Slavisa Drobnjaković commenced his acting studies in classical theatre at the age of fourteen in Yugoslavia. Further study took him to the Art Academy and Cultural Anthropology in Belgrade. After moving to Amsterdam in 2001, he has been involved as a performance artist at Das Arts Amsterdam and Amsterdam Cyber Theatre and other artistic collaborations.

He has written several commercial scripts for ComradFilm in Slovenia and worked as a creative assistant on the films of Heidi Vogels and theatre director Boris Todorovic. In recent years, Slavisa dedicates himself entirely to film and works for the stage. He has been engaged as a writer/ director for Sluizer Film Productions for two long features:

       “The Tragic Death of Branka Djukic” follows the painful process within one highlander family, from the moment of the mysterious murder of their daughter to the act of revenge itself. In the development of the story there lie human instincts and irrationalities as catalysts to all further events.”

       “The Waste Land” is the frame tale of a man who tries to escape his homeland and his fate. Historiographic metafiction set in 1923, in the time of the first publishing of T.S. Eliot’s poem of the same name.”

For the stage, he is co-designing a new chamber opera for Nancy Black, for Black Hole Theatre based in Australia. For Foundation IHOS Amsterdam he has written and directed the film sequences for “A Deep Black Sleep”, a chamber opera for solo tenor and six masked musicians. Two short films “Eros and Thanatos” and “The Pain of Others” by Slavisa Drobnjakovic are planned for release in 2021.

       “Eros and Thanatos” is a love story based in an asylum centre, a particular kind of limbo realm where the temporal dimension of past and present intertwine and gradually disappear, reducing the individual to nothing but their life force. A grotesque exemplar, a trivialisation of the Freudian concept of Eros and Thanatos.”

Constantine Koukias is a Greek-Tasmanian composer and opera director based in Amsterdam. His avant-garde approach to opera has resulted in hybrid productions such as Days and Nights with Christ, To Traverse Water, MIKROVION (Small Life – 36 Images in a Phantom Flux of Life), The Divine Kiss, and Tesla – Lightning in His Hand. His most recent large-scale work The Barbarians, inspired by Constantine Cavafy’s famous poem “Waiting for the Barbarians” and commissioned by the Museum of Old and New Art.

His works range from large-scale music-theatre and opera to mobile installation-art events. His compositions have earned acclaim as remarkable for their mesmerising, atmospheric qualities and production designs.

In 1993, he was commissioned by the Sydney Opera House Trust to compose ICON, a large-scale music-theatre piece, to celebrate the 20th anniversary of the Sydney Opera House.

Additional theatre works include Kimisis – Falling Asleep, Borders, Orfeo, Rapture – Sonic Taxi Performance, Schwa – The Neutral Vowel, Antigone and The Da Ponte Project. Prayer Bells, which draws on traditions of Latin, Hebrew and Byzantine chant, had its USA premiere at the Chicago Cultural Centre.

In 2004, he was awarded a Sir Winston Churchill Fellowship. His Incantation II for soprano and digital delay won the International Valentino Bucchi Vocal Prize in Rome in 1997. His design credits include the internationally acclaimed Odyssey and Medea.

In 2014-15, Kimisis – Falling Asleep, a chamber opera for soprano and electric trombone, had its Netherlands premiere at Splendor Amsterdam and later toured to the Karavaan Festival.

Mik Lavage is an Australian sound and vision designer, composer, and musician. Working on stage and screen, Mik has been nominated for AFI awards (screen) and worked on shows nominated for the Helpmann Awards (stage).

Mik has collaborated with a broad range of artists and companies from the ancient Greek leanings of IHOS to the acrobatic worlds of The Tom Tom Crew, Company 2, and Strange Fruit, and has performed worldwide in Melbourne, Munich, Montreal, Detroit, Paris, and Taipei, among other locations. He currently tours globally with The Orkestra of the Underground, Company 2, IHOS, Hermitude, and Toni Childs working as a sound designer, a musical performer, and a designer of interactive visual elements.

Mik is also a graduate of AFTRS (Australian Film, Television & Radio School) in music composition for film, and has produced numerous albums as a solo artist as well as with Toni Childs. His music has been featured in many dance, theatre, and film productions that range from political documentary to feature film.

Hamish is a versatile designer, performer and theatre maker focussing mostly on visual theatre. He has a Masters in theatre (Puppetry) from Victorian College of the Arts(Australia) and has also trained under Philipe Genty, Mary Underwood, Duda Paiva, Laura Sheedy and Peter Wilson. Hamish has worked extensively in theatre, television and cross art forms.  He has collaborated and worked on a range of productions for ABC television, Sticky Pictures, Super Studios and companies Windmill Theatre, Arena Theatre, Victorian Opera, Men of Steel, MIFF and Circus Oz as well as countless small and experimental projects.

He has toured work over 25 cities worldwide including to China, Japan, Malaysia, The UK, Ireland, USA, Singapore, Portugal and Canada. He has won Best Host at Kidscreen 2012 as Hoot The Owl for ABC and Festival Directors award as part of Men of Steel at Melbourne International Comedy Festival.  He is currently developing an experimental theatre/IRL game called Money = Happiness along with some ground-breaking work with Jeff Achtem and Bunk Puppets.

Aleksandar Mijailović was born in Užice, Yugoslavia, in 1976. He graduated with a Bachelor of Arts degree and Master Degree in Motion Picture & TV from the Faculty of Dramatic Arts, Belgrade. He is a Member of UFUS – The Association of Film Artists of Serbia.

He has over 15 years experience in the field of film production, making documentary, fiction, corporate, and music videos, and over 20 years on numerous of television programs as the camerman and director of photography. Among his many programs are Road to Agartha (2020) – a feature-length documentary filmed in Southeast Asia, and Super Heroes of Media Literacy (2020) – a feature TV series over 18 episodes for young people on the topic of media literacy in the 21st century for. National Television of Serbia.

