 CHRISTOPHER worked as an actor in Brisbane theatre for about
10 years. A founding member of Zen Zen Zo Physical Theatre and a member
of the original Core Company, he toured to Singapore with the company,
playing the lead role in Macbeth: As Told by the Weird Sisters, in 2002
and appeared in numerous productions, including The Man Who Sold the
World, Unleashed, and The Cult of Dionysus. He was involved in the
launch of many of the company’s initiatives, including Stomping Ground
and the Breaking Boundaries workshops. More recently, he helped edit
the script for the company’s schools touring production of Romeo and
Juliet and was a part of the company’s involvement in 2003 XL-D
Express, Reflections on The Mayne Inheritance. As an actor, Christopher
has also appeared in productions for Fractal Theatre, La Boite Theatre
Company, and Queensland Theatre Company. He currently resides in rural
New South Wales.
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 CHERYL has spent her life involved in theatre and dance. She
is an internationally renowned performer, choreographer and teacher
with over 25 years of professional experience. Her principal influences
have been through the teachings of Monica Pagneaux (Movement for
Actors), Lindsay Kemp (mime) and Butoh masters Kazuo Ono, Carlotta
Ikeda and Ko Murobushi. Further studies in Shiatsu and healing work
have also influenced her approach to the body, performance and teaching. Her early career was spent touring Australia, New Zealand and Japan,
where she performed in cabaret, dance, theatre and film. From 1982 to
1995 Cheryl was based in Barcelona and worked on the International
touring circuit as a principal artist with The Lindsay Kemp Company (11
years), a guest artist with Ko Murobushi and with her own company Butoh
and Beyond. Cheryl returned to Australia in 1995 where she worked
as an independent dance artist. Her teaching credits include NIDA,
WAAPA, QUT, CPA, Zen Zen Zo Physical Theatre and the Theatre of the
Deaf. She choreographed for Bell Shakespeare, Splinters Theatre, The
Brett Whiteley Studio, Weerewa Festival, and the University of
Wollongong. In 2001 she was the recipient of the Choreographic
Fellowship from the Australian Choreographic Centre, Canberra, to
explore the possible fusions between Butoh and Western theatre and
dance. Cheryl was co-founder of The Byron Bay Theatre Company and Head
of Dance at The Northern Rivers Conservatorium from 1999 to 2001.
Cheryl is currently based in Kauai, USA.
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 JAMES has spent nearly twenty years working as an actor,
director, administrator and teacher for La Boite, TN!, the Queensland
Theatre Company, Toadshow and Warner Brothers, among others. As an
actor some of the highlights include the roles of Garcin in Sartre’s No
Exit, Barney in Summer of the Seventeenth Doll, Oliver in As You Like
It and Jimmy Porter in Look Back in Anger. Since 1994, he has played
Verlaine in Total Eclipse, Mortimer in Marlowe’s Edward II, created the
role of Nick in the world premiere of Stephen Sewell’s Frightened
Heart, Fallen Soul; done both Theseus and Oberon in A Midsummer Night’s
Dream, played Pozzo in Polymorphic’s Matilda Award winning Waiting for
Godot, done a double-act as a transvestite and an SS captain in Bent
and filled the title role in Self. Since the turn of the century James
has performed to critical acclaim as Dave No-Name in Alive at
Williamstown Pier and as Hercules’s doomed stepfather Amphitryon in Mad
Hercules.
His directorial debut was a Matilda Award winning
production of the Sam Shepard play Fool for Love, at La Boite in 1989.
