographers such as Alice Topps, Lina Limosani, Cass Mortimer Eipers and Isaac Carols.

Beyond her performance work, Sarah has worked as a Rehearsal Director for Stephanie Lake Company’s internationally renowned work Colossus. Since 2019, Sarah has remounted and toured Colossus to Sydney, Paris, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Geneva, Montreal, Toronto, Brisbane, Dresden (Germany), London and Galway (Ireland).

Beth Raywood Cross is the Executive Producer of Stephanie Lake Company, driving the company’s national and international growth across major festivals, touring and large-scale productions. With a background spanning producing, programming and arts leadership, Beth has worked across Australia’s leading cultural organisations, including The Australian Ballet, Insite Arts and Dancehouse, supporting new creations, artist development and strategy. She oversees SLC’s producing, touring, funding, partnerships and operations, and has been instrumental in delivering works such as Manifesto, Colossus, The Chronicles, VISTA and MASS MOVEMENT.

Emily O’Brien is a Risk, Safety and Crowd Consultant based in naarm (Melbourne). She has worked extensively across the fields of theatre, dance, cultural events, corporate events, live arts and festivals.

With a Master of Science in Crowd Safety & Risk Analysis from Manchester Metropolitan University (2022), a Master of Arts Management from the University of Melbourne (2012), an Advanced Diploma in Public Safety - Emergency Management (2019) and a Certified Practising Risk Manager (CRPM) qualification, combined with twenty-five years' experience as a practising Production and Risk Manager with First In Last Out, Emily is perfectly placed to assist clients in developing new risk, safety and project delivery ecologies. In addition to her work practice, she is the Chair of the Board of Platform Arts in Geelong and sits on the VAPAC Industry Development Initiative taskforce.

She has delivered production, event and operations management (inclusive of project-based risk and safety planning) for clients and projects including: All the Queens Men, All Tomorrow's Parties, Antony Hamilton, Arena Theatre Co, Auspicious Arts, BalletLAB, Black Lung Theatre & Whaling Co, Chamber Made, City of Darebin, City of Melbourne, City of Port Phillip, Collingwood Yards, Daniel Schlusser Ensemble, Dark Mofo, Feel Presents, Harvest Festival, Ilbijerri Theatre Company, Insite Arts, Jodee Mundy, Lucy Guerin Inc, Luke George, Madeleine Flynn & Tim Humphrey, Melbourne Festival, Melbourne Fringe, Melinda Hetzel & Co, MONA FOMA, Nat Cursio Co, Natalie Randall + Hissy Fit, Next Wave, Nicola Gunn, Peepshow Inc, Playking, Polyglot Theatre, Pony Express, Spinifex Gum, Stephanie Lake Company, Tamara Saulwick, The Other Art Fair, the Other Film Festival, The Substation, The Wheeler Centre, Token Events, White Night Melbourne and Yirramboi, among others.

Rob has worked professionally in theatre and the wider performing and visual arts field for 20 years. His specialisation is at the intersection of technology and art, designing and implementing interactivity and control systems that can tell a story. He has an in-depth knowledge of lighting design, audio visual design, stage automation, computer programming and he regularly produces custom technical solutions for artists. Rob has worked extensively with Melbourne Theatre Company, Arts Centre Melbourne, Auckland Theatre Company, Lawrence Arabia, Taika Waititi, Sharing Stories Foundation, Opera Australia, The Australian Ballet, OPTO projects, Dancenorth, Lucy Guerin Inc and Stephanie Lake Company. 
 

Robin Fox is an internationally recognized Australian based audio-visual artist and composer whose work spans live performance, exhibitions, public art and composition for contemporary dance. His audio visual laser works, which synchronise sound & visual electricity in hyper-amplified 3D space have been performed in over 60 cities worldwide. His critically acclaimed performance work TRIPTYCH premiered at Unsound Krakow late 2022 and has toured extensively since with highlights including Berlin Atonal, Barbican (London), Ephemera (Warsaw) and the Lincoln Centre New York among many others. TRIPTYCH was awarded the Isao Tomita Special Prize for electronic music at Ars Electronica 2023.

Recent large scale audio-visual works include ICON which illuminated the Sydney Opera House for it’s 50th birthday (2023), Aqua Luma for Mona Foma 2021, Library of Light for Illuminate Adelaide 2021 and MONOCHORD for Rising Festival 2022. In 2019 his science fiction opera DIASPORA premiered at the Melbourne International Arts Festival. Made in collaboration with Chamber Made the work won Green Room Awards for Best Production and Best Visual Design.

Since 2008 he has composed music for over 25 contemporary dance works working with Australian choreographic luminaries Stephanie Lake Company, Gideon Obarzanek, Lucy Guerin and Antony Hamilton.

In 2016 Fox co-founded MESS (Melbourne Electronic Sound Studio) a not for profit organization dedicated to empowering all people to build a creative life through music. For more info visit www.mess.foundation.

Fox holds a PhD in composition from Monash University and an MA in musicology. The latter documents the history of experimental music in Melbourne 1975-1979.

Harriet, based in Melbourne, Australia, designs and creates costumes for dance, opera, musicals and theatre. She has designed for contemporary dance companies and artists across Australia such as Stephanie Lake Company, Lucy Guerin Inc, Sydney Dance Company, Chunky Move, and Dancenorth. She has designed several productions for Victorian Opera, winning a Green Room Award for one of her designs for VO in 2011. She has also designed musicals and circus/ physical theatre performances, contemporary performances and theatre pieces.

Bosco is a lighting and set/space designer and builder. His interest is in work that involves bodies and movement, how light feeds across, and can influence a space. In 2016 he co-founded ADDITIVE, a collaborative lighting design company.  He is the recipient of 3 Green Room awards for visual design. He has worked with large contemporary dance companies, intimate projects and individual artists, theatre works as well as designing and installing lighting for public spaces
Projects include; Antony Hamilton - Meeting. Tim Darbyshire - More or Less Concrete. Dance North - Attractor. Chunky Move - It Cannot Be Stopped, Token Armies, 4/4. All The Queens Men - Congress, Coming Back out Ball, Playdate. Lucy Guerin Inc. - Pendulum. Stephanie Lake - Double Blind, Replica, Colossus, Manifesto, The Chronicles. The Australian Ballet - Circle Electric. Luke George - Erotic Dance, Asia TOPA - XO State, Mel Lane - Nightdance, Arkadia. Mona Foma - Faux Mo 2018/2019/2020. Dark Mofo - Night Mass 2018. Zoe Barry - The Nervous Atmosphere. Alex Harrison/Paea Leach - The Difficult Comedown.