On the Right Track (2019), Young Minds of Serbia (2019), BURN (2018), and Controindicazione (2016) are four of a large number of documentary reports for the non-governmental sectors, such as the  United Nations, Red Cross, USAID and SeConS.

In addition to feature and documentary films, he often works as a videographer in the field of music. He has recorded and directed several music videos, both for classical and jazz music and for alternative rock bands.

In 2019 he was the Director of Photography for the opera A Deep Black Sleep, produced by Foundation IHOS Amsterdam. He has also had a long-term collaboration with the Opera & Theatre Madlenianum in Belgrade for several years.

Ferdy Roozen graduated from the University of Applied Sciences of
Amsterdam with a Bachelor’s Degree in Communication and Media Design.

With his background in video editing and passion for storytelling, he has edited numerous dramatic & music theatre performances for the stage.

In 2021 Ferdy edited the chamber opera Backwards from Winter, by US composer Douglas Knehans which won the American Prize Ernst Bacon Memorial Award for the Performance of American Music.

Mischa is a well known artist, DJ and electronic dance producer in the Amsterdam underground scène. Producing electronic music inspired from many artists he has performed from around the world. Mischa studied at Sound Education Utrecht in 2013.

Since 2014, Mischa has collaborated with Foundation IHOS Amsterdam and producer Constantine Koukias on numerous sound projects from concerts to chamber opera: Intensity of Light – Ex Umbra Lux – Shaped By Trees, Before The Flame Goes Out, After The Silence and Kimisis – Falling Asleep & PRIMORDIAL for Piano and Diverse Media.

Aleksandra Lalić graduated in History of Art at the University of Belgrade. She is well known for creating experimental clothing such as dresses made of human hair.

Under the label ‘LalicA’, she has produced her clothing line since 2002. According to Fashion Reverie, Lalić “represents a continuing trend in European fashion of re-imaging and re-inventing the way consumers and industry professionals consider form, structure, fabrication, and wearability.”

Her 2017 line was described as “all smooth lines and earthy colours, a subtle mix of contemporary style and traditional references”. In 2018, she participated in a group tribute to Boris Nikolić at Belgrade Fashion Week.

Lalić has become known for creating experimental dresses made of felt from human hair.  She uses hair that had been cut-off or rejected, as part of a habitual beauty routine. By re-purposing the hair, the designer views the transformed material as returning “… to the body in the form of clothing as an undesirable surface”. Aleksandra is currently creating costumes for the theatrical performance The Snow Queen at the cult theatre Little Theatre “Duško Radović”.

Ivana Bozic received her Master of Science at the Faculty of Electrical Engineering (ETF), Belgrade in 2007. Further studies took her to the Cisco Networking Academy in cooperation with the School of Electrical Engineering.

As a Senior System Engineer and Project Manager, Ivana has been involved in projects all over Europe.

For almost a decade she has worked for Kapsch Carrier Com, one of the leading Telco integrators in the telecommunication market and industry. In the past years, she has been mostly involved in projects related to Machine Learning, AI prediction of life cycles of technology, new events, faults and frauds for better and easier maintenance of a private network, Chatbots & Callbots, IoT and Cyber security as a necessity of everyday business.

Ivana is passionate about exploring and implementing new technologies in live performance and is currently developing an integrated platform engaging micromechanics for Foundation IHOS Amsterdam’s new work Capricorn in development for 2023/4.

Ivana lives between Belgrade and Venice.

Boris Todorović, is a Serbian director working for theatre, radio, TV and film. After completing his degree in English and Literature at The Faculty of Philology in Pristina, he took his BA in Theatre and radio directing at the renowned Faculty of Dramatic Arts in Belgrade.

During his training, he worked professionally for theatres in Serbia, Bulgaria and France. To date he has directed thirteen theatre performances based on contemporary Serbian and international authors, among which, Mansard by Danilo Kiš, Hyperbolic Paraboloidby Milica Konstantinovic, Wolve’s Pit by Miomir Petrović, Sava-Raka-Tinu by Jelena Lukić, In the Jungle of the Cities by Brecht, So it is (If you Think So) by Pirandello, stand out as clear examples of his ecclectic style.  

He has produced radio dramas for Radio Beograd 2. His productionss have toured successfully in Serbia and abroad, and some have taken part in national and international festivals to high critical accliam.

Though active in all theatrical genres and styles, from classical, through puppetry, to ambiental theatre, he has always cherished a passion for TV and movie directing. In film, he has worked in various capacities, as a script doctor, 2nd AD (TV Series: God Forbid! – PANIKAFILM Belgrade 2015), 1st AD (Some Better People – PFI Studios, Belgrade 2020), Second unit director – editor.

 Between 2005 to 2007 he worked as a project manager and Artistic Director of Open Arc Theatre in Užice where he took part in establishing and developing an open air theatre festival. From 2012 to 2015 he was the General Manager of The City Cultural Center, in Užice (Serbia).

Alan Mauritz Swanson is an American composer and academic who lives in the Netherlands.

Born in Chicago, Illinois, in 1941, he took his BA (1963) and MA (1965) at Indiana University and his PhD at the University of Chicago (1973). In between he studied at Stockholm University. As an academic, he taught at Augustana College (Rock Island, Illinois), Brigham Young University (Provo, Utah), and the University of Groningen (the Netherlands), and came to specialize in the theatre and opera of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.

Alan trained as a singer and many of his early compositions are for voice, but recent work has tended to be varied in form: string quartets, a viola concerto, a partita for piano, and other works. In 2006, he was honoured for his academic and community work by being appointed Officer in the Order of Oranje-Nassau.