He was assistant director to Sean Mee on the Toadshow extravaganza
Sherwoodstock and directed the Princess Players' very popular version
of Gaslight. His millenial version of Sam Shepard’s rock musical The
Tooth of Crime was one of the biggest critical and box office successes
of 1995 and in 1996, in partnership with Vena Cava, he brought Stephen
Sewell’s ferocious political black comedy Anger’s Love to Queensland
audiences for the first time. He revisited Fool for Love for Hattrick
Theatre in 1997 and since then he has gone on to direct several
productions for QUT, for the Queensland Theatre Company and a
futuristic Faust for the Corrugated Company. During the pre-litigious
nineties, he was a stalwart of the Brisbane independent theatre scene,
helping to make it one of the largest in Australia. As a complement
to his stage work, James has been teaching young Queenslanders to act
since 1995, when he first started tutoring at QUT. Since then he has
taught hundreds of undergraduates the rudiments of the craft. In
addition to his university work, James has traversed Queensland since
2001, conducting workshops as part of the Queensland Theatre Company’s
Regional Partnerships Program. In 2005 James is an Artistic Associate
at Zen Zen Zo, tutoring the core company in aspects of naturalistic
acting, using the Meisner Technique as a primary teaching tool. He is
currently artist-in-residence at the Lasalle College of the Arts in
Singapore.
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 STEPH
trained in movement, mask and mime at Ecole Internationale de Theatre
Jacques Lecoq in Paris. She has also studied commedia d'ell arte with
Marcello Magni, devising with Theatre de Complicite and the Suzuki
method with Zen Zen Zo Physical Theatre. In 2000, she co-founded
Theatre Desequilibrium – an international ensemble of performers and
musicians. The company have performed original works throughout Europe,
the UK and Brazil (including Dix Sur le Pont [2000], Haut-Bas-Fragile
[2001], Circo Elefante [2003]). In 2002, the company initiated a
project of artistic and pedagogical exchange with Movimento Pro-Crianca
in Brazil. The exchange culminated in a production of Brecht's Good
Person of Setsuan performed by disadvantaged young people from Recife.
Steph has taught physical theatre and improvisation for a number of
companies (including Volcano Theatre Co, Epic Arts, s.e., Eastside)
throughout the UK and Europe in a wide range of theatrical and
community settings. She is currently based in Switzerland where she is
developing a project with hearing and non-hearing performers.
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 IAN BAKER graduated from the University of Birmingham Theatre Arts programme in
1990. Since then he has worked in
theatre and drama education in the UK and Asia. When living
in England he worked for LanguageAlive,
one of the country’s premier TIE companies, as an actor teacher. In addition to
his full time teaching role, he also
developed and ran an extensive training programme for drama educators across
the UK’s second city.
Since 1996 Ian has lived and worked in Hong Kong. It is in his role here as Head of Drama and Theatre Arts at one of the
territories major English language international schools that he began to work
with Zen Zen Zo Physical Theatre, who have subsequently trained teachers and students, both in
Hong Kong and Australia. Ian is currently seconded from his teaching role,
working as drama development advisor for the English School Foundation, and it
is with this opportunity that the involvement as producer with Hong Kong: Fa
Hoi Fu Kwai begins.
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 PAUL is an aspiring feature film director who has been
actively involved with theatre, drama, and film for ten years.
Originally drawn to being in front of the audience’s eye, he quickly
discovered his true passion existed behind the scenes, in the creation
and in the creative interplay of the various elements of a story. Today
he works as a freelance camera operator/assistant on various film and
video shoots, a freelance photographer, and also as a writer and/or
director of his own short films, documentaries, music videos, and TV
commercials. To date Paul has written and directed eight separate
projects, most recently being acknowledged for his TV commercial
Foresight, which was awarded as the best film in the 2004 Kodak TVC
competition. Foresight also picked up an award at last year’s ACS
Awards (Australian Cinematographer’s Society).
Paul is ultimately
working towards writing and directing feature films in Australia.
Already he is forging a distinct storytelling style that combines
elements of fantasy with everyday life and the natural world. In short,
Paul is telling the stories that he believes only he can tell.
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 RACHEL was a original founding member of Zen Zen Zo Physical
Theatre and was an Artistic Associate until 1997, having designed all
production up until that point. These included: The Marriage of Figaro
(Stage X Festival), The Cult of Dionysus (Brisbane Festival), the
original 1995 production of Macbeth in Japan, and Butoh productions
Unleashed, The Way of Mud, and Never the Elephant. In 2000 Rachel
designed Seneca’s Oedipus and co-designed The Man Who Sold The World
(Brisbane Festival) for Zen Zen Zo.
