Britta Johnson is a Toronto-based composer, lyricist and writer. Her writing credits include: Life After (Canadian Stage/Musical Stage Company). With her sister Anika Johnson: Brantwood (Theatre Sheridan; Dora Award for Audience Choice), Jacob Two-Two Meets the Hooded Fang (YPT; Dora Nominee Best new musical), Trap Door (Theatre Sheridan, book by Morris Panych). With Sara Farb: Reframed (Acting Up Stage Company/AGO; Dora nominee Best New Musical). With Katherine Cullen: Stupidhead! (Theatre Passe Muraille; Dora Nominee Best New Play). This past spring, she was librettist for choreographer Robert Binet’s adaptation of The Kreutzer Sonata with Ballet Moscow.

Dr. Silver: A Celebration
Composer and alleged cult leader Dr. Gordon P. Silver has just passed away. In this site-specific, immersive electro-musical, his family and followers have gathered for a memorial service and ’release ritual’. The ceremony is interrupted by the arrival of his eldest son Gordon Jr, who has excommunicated from the group 15 years ago. 

Stephanie Lake Company is one of Australia’s most celebrated and prolific dance companies. Known for its gutsy, original choreographic style and striking visual aesthetic, Stephanie Lake Company’s highly acclaimed works including The Chronicles, Manifesto and Colossus have been performed across Australia and toured to over sixteen countries worldwide to some of the world’s most prestigious theatres.

Founded in 2014 and based in Melbourne (Naarm), the company brings together an extraordinary collection of diverse dancers and creative collaborators attracting sold-out audiences and five star reviews nationally and internationally. SLC’s works are renowned for their explosive physicality, poetic imagery and razor-sharp precision.
Stephanie Lake Company also collaborates across theatre, film, music video, opera and visual art and has created mass-scale public performances involving thousands of community participants of all ages and backgrounds.
 

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

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.

Hung Dance is a Taiwanese contemporary dance company founded on May 5, 2017.Choreographer Lai Hung Chung serves as the artistic director, and the troupe's name comes from the Chinese character 翃 , meaning to fly. The company has adopted four core elements in its development: Annual productions, the International Collaboration Project (ICP) , International Tours, and the Stray Birds Dance Platform.

Currently, at the core of our annual productions are the works of Artistic Director, Lai Hung-Chung. His dances are inspired by daily life matters, taking internal emotions and physical states and putting them into dance movement. He is perceptive to the subtle relationship between people and nature, and extends elements of Tai Chi to integrate with contemporary thinking and cultivate a new dance vocabulary. In 2018, the short piece, Birdy, was developed into the dance company's first feature-length work, Boundless, which was invited to premiere in Madrid, Spain at the "Made in Taiwan-Taiwan en el C rculo", co-hosted by the Taiwan Embassy in Spain and the C rculo de Bellas Artes de Madrid. After premiering, the work then returned to Taiwan, to tour in Kaohsiung, Taipei and New Taipei City, and also toured in the Ivory Coast. The company's second feature-length work was 2020's See You, which premiered at Taipei's Wellspring Theater and was nominated for the 19th Taishin Arts Award.

The international tours began at the founding of Hung Dance. Lai Hung-Chung's short pieces, Watcher and Birdy, were submitted to international choreography competitions and art festivals, winning 13 international awards. Following this success, the company embarked on an international tour that saw them perform in Europe, Asia, America, and Africa, with a total of 70 performances.

The development of the ICP began as, from its establishment, the company has had the opportunity to meet many like-minded and unique dancers while touring in different countries. The ICP invites international choreographers to Taiwan to tailor-make new works for Hung Dance, allowing the dancers the opportunity to work with international choreographers and learn dance vocabulary from different cultural backgrounds. The first international collaboration project was Out of Elegant, a work co-produced with Spanish choreographer Mario Bermudez Gil and performed at the Experimental Theater of the National Theatre in 2020. This collaboration also opened up a different network for international tour opportunities.

The Stray Birds Dance Platform (Stray Birds) project was proposed in 2018, in hopes of creating a bridge and providing opportunities for young choreographers to publish works on the platform. Furthermore, Lai Hung-Chung hoped to utilize the international network of contacts accumulated in recent years to invite international choreography competitions and art festivals to present awards, select dance works by youth talents to compete, and create opportunities to connect with the world.With a platform that connects the like-minded, we can establish connections between young choreographers and the international market. It is hoped that in the future, Stray Birds will become a large-scale international dance platform. Starting in 2022, we will be pleased to open applications to international works, deepening our international connections and fostering a positive, competitive environment.

"One of the best of the young choreographers working in Taiwan today."— Taipei Times, 2020

"Taiwanese choreographer Lai Hung-chung continues to show he’s a rising star." — Lucy Ribchester, The List.

Lai Hung-chung, a Taiwan National University of Arts graduate, founded Hung Dance in 2017, leaving a remarkable imprint on Taiwanese choreography. In 2016, he won gold and three awards at the Taiwan Creative Dance Competition, a record-setting feat. Lai's triumphs extended globally, garnering accolades in international choreography competitions.  

Lai's creation, rooted in the theme of freedom, incorporates Tai Chi elements with contemporary concepts, fostering an inventive dance vocabulary and pushing creative boundaries. Noteworthy pieces like "Boundless" (2018), "See You" (2020), "Formless Erosion" (2022), and "Birdy" (2023) reflect this ethos. "See You" received Taishin Arts Award nomination and earned acclaim at prestigious festivals, including 9 five-star reviews at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival and Adelaide Fringe Festival. "Birdy" sold out all its 20 shows at the Festival OFF Avignon in 2023.  

Lai drives international collaboration and supports emerging talents. He founded the Stray Birds Dance Platform in 2019, spotlighting innovative, international choreography and offering production and touring opportunities. Lai's commitment to diversifying Taiwan's dance scene is evident in his cultural exchanges and connections.  

In summary, Lai Hung-chung's Hung Dance legacy encompasses pioneering achievements, international recognition, and a commitment to enriching Taiwan's dance landscape through artistic exploration and global engagement.  

Graham Lessard is a music producer, recording engineer and mixer based in Calgary, Alberta. Beginning with a rented 4 track cassette recorder in his parents' basement, he has spent the last 20 years helping musicians make records that sound like they imagined when they first wrote the songs. He has worked with Stars, the Barr Brothers, Timber Timbre, Caity Gyorgy, Reuben and the Dark, Shaela Miller, the Velveteins, and Samantha Savage Smith, among many others. Some of these projects have been nominated for JUNO awards and shortlisted for the Polaris Prize, but so far nothing has surpassed the thrill of hearing one of his recordings on the radio for the first time. Graham has also been faculty at Banff Centre and University of Lethbridge, mentoring up-and-coming audio professionals. In addition to his freelance music production work, he is currently Studio Manager at the National Music Centre.