Slavisa Drobnjaković commenced his acting studies in classical theatre at the age of fourteen in Yugoslavia. Further study took him to the Art Academy and Cultural Anthropology in Belgrade. After moving to Amsterdam in 2001, he has been involved as a performance artist at Das Arts Amsterdam and Amsterdam Cyber Theatre and other artistic collaborations.

He has written several commercial scripts for ComradFilm in Slovenia and worked as a creative assistant on the films of Heidi Vogels and theatre director Boris Todorovic. In recent years, Slavisa dedicates himself entirely to film and works for the stage. He has been engaged as a writer/ director for Sluizer Film Productions for two long features:

       “The Tragic Death of Branka Djukic” follows the painful process within one highlander family, from the moment of the mysterious murder of their daughter to the act of revenge itself. In the development of the story there lie human instincts and irrationalities as catalysts to all further events.”

       “The Waste Land” is the frame tale of a man who tries to escape his homeland and his fate. Historiographic metafiction set in 1923, in the time of the first publishing of T.S. Eliot’s poem of the same name.”

For the stage, he is co-designing a new chamber opera for Nancy Black, for Black Hole Theatre based in Australia. For Foundation IHOS Amsterdam he has written and directed the film sequences for “A Deep Black Sleep”, a chamber opera for solo tenor and six masked musicians. Two short films “Eros and Thanatos” and “The Pain of Others” by Slavisa Drobnjakovic are planned for release in 2021.

       “Eros and Thanatos” is a love story based in an asylum centre, a particular kind of limbo realm where the temporal dimension of past and present intertwine and gradually disappear, reducing the individual to nothing but their life force. A grotesque exemplar, a trivialisation of the Freudian concept of Eros and Thanatos.”

Don Bate is an acclaimed Australian music producer, performer, composer and conductor. Don worked as a music producer for the ABC and most recently was the Executive Producer of Music Production for ABC Classic. Previous to this Don was the Principal Trombone of the Tasmanian Symphony Orchestra and Associate Principal of the Opera Australia Orchestra.

As a conductor/music director he has led a number of productions for IHOS Opera including The Barbarians and Days and Nights with Christ. Don has also conducted the Tasmanian Symphony on a number of projects and has led a variety of ensembles at the Tasmanian Conservatorium of Music. Don is a graduate of the Canberra School of Music having majored in Trombone with Michael Mulcahy, Conducting with Leonard Dommet and Composition with Donald Hollier.

Highlights of his work as a music producer include a release of Stravinsky Ballet Suite’s with the Sydney Symphony Orchestra, Shostakovich’s Opera ‘The Nose’ with the Australian Opera and numerous other festival live recordings including The Sydney International Piano Competition and two seasons at Musica Viva’s  Huntington Chamber Music Festival. He has also recorded and broadcast artists such as Anne Sophie Mutter, Lang Lang and Daniel Barenboim (with the Berlin Staatskapelle).

Aleksandar Mijailović was born in Užice, Yugoslavia, in 1976. He graduated with a Bachelor of Arts degree and Master Degree in Motion Picture & TV from the Faculty of Dramatic Arts, Belgrade. He is a Member of UFUS – The Association of Film Artists of Serbia.

He has over 15 years experience in the field of film production, making documentary, fiction, corporate, and music videos, and over 20 years on numerous of television programs as the camerman and director of photography. Among his many programs are Road to Agartha (2020) – a feature-length documentary filmed in Southeast Asia, and Super Heroes of Media Literacy (2020) – a feature TV series over 18 episodes for young people on the topic of media literacy in the 21st century for. National Television of Serbia.

On the Right Track (2019), Young Minds of Serbia (2019), BURN (2018), and Controindicazione (2016) are four of a large number of documentary reports for the non-governmental sectors, such as the  United Nations, Red Cross, USAID and SeConS.

In addition to feature and documentary films, he often works as a videographer in the field of music. He has recorded and directed several music videos, both for classical and jazz music and for alternative rock bands.

In 2019 he was the Director of Photography for the opera A Deep Black Sleep, produced by Foundation IHOS Amsterdam. He has also had a long-term collaboration with the Opera & Theatre Madlenianum in Belgrade for several years.

With a gift for extravagant color, beautiful melodic style, and engaging, soulfully dramatic work, the music of award-winning composer Douglas Knehans has gained attention around the world. Knehans’ two-piano work cascade has been hailed by Fanfare Magazine as “effective…incisive…[and] hauntingly beautiful.” A disc of his early music for acoustic and electric cello was released on Ablaze Records in the fall of 2010 and was called “amazingly sophisticated…very beautiful…intriguing… [and] captivating” by Audiophile Audition.

Knehans has received awards from the American Music Center, the NEA, the Australia Council Performing Arts Board, Yale University, the MacDowell Colony, Opera Australia, The Cannes Film Festival, Carnegie Hall, The Kennedy Center, The National Symphony Orchestra, The Academy of Television Arts and Sciences, Meet the Composer, and a host of others. His works have been broadcast on ABC Radio and Television (Australia); NPR and PBS (USA); RAI Radio and Television (Italy); and HTKY, the National Television Broadcaster in Ukraine.

He received his initial music education at the Australian National University. He has received scholarships and awards from Queens College, CUNY, where he gained his M.A. in composition with Distinguished Professor and renowned composer Thea Musgrave, and won the first Luigi Dallapiccola Composition Award (1991) for outstanding achievement in music composition. In 1991, Knehans entered the Doctoral program at Yale University where he studied with Pulitzer Prize winning composer Jacob Druckman, graduating with the Woods Chandler Memorial Prize (1993) for best composition in a larger form.

