COOL ASIAN MUM’S GUIDE TO LIFE

Director/Choreographer Amy Zhang
Feature Artist Huika Li
Associate Artist Jackson Garcia
Associate Artist Amalina Batrisyia
Score Composed by Jackson Garcia / Mastered by Matt Gray

Amy Zhang is a dancer, choreographer and movement director who specialises in street dance. Having completely immersed myself in the global street dance scene, Amy has worked, taught, choreographed and performed, both nationally and internationally. Amy’s practice explores the intersections of cultural nuance and storytelling through experimenting with street-style foundations and contemporary frameworks. Amy has created works, performed and undertaken residencies with The Hayes Theatre, Critical Path, Diversity Arts, The Joan, Belvoir St Theatre, Brisbane Festival, Metro Arts and Vitalstatistix. Amy is also currently a resident of the City of Sydney’s Live/Work residency.

Huika Li is a life long advice giver and Amy’s Mum.

Jackson Garcia’s art practise spans across live performance, street dance and digital media. Coming from the world of street dance where he has accumulated many titles, Jackson is known and sought after for this ability to combine his foundations in B-Boying, Popping, Locking and Hip Hop to create his own style of movement. His diverse skill set has seen him teach, choreograph, perform and compete both nationally and internationally. Jackson’s unique style has found him gaining the lead role in award winning contemporary-break theatre show, M.I.N.D.E.D., that has toured through China, Adelaide Fringe Festival and Melbourne. He has also featured in Cross Cultures programmed in No Show at Carriageworks, One Way at La Boite Theatre and KLAPPSQUAD at the Campbelltown Arts Centre.

Amalina Batrisyia is a dancer of various styles including dancehall, experimental freestyle and krump. She is also a choreographer, performer, battle dancer and teacher. She has been teaching dancehall regularly in Brisbane since 2017, after moving from Singapore in 2015 and not being able to find any dancehall classes in her new hometown. She has since picked up freestyle dance, battling and krump, and is active and heavily involved in the various styles while leading and building the dancehall community in Queensland.

LOVE LETTERS IN MOTION

Choreographer/Director Anti Fischer
Core Dancer Billie Casey-Jabore
Core Dancer Bianca Coxeter
Dancer Makayla Crawford
Dancer Malana Chapelle

Anti Fischer is a Hip Hop dancer, teacher and choreographer based in Brisbane, Australia.  She has taught around the world at renowned studios such as Millennium Dance Complex (L.A + Toronto), Movement Lifestyle (L.A), Dance Works (Japan), The Village (Sydney), Underground Dance Centre (Toronto) and more! In 2010 Anti was one of 14 cast members selected across America to be in the Monsters of Hip Hop show in Los Angeles. Most recently Anti taught at The Australian Dance Festival in Sydney (2016) and toured with Dream Dance Company for the “Secret Society Show” Choreographed by Candace Brown and directed by Marko Panzic (2016,17) Some of her other career highlights include assisting world-renowned choreographers: Tony Tzar, Kevin Maher and Nick Demoura. Anti is incredibly passionate about dance and loves to inspire and share her craft!

Billie Casey Jabore is a professional dancer, choreographer, teacher, agent originally from the Gold Coast, Queensland. Billie has been a successful working dancer throughout Australia since 2005 whilst based in Melbourne, Australia. Billie has over 20 years of dance experience behind her and is one of Australia’s finest Dancer/Choreographers specialising in the hip-hop and commercial industry. In July of 2018 she successfully obtained her O1 visa and moved her life to L.A to pursue her dreams in the dance industry. Having worked on major events such as Xfactor, Stereosonic, Big Day Out, Let Them Eat Cake, Laneway, Australian Open, and with artists such as, Justin Bieber, Neyo, Avicii, Peking Duck, Tiesto, Illy, Paula Abdul, Jessica Mauboy, Miss Blanks & Briggs (to name a few) Billie believed she had what it takes to make her dreams a reality on the international scene.

Bianca Coxeter is an aspiring professional artist who constantly seeks to immerse herself in a diversity of creative movement and performance genres. Commencing classical dance lessons from the moment she could walk, Bianca consistently continued training through to the completion of two years full-time study at the Queensland Collage of Dance (Elite Performance in Commercial Dance & Musical Theatre Program, 2017-2018). During such time, she was humbled to learn from Expressions Dance Company (Intensive Program), Sydney Dance Co. (Intensive Program) and Merge Dance Theatre on full scholarships. Presently pursuing her film debut under the direction of internally renowned, Baz Lurman and Warner Bros. Pictures. Bianca’s additional accolades include the commercial credits Nathaniel, Ellen Reed, Brisbane Bullets, Universal Store, Channel Nine, RayWhite and WaterAid Ball.

Makayla Crawford’s passion for dance started at the age of 5 where she began her training in all styles of dance. Over the past two years, she has completed her full time course at Dance Force which has lead her to explore a wide range of movement and to be exposed to many different industry professionals. She has recently been signed and is beginning to work professionally in the industry.

Malana Chapelle is an 18 year old who has recently graduated 2 years of full-time training at Dance Force. With her passion for movement, she has been able to explore the art through teaching and choreographing, allowing her to push boundaries and limitations on herself and others.