Knehans has been chair of Composition at the University of Alabama School of Music; was Professor of Music and Director of the University of Tasmania Conservatorium of Music between 2000-2008; and Dean of the College-Conservatory of Music (CCM) at the University of Cincinnati from 2008-2010. He is currently the Norman Dinerstein Professor of Composition Scholar at CCM.

Juanita Rockwell is a writer and director specializing in the development of new work at such venues and companies as The Ontological, Mabou Mines/Suite, Culture Project, Blue Heron, Bushwick Starr, Access Theatre (NYC); Theatre of the First Amendment, Source, Atlas, DCAC, Everyman, Theatre Project, Single Carrot, Iron Crow, AcmeCorporation, UnSaddest Factory, Bell Foundry (DC/Baltimore); Gas & Electric Arts (Philadelphia); Wadsworth Atheneum, Hartford Arts Center, Jorgenson Theatre, Ashford Barn (Connecticut); City Theatre, Black Sheep Festival (Pittsburgh); Teatro Municipão (São Paolo); Teatro Abya Yala (San José, CR); RS9 (Budapest); and broadcast on NPR. Produced writing for performance includes The World is Round (libretto and direction for opera, composer James Sellars), Waterwalk (libretto for gamelan opera, composer Robert Macht); Cave in the Sky (script and direction for puppets/multimedia); Lunar Pantoum (text for dance-theatre); The Circle (script for alternative art audiowalk); Upstream (script for radioplay); Across the Void, Packing/Pecking, Language Monkey, Quantum Soup (short plays); Playing Dead (translation from Presnyakovs w/Yury Urnov); Between Trains, What’s a Little Death (plays with songs, composer Chas Marsh).

As Artistic Director of Hartford’s Company One for six years, Juanita directed early premieres for stage and radio. In 1994 she became the founding artistic director of Towson University’s experimental MFA in Theatre, directing the program for a dozen years. She continues to teach in the grad program at Towson, as well as in the MA/MFA in Creative Writing at Wilkes University, also consulting on its development.

Past project support includes NEA, TCG, ITI, MD State Arts Council; and as writer-in-residence for the Ko Festival, the O’Neill Center’s National Theatre Institute, and the Visual Playwriting Conference at Gallaudet. Juanita is a Fulbright Scholar as well as member of the Society of Directors and Choreographers and the Dramatists Guild.

Dutch soprano Judith Weusten received her Bachelor in Music at the Conservatorium van Amsterdam in June 2017. There she studied voice with Valérie Guillorit and Pierre Mak and was coached by Jan-Paul Grijpink. She now studies at the Dutch National Opera Academy with Margreet Honig.

In May 2016, Judith was part of the Opera Forward Festival of the Dutch National Opera where she performed in a newly composed opera by Mathilde Wantenaar. Later that same year, she sang the role of Lucy in Menotti’s The Telephone. In 2017, she performed her first role at the Dutch National Opera Academy as Sandmann/Taumann in Humperdinck’s Hänsel und Gretel.

She is comfortable in Lied and oratorio as well, regularly performing in recitals. She has sung soprano solos in Haydn’s Schöpfung, Fauré’s Requiem, Pergolesi’s Stabat Mater, and various Bach and Mozart cantatas.

This year, she will perform Lucia in Britten’s The Rape of Lucretia, Frasquita in Bizet’s Carmen and Despina in Mozart’s Così fan Tutte.

Antonis Pratsinakis is a cellist based in Amsterdam. In recent years he has focused on creating performances, including dance, video, acting, and culinary disciplines. He has also participated in numerous music and music theater productions with Kameroperahuis, Ergon Ensemble, Veenfabriek, Atlas Ensemble, Sonnevanck, Toneelgroep Amsterdam, and Korzo Theater. Highlights of these productions include performing solo cello in Peter Maxwell Davis’s Vesalii Icones and the 2017 tour as composer and live performer with choreographer Jasper van Luijk creating the dance performance The Nonsense Society.

He has performed as a soloist and chamber musician in Greece, Germany, Holland, Austria, Bulgaria, Belgium, Italy, Turkey, and Serbia, where he received excellent reviews for his playing. An active chamber music player, he has recorded with the Infinity Piano Trio for the National Radio of Bulgaria. Recently he is working on producing his own music with e-cello as well as acoustic cello.

He studied in Thessaloniki with R. Dragnev and completed his Bachelor and Master’s degrees in Amsterdam with D. Ferschtman and J. den Herder, supported by scholarships from the Greek State Scholarships Foundation and Scholingsfonds.

For more information visit: antonispratsinakis.com

Since graduating with a Bachelor of Contemporary Arts – Theatre from the University of Tasmania in 2005, Chris has worked across the theatre and performance sector in many capacities including directing, acting, and performance art and design, as well as completing a Master of Contemporary Arts degree in theatre and performance. His work has been seen at local, state, national, and international levels.

Highlights include acting/performing in Dancing Back Home (JUTE/Mudlark Theatre Inc.), Borders (IHOS Opera/JUNCTION Arts Festival); Savages (Persona Collective/JUNCTION Arts Festival); Artaud Defacteau (OzFrank Thetre Matrix); assistant directing the Helpmann nominated Barbarians (IHOS Opera/MONA FOMA); and serving as vision designer for Relax the Chimp (TasDance/JUNCTION Arts Festival), Chasing a Sound Like Rain, which toured Tasmania and Canada (LYTE/10 Days on the Island). He was composer/sound designer for I Am a Lake (Mudlark Theatre Inc.) for which he received Best Design in the Professional Theatre category at the Tasmanian Theatre Awards. He also earned two nominations for Blackadder in the Community Theatre section for his work as Edmund and for lighting design. Most recently, he performed in the new work staged at MTC’s Southbank Theatre, Islamophilia; Encore Theatre’s Blood Brothers; and the installation work PANOPTICON at Dark MOFO alongside an array of artists.

Chris is currently an Associate Lecturer, Production Manager and Theatre Technical Officer at the School of Creative Arts whilst also nearing completion of a Master of Fine Arts candidature.

Constantine Koukias is a Greek-Tasmanian composer and opera director based in Amsterdam. His avant-garde approach to opera has resulted in hybrid productions such as Days and Nights with Christ, To Traverse Water, MIKROVION (Small Life – 36 Images in a Phantom Flux of Life), The Divine Kiss, and Tesla – Lightning in His Hand. His most recent large-scale work The Barbarians, inspired by Constantine Cavafy’s famous poem “Waiting for the Barbarians” and commissioned by the Museum of Old and New Art.

His works range from large-scale music-theatre and opera to mobile installation-art events. His compositions have earned acclaim as remarkable for their mesmerising, atmospheric qualities and production designs.

In 1993, he was commissioned by the Sydney Opera House Trust to compose ICON, a large-scale music-theatre piece, to celebrate the 20th anniversary of the Sydney Opera House.

Additional theatre works include Kimisis – Falling Asleep, Borders, Orfeo, Rapture – Sonic Taxi Performance, Schwa – The Neutral Vowel, Antigone and The Da Ponte Project. Prayer Bells, which draws on traditions of Latin, Hebrew and Byzantine chant, had its USA premiere at the Chicago Cultural Centre.

In 2004, he was awarded a Sir Winston Churchill Fellowship. His Incantation II for soprano and digital delay won the International Valentino Bucchi Vocal Prize in Rome in 1997. His design credits include the internationally acclaimed Odyssey and Medea.

In 2014-15, Kimisis – Falling Asleep, a chamber opera for soprano and electric trombone, had its Netherlands premiere at Splendor Amsterdam and later toured to the Karavaan Festival.

Ivan Paitre was born in France and is currently based Amsterdam. Over the years, he has lived and worked in major cities all over the world: Montreal, Miami, Paris, London, and São Paulo, to name but a few.

Ivan is at home in a variety of genres, from sound and film production to site-specific décor and costume design, and is employed for projects in the worlds of modern pop/opera/theatre and for commercial events.

His early training was focussed on the music industry. From 2003 to 2005, he was mentored by multi-platinum producer/songwriter and Grammy winner Rudy Perez in Miami Beach.

In 2008, after gaining much experience in the USA and France, he oversaw the live sound engineering production for Le Caveaux des oubliettes in Paris. In France, too, he added lighting design to his skill set, discovering Cymatic light VJ installations of vibrating water.

Recent film projects include Werzerkering, Reliviation by Wouter Springer and Ray van Der Bas, starring Pamela Anders; and Biljestdag (Day of Reckoning) by Gideon van Eeden and Ray van der Bas, starring John Leddy and Wendy Riksen.

He was the assistant producer on numerous editions of Inner Voyage by Ballet Bernasconi based in San Francisco.

Ivan is involved with the Amsterdam-based Kuza Studios – a creative agency aligned with the UN’s Sustainable Development goals, working with companies and foundations to create immersive digital media and powerful events to drive Corporate Social Responsibility.

Cazerine Barry is an artist who has worked in many areas of performance, direction, and media. Over the past 20 years, her work has been presented in Australia as well as in Hong Kong, Taipei, Tokyo, Jakarta, Mexico City, Beijing, Paris, Christchurch, Taranaki, Glasgow, and Monaco.

She is the recipient of the New Media Fellowship and Eva Czajor Memorial Award. Her other awards include an Asialink Residency in Taiwan, a Highly commended Australian Cinematography Award, and a cultural exchange award from the Australian Indonesian Institute. Her short films have been purchased by SBS and BBC television. She has created media for performances with Australian companies Vitalstatistix, Playbox, Back to Back, Terrapin Theatre, Cirque, Flying Fruit Fly Circus, Black Hole Theatre, and Arena Theatre Company.

Recent commissions include Parteitag (Concertgebouw Orchestra/Holland Festival) composed by Brett Dean, the song cycles A Thousand Doors A Thousand Windows and The Legend of Ned Kelly (Terrapin Theatre) composed by Constantine Koukias, and SQUARE (North Arts) composed by Euphonia.

She has collaborated with David Chisholm on the digital pantomime SPRUNG, Insurgency for Melbourne University Union Theatre, and the development phases of opera noir Dr. Couteau and musical theatre work Revival. She has recently presented excerpts of Olegas for IHOS Opera while completing her degree in early education. Since that time, she has produced visual media for the musical theatre development Carnegie 18 at the Arts Centre and worked on a solo project through the assistance of Creative Victoria.

Jason has worked as a lighting and projection designer for over twelve years,

His recent credits include Red Racing Hood, Big Baby, Pip and Pooch, Shadow Dreams, Sleeping Horses Lie, Love (Terrapin Puppet Theatre); Born from Animals, Branch Book Bench, The Company I Keep, If I jumped I’d Fly (Tasmanian Theatre Company); Motel Dreaming, Galla Placidia (Dark MOFO); Echo, The Barbarians, and Kimisis (IHOS); Tell Tails (Bridget Bridge); Abandoned Dances, Episodes, Birds (Mature Age Dance Ensemble); Wild at Heart, Motel Dreaming (Unconscious Collective); Spiegeltent (Ten Days on the Island); and Fall, Winter, Spring (Second Echo Ensemble).