BETWIXT

WANIDA SERCE
Wanida is a creative director, choreographer and performance artist. In 2017 she founded Pink Matter, a company aimed at creating opportunities, highlighting powerful women in the community and creating conversation around the intersectionality of diversity in Australian media. Some of the projects Wanida has been involved with are: Performing in the ‘Commonwealth Games’ and the ‘Special Olympics’ as well as featuring in campaigns for Vice, Absolut Vodka, Fox Sports & Universal Store. Wanida is a proud woman of colour that is successfully working in multiple fields of street/commercial dance. Often judging events, teaching workshops and producing work, She’s highly active in the dance community with 3 sold out independent productions under her belt. She continues to strive to inspire, mentor and be a pillar of representation.

AMY ZHANG
Amy is a movement artist and choreographer who specialises in street dance. Working across physical and digital spaces, her practice explores the intersections of cultural nuance and storytelling through experimental street-style and contemporary frameworks. Amy has turned the heads of iconic brands like Nike, Cartier and Calvin Klein and recently developed an AI dance app in collaboration with Google. Credits aside, Amy loves dance for its holistic benefits, she has co-written and facilitated programs for at-risk youth, dementia sufferers, refugee girls and the everyday person. Through this work Amy has partnered with organisations like Headspace and Participate Australia.

JOSHUA TALIANI
Joshua Taliani is a 26 year old Aboriginal/Italian man who hails the Bidjara and Kullali people of central west Queensland. As an established choreographer and dancer, he has trained under many different artists in multiple genres in performing arts, from classical to Street Dance. Joshua’s performance experience consists of representing Australia in the World Hip-Hop Championships multiple times as well as various other competitions in the US with dance company, Academy Of Brothers. He has also appeared on Australia’s Got Talent with his dance crew which placed in the top three leading to big stage performance opportunities and music videos with well known Australian artists. Joshua is now focusing on building upon the queer dance scene specifically within the queer POC in the wider Brisbane community being the Father of the leading Vogue house in Brisbane – ‘House of Alexander. Through the art of the ballroom scene, vogueing and raising awareness of this platform for queer people of colour, Joshua sets to inspire and mentor people of his community to feel worthy in themselves as well as create spaces and art work as well as functions/events to merge a stronger growth within our queer POC community from first nations to all round.

HUDA FADLELMAWLWA
Huda Fadlelmawla is black woman who has always been passionate about art and expression. As a dancer and poet her mission is to build a platform for people to learn and be educated on the BIPOC narrative. Dance is something she sees as her first language and poetry is her native tongue. She is an advocate and educator and all things black youth, this is her focus and drive. Huda is also a cultural and wellbeing officer, cultural competency educator, national recognised poet, Qld state poetry champ 2020, behaviour management specialist, Krumper and community and personal development coach. 

MONIKA STOJEVSKI
From a young age Monika has had a strong desire to express herself through dance and performing, known for her versatility and the ability to fuse and adapt to various genres of dance. Monika’s stage performance work includes theatre productions like the grant winning show ‘One Way’ – a contemporary x street fusion show by Elements Collective, ‘Shade’ – a visual art & street dance production by Wanida Serce and ‘The Type’ a street dance fusion show by Pink Matter. Through Monika’s time with dance collective Pink Matter, she has been able to train in multiple street dance genres, compete in Australia’s Got Talent, ongoingly perform at Eat Street Northshore, feature in music videos and perform at various events around South East QLD.

PEACH PAPAYA

Dancer, Choreographer Clarence Kent
Dancer, Choreographer Jazi Othman 
Dancer, Choreographer Kieran Lewerissa

Clarence Kent is a world renown dancer who started his career in Brisbane and has now taken his talents world wide through dance battles and performances. Over the years he has focussed on Popping, Animation Dance and Hip Hop to create his own unique style.  He has represented Australia many times in battles throughout the world for the past several years and has been performing with the Jabbawockeez in LA and Macau from 2016-2019. During those years Clarence had lived in LA most of that time and created a name for himself in the street dance scene in Australia and the U.S. His crew GoldenCoastline, who have successfully ran some of the best and biggest battles in Brisbane have been an integral part of the dance community here in QLD. During the last 5 years, on his visits back home he has always been putting in work towards the dance scene through his teachings, jams and events.

Jazi Othman is a self taught dancer and found his passion for the arts when he started dancing around the age of 20 years old. He started with freestyling and krump before exploring other areas of dance. An original member and one of the founders of the infamous Goldencoastline crew and recent BANG Fam, he has competed nationally and overseas in battles winning a number of titles and has performed in numerous videos and live shows. His latest work includes performing at Splendour in the Grass and headlined the main stage at Commonwealth Games with Awemill (SOA – SuperSonicShapeShiftersofAwe).  Jazi loves to share his knowledge of dance through regular teaching and wants to contribute to help grow the dance community between Gold Coast and Brisbane. Stay Golden! 

Kieran Lewerissa didn’t find a love for dance until graduating high school where he began taking Hip Hop choreography classes at local Gold Coast studios. It wasn’t until then that he realised he had a passion for the art form and delved deeper into it. He spent years competing at local and national choreography competitions and represented a number of dance crews including 220 and Fly Society. Inspired by freestyle dancers in the Brisbane dance scene, he began to transition away from choreography and focus more on building his own style and key foundations in Hip Hop. Kieran made this transition in 2014 and hasn’t looked back since. He now calls his inspirations fellow crew members which is where Golden Coastline began. This crew has become family to him and has put on numerous unforgettable events and battles for the Queensland dance scene. His goal is to inspire the youth of today and highlight the vital role dance has played in his life.