Jason has been developing a broader arts practice around light over the last seven years. He is currently studying Visual Arts at the Tasmanian College of the Arts and has had artworks presented in festivals around Tasmania. The two most recent were Angry Electrons, a solo show in Dark MOFO 2015, and Crevasse, which was a part of envelop(e) curated by Matt Warren, a co-presentation between Contemporary Arts Tasmania and Dark MOFO.

jasongarethjames.com

Mik Lavage is an Australian sound and vision designer, composer, and musician. Working on stage and screen, Mik has been nominated for AFI awards (screen) and worked on shows nominated for the Helpmann Awards (stage).

Mik has collaborated with a broad range of artists and companies from the ancient Greek leanings of IHOS to the acrobatic worlds of The Tom Tom Crew, Company 2, and Strange Fruit, and has performed worldwide in Melbourne, Munich, Montreal, Detroit, Paris, and Taipei, among other locations. He currently tours globally with The Orkestra of the Underground, Company 2, IHOS, Hermitude, and Toni Childs working as a sound designer, a musical performer, and a designer of interactive visual elements.

Mik is also a graduate of AFTRS (Australian Film, Television & Radio School) in music composition for film, and has produced numerous albums as a solo artist as well as with Toni Childs. His music has been featured in many dance, theatre, and film productions that range from political documentary to feature film.

Constantine Koukias is a Greek-Tasmanian composer and opera director based in Amsterdam. His avant-garde approach to opera has resulted in hybrid productions such as Days and Nights with Christ, To Traverse Water, MIKROVION (Small Life – 36 Images in a Phantom Flux of Life), The Divine Kiss, and Tesla – Lightning in His Hand. His most recent large-scale work The Barbarians, inspired by Constantine Cavafy’s famous poem “Waiting for the Barbarians” and commissioned by the Museum of Old and New Art.

His works range from large-scale music-theatre and opera to mobile installation-art events. His compositions have earned acclaim as remarkable for their mesmerising, atmospheric qualities and production designs.

In 1993, he was commissioned by the Sydney Opera House Trust to compose ICON, a large-scale music-theatre piece, to celebrate the 20th anniversary of the Sydney Opera House.

Additional theatre works include Kimisis – Falling Asleep, Borders, Orfeo, Rapture – Sonic Taxi Performance, Schwa – The Neutral Vowel, Antigone and The Da Ponte Project. Prayer Bells, which draws on traditions of Latin, Hebrew and Byzantine chant, had its USA premiere at the Chicago Cultural Centre.

In 2004, he was awarded a Sir Winston Churchill Fellowship. His Incantation II for soprano and digital delay won the International Valentino Bucchi Vocal Prize in Rome in 1997. His design credits include the internationally acclaimed Odyssey and Medea.

In 2014-15, Kimisis – Falling Asleep, a chamber opera for soprano and electric trombone, had its Netherlands premiere at Splendor Amsterdam and later toured to the Karavaan Festival.

Following a four-year engagement as Assistent Generalmusikdirektor at the Volksoper Wien and a seven-year tenure as Erster Kapellmeister at the Luzerner Theater, Warwick Stengårds is a freelance conductor based in Vienna.

In addition to an extensive symphonic canon, Stengårds has a music-theatre repertoire of over 100 works performing with companies such as Vienna State Opera, Volksoper Wien, Folkoperan Stockholm, Opera Australia, Victoria State Opera, Chamber Made Opera and West Australian Opera where, in 1991, he was appointed Music Director.

Operatic highlights include the world premieres of Koehne’s Love Burns, Tahourdin’s Heloise and Abelard, Ingham’s Transfigured Night, Koukias’ MIKROVION, Australian premieres of Turnage’s Greek, Williamson’s Our Man in Havana, and regional premieres of Wozzeck and The Rake’s Progress.

In Europe, Stengårds has conducted the Ulster Orchestra, the SL Orkester, the Uppsala Kammarorkester, Klangforum Wien, the Wroclaw Philharmonic, the Rundfunk Sinfonie-Orchester Saarbrücken (featuring soloist Andreas Scholl), DalaSinfoniettan, the Lucerne Symphony Orchestra, the European Doctors Orchestra and the Nürnberger Symphoniker.

Recent projects included:

Wozzeck (Gurlitt), Ariane (Martinu), Barbara Strozzi (Gräwe – World Premiere) and concerts for the Luzerner Theater.Tyranny of Distance with the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra, Einstein Cantata with SonicFiction and concerts with the Luxemburg Philharmonie. Purcell’s Fairy Queen in South Africa, the world premiere season of Naske’s Das Städtchen Drumherum at the Vienna State Opera, Die Csardasfürstin in Leipzig, Bluebeard’s Castle in Melbourne and concerts with Soundstream Collective. Concerts with the Australian Philharmonic, Monash Academy, Luxemburg Philharmonie and Klangforum Wien are among future projects.

Sandra Sissel is an American cinematographer, director and producer. Sandi is best known for her work in documentaries such as Salaam Bombay!, Chicken Ranch, Mother Teresa (1986) as well as TV shows like 60 Minutes, and feature films like Mr. and Mrs. Smith.

She has been a member of the American Society of Cinematographers since 1994 and the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences since 2004.

Sandi started college in 1967. She pursued her interests and desire to become a reporter by studying journalism and television. While she still wanted to pursue journalism, she did contribute to a few small films during her time in college. After completing this degree, she moved to Wisconsin with her husband, where she taught and filmed for the University of Wisconsin.

After this career, she moved to New York City where she soon got a job with both NBC and later ABC. During this time, she contributed as cinematographer for The Wobblies and assisted in camera or electrical work for Best Boy, Paul Jacobs and the Nuclear Gang, Free Voice of Labor: The Jewish Anarchists, Fame, No Nukes and Rush. After working for ABC for a few years, she eventually decided to pursue a career that focussed primarily on cinematography for documentaries and feature films.

In her pursuit of this career she has gained a great deal of respect from her colleagues as a female working behind the camera. She currently teaches Advanced Cinematography Techniques and Advanced Cinematography Practicum at Tisch School of the Arts.

Architects Peta and Elvio are co-founding directors of the interdisciplinary practice Liminal Studio based in Hobart, Australia. Underpinning the Studio’s philosophy is the belief that collaborative design across disciplines drives innovative thinking. Liminal Spaces is the part of the Studio where areas of research, investigation, and participation go beyond the traditional realms of architecture, ranging from delivering award-winning architecture and interiors to acclaimed collaborations in contemporary performances, exhibitions, and festivals to roles influencing the framing of cultural policy.

Their design approach to performance explores how space and meaning can be manipulated with minimal forms, where the interaction between the performer and the space define one another. This has led to award-winning collaborations with IHOS for Kimisis – Falling Asleep, which debuted at MONA FOMA in 2010 and toured internationally in 2014 and 2015; The Barbarians (MONA FOMA, 2012); the experiential installation ECHO Part 1 – A Neurological Soundscape (2013), and also the Tasmanian Theatre Company’s production Born from Animals (2014), which won the award for Best Professional Design at the inaugural Tasmanian Theatre Awards.

liminalstudio.com.au

Greg began his interest in audio at 16 while still at school in Tasmania. Throughout his career, he has worked as an acoustic jazz and contemporary music concert engineer, a film and video sound recordist, and a designer/engineer in a variety of theatre performance. Some of the highlights of Greg’s career have included engineering the sound for Roy Orbison, Don Burrows, Ivan Rebroff, The Angels, Sonny Terry, and Brownie McGee and touring with international acts 10CC, ELO, and The Stranglers. Greg was also sound recordist on Words and Silk, an award winning documentary on author Gerald Murnane.

Greg’s first IHOS production was Days and Nights with Christ in 1997. Since then he has designed and operated the sound for productions including the small music theatre works Kimisis – Falling Asleep, Kitchen Table Rondo, and Prayer Bells and the large-format productions The Divine Kiss, Sea Chant, Tesla – Lightning in His Hand, and The Barbarians for the Museum of Old & New Art.

He also designed the works for the IHOS Music Theatre Laboratory including Spirits of the Hoist, Schwa – the Neutral Vowel, As if Electronically Controlled, Touch Wood and Antigone.

Following his retirement from ABC TV, Greg has focused on other interests such as photography, 3D recording, and plane-wave technology in audio design.

Jason works with electricity to make art.  He has had several artworks presented in festivals, and galleries, around Tasmania. He has designed lights, and or projection, for dozens of professional productions. He has a strong focus on new Australian works, and projects with social benefit. He won two Tasmanian Theatre Awards for lighting design: Terrapin’s Big Baby in 2015, and Hobart Rep’s Speaking in Tongues in 2020.

Selected recent credits include design for Bleeding Tree for Archipelago Productions,  Dark Path Dark MOFO 2019, Backwards from Winter, Echos, The Barbarians, and Kimisis IHOS Opera; Riddle of Washpool Gully, Red Racing Hood, Big Baby, Pip and Pooch, Shadow Dreams, Sleeping Horses Lie, and Love Terrapin Puppet Theatre; F*ck, Babel Invisible Practice, What Rhymes with Cars and Girls,  Born from Animals, Tasmanian Theatre Company; Flux, Wild at Heart, Motel Dreaming Unconscious Collective;  Seven Deadly Sins, Handmaid, Abandoned Dances, Episodes, Birds, Sing for Me Mature Age Dance Ensemble. Let Me Dry Your Eyes Second Echo Ensemble. 

jasongarethjames.com for a full list of works.

Mik Lavage is an Australian sound and vision designer, composer, and musician. Working on stage and screen, Mik has been nominated for AFI awards (screen) and worked on shows nominated for the Helpmann Awards (stage).

Mik has collaborated with a broad range of artists and companies from the ancient Greek leanings of IHOS to the acrobatic worlds of The Tom Tom Crew, Company 2, and Strange Fruit, and has performed worldwide in Melbourne, Munich, Montreal, Detroit, Paris, and Taipei, among other locations. He currently tours globally with The Orkestra of the Underground, Company 2, IHOS, Hermitude, and Toni Childs working as a sound designer, a musical performer, and a designer of interactive visual elements.

Mik is also a graduate of AFTRS (Australian Film, Television & Radio School) in music composition for film, and has produced numerous albums as a solo artist as well as with Toni Childs. His music has been featured in many dance, theatre, and film productions that range from political documentary to feature film.

Anke Höppner was born in Germany and studied with Professor Renate Faltin at the Hanns-Eisler Conservatorium in Berlin. She won first prize in the Hanns-Eisler Liederwettbewerb (the award for the best vocal graduate in the German Democratic Republic) and, in 1993, the Bayreuth Stipendium. In 2001, she won the Helpmann Award for best female operatic performance.

An early association with Komische Oper, Berlin, led to principal roles in Les Brigandes, Die Zauberflöte, Orfeo ed Euridice, La Cenerentola, and Der Freischütz. Anke then began to take larger roles in many German theatres including the title role in Jenufa, Abigaile in Nabucco, Lisa in Pique Dame, Santuzza in Cavalleria rusticana, Charlotte in Werther, Cherubino in Le nozze di Figaro, and Jane Seymour in Anna Bolena for the Schleswig-Holsteinisches Landestheater; and Mrs Grose in The Turn of the Screw for both Neue Opernbühne Berlin and the Otono Festival in Madrid. She also appeared as Brautjungfer in Der Freischütz for the Staatsoper in Berlin.

Upon moving to Australia in the 1990s, Anke was quickly offered engagements by Opera Australia. For the national company, she has sung the title roles in Iphigénie en Tauride, Jenufa, Madama Butterfly and The Gypsy Princess, Mimi in La bohème, Lucretia Janz in Batavia, Donna Elvira in Don Giovanni, The Foreign Princess in Rusalka, and Emilia Marty in The Makropulos Secret.

For State Opera South Australia, Anke performed the title role in Madama Butterfly and Santuzza in Cavalleria rusticana. She sang Lucretia Janz for the Perth International Arts Festival and the Melbourne International Arts Festival and the role of Procne in The Love of the Nightingale for Victorian Opera and Opera Queensland.

Concert engagements have included Liederabende with songs of Schubert, Schumann, Strauss, and Dvorak in the London Opera Festival, the Komische Oper Berlin, the Melbourne International Music Festival, and Barossa Music Festival; Brahms’ Deutsches Requiem with the Schleswig-Holsteinisches Sinfonieorchester; Mozart’s Requiem with the Berliner Philharmonie; Pergolesi’s Stabat Mater with the Neubrandenburger Philharmonieorchester and the Schleswig-Holsteinisches Sinfonieorchester; Marie in Berg’s Wozzeck with the Philharmonisches Staatsorchester Halle, and Beethoven’s Symphony No. 9 with the Tasmanian and Queensland Symphony Orchestras. In recent seasons, she has sung the title roles in Turandot for Opera Australia and Tosca for West Australian Opera; Minnie in La fanciulla del West for West Australian Opera and Opera Australia; Leonore in Fidelio for Opera Queensland and Opera Australia; and The Witch in Hansel and Gretel for State Opera of South Australia. She also repeated her portrayal as Procne in Sydney and appeared as Gerhilde and 3rd Norn in Opera Australia’s Der Ring des Nibelungen in Melbourne. In 2014, Anke returned to Perth as Tosca.

Born in Tasmania, Sarah moved to Sydney in 2005 and completed a Master of Performance at the Sydney Conservatorium. Sarah performed for Opera Australia’s NSW Schools Company in Sid the Serpent (2011), Cinderella (2009), The Barber of Seville (2008) and The Magic Flute (2007). Other engagements include Soprano II in Mendelssohn’s Lobgesang (Willoughby Symphony, 2011), Handa Opera on Sydney Harbour: La Traviata (Opera Australia, 2012) and Opera Australia’s Opera Gala (2010). In Australia, Sarah appeared regularly with ensembles such as Cantillation, Pinchgut Opera, and the Sydney Symphony Orchestra and has recorded for ABC Classic FM.

In 2010, Sarah created the role of Spirit in FOX, a new opera for children (Monkey Baa Theatre), and premiered the one-woman chamber opera KIMISIS for IHOS Opera/MONA FOMA. In 2011, she performed the lead role of Rose Pickles in excerpts from George Palmer’s new opera Cloudstreet, and also appeared as Papagena in The Magic Flute (Pacific Opera and Canberra Symphony Orchestra).

In 2012, Sarah commenced work at the Hessisches Staatstheater Wiesbaden as the winner of the 2012 German Australian Opera Grant. She debuted seven roles in her first season, ranging from Valencienne in Die lustige Witwe to Berta in Il barbiere di Siviglia. She was retained as a full ensemble member for the 2013–14 season, singing roles such as Christel in Der Vogelhändler and Satirino in Cavalli’s La Calisto. She is currently working as a freelance singer, singing Pamina/Papagena, Gretel, Fatime (Weber’s Abu Hassan), and Bastienne for Junge Oper! in schools across Germany. In December 2014, she revived her interpretation of Berta (Il barbiere di Siviglia) at the Hessisches Staatstheater Wiesbaden. In April 2015, she sang Lesbina in a concert performance of Galuppi’s Il filosofo di campagna, and in May 2015 she appeared with Ensemble Mattiacis as Amor in da Gagliano’s La Dafne as part of the International Maifestspiele in Wiesbaden. In January 2016, she played Amor in Gluck’s Orfeo ed Euridice for Pocket Opera Wiesbaden, a role which she had already sung as a jump-in at the Hessisches Staatstheater Wiesbaden.

Don Bemrose is of Gungarri descent and has worked hard to become Australia’s foremost male Aboriginal classical opera singer. In professional productions, Don has sung four leads, three of which were world premieres of new Australia opera works: Pecan Summer (Short Black Opera Company, 2010), From a Black Sky (The Street Theatre, 2013), and Cloudstreet (State Opera of South Australia, 2016).

After achieving his childhood dream in 2012 of performing for Opera Australia in two productions, Don moved to the nation’s capital to commence life with his wonderful partner. Don’s success can be attributed to an amazing extended family who have educated him culturally, spiritually, and emotionally, creating a ferocious curiosity to explore this amazing planet and connect with all there is. Don’s beautiful grandmother Nana Ruth Hegarty and the Gungarri tenor Harold Blair inspired in Don a passion for singing and classical music.

Don graduated with a Bachelor of Music Performance in 2011 from the Victorian College of Arts, University of Melbourne. He continues to evolve his pure vocal delivery honing his craft and training his lyric baritone voice with the incredible Raymond Connell.

Don recognises it is his path to take a passion for classical music and the operatic voice and infuse it with his strong cultural heritage and positive thinking to educate, inspire, and entertain.

Aria Johanna Pezzimenti is from Sydney, Australia. Aria attends St. Scholastica’s College. She previously studied at Los Carmonas Flamenco Dance School for ten years. Aria has sung locally in two live performances including jazz cabaret and a ’60s themed show. This is Aria’s first film, and she is extremely excited to have the opportunity to work alongside such accomplished and talented people.