Among her other designs are
Waiting for Godot directed by Sean Mee and Jean Genet’s The Maids. In
1997 she was awarded a Matilda Commendation for excellence in theatre
design. In 1998 at the Queensland Theatre Company she was assistant
designer for Sweet Panic and co-designer for children’s show The Blood
and Thunder Adventure on Hurricane Peak.
She has also worked in
design production on three Adelaide Festivals, two Asia Pacific
Triennials of Contemporary Art, the Sydney Festival and the Out Of The
Box Festival.
Since graduating from the University of Queensland
Department of Architecture in 1989 with a Bachelor of Design Studies,
Rachel has combined her stage design career with work in architectural
practice.
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 ROB is a
co-Artistic Director of the Queensland Shakespeare Ensemble
(www.qldshakespeare.org), and a Lecturer in Linguistics and Drama at
the University of Queensland. He did his doctorate in theoretical
linguistics and Australian Aboriginal languages, finishing in 1997.
He has worked with the Artistic Directors and teachers from Pilgrim
Theatre and Shakespeare & Company (both in Massachusetts, US), and
immediately upon completing his doctorate he started to train
intensively with Shakespeare & Company.
Rob has worked
professionally as an actor, director, musician, and teacher in both the
USA and Australia. Since 1999, Rob has lived in Brisbane, but travels
regularly to the United States to continue his training, and to teach
(voice and acting) at Shakespeare & Company in their month-long
actor-training workshop. In Brisbane he has performed and taught with
both Zen Zen Zo and Power of Will as well as the Queensland Shakespeare
Ensemble.
In 2003 he was certified by Kristin Linklater to teach
her voice work, making him one of only five Designated Linklater
Teachers in Australia.
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 HELEN, a
former core company member from July 2003 to July 2004, is now an
associate artist, and continues to train, perform and teach with the
company. Helen was a participant of Zen Zen Zo’s inaugral internship
program in 2003/4.
Her first contact with the company was in 1993,
Kyoto, Japan where she started her training in physical theatre and
butoh. She performed in Zen Zen Zo’s The Cult of Dionysus (1994) and
played Lady Macbeth in Macbeth: As Told by the Weird Sisters (1995).
Other credits with the company include: Steven Mitchell Wright’s those
with Lucifer (2005), The Odyssey, playing the roles of sea nymph,
suitor and Ulysses’ mother (2004), Romeo and Juliet Creative
Development (2003), Tokyo Vogue butoh piece (2002), Ashes Creative
Development (1999).
Helen returned to Japan in 2000/2001 to pursue
her butoh training in Tokyo, where she studied and performed with
leading figures such as Kazuo and Yoshito Ohno, the late Motofuji, and
Dai Rakudakan. She now assists with teaching butoh for the company.
Helen graduated with a B.Ed (hons) and a major in Theatre-in-Education
from the UK. She moved to Australia in 2001 and has lived in Brisbane
since then. She currently works as a teacher trainer at the University
of Queensland’s Institute for Continuing and TESOL Education.
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 SIMON TATE is a teacher, director and performer currently teaching at The Queensland Academy for Creative Industries. He was part of the inaugural Zen Zen Zo Physical Theatre Internship in 2003/4, performing in The Odyssey (2004) and Dracula (2007). From 2003 - 2007 he was the Zen Zen Zo’s Youth Education Manager, training young people around the country and internationally. While working with the company he has facilitated a production each year with young people including Sotoba Komachi (2006), Medea (2005), Antigone (2004), XL-D Express/ The Mayne Inheritance (2003). As a teacher Simon has taught for Education Queensland, The Australian Acting Academy, QUT and for state and national drama educator’s associations. Simon has trained with QUT, Power of Will, The Qld Shakespeare Ensemble, Maitre D'Armes, Gary Worsfield and The SITI Company (New York ). Other performance credits include West Side Story and Pirates of Penzance (Beenleigh Theatre Company), La Bamba (La Boite), Reservoir Dogs, Hurley Burley, Psycho (Armadean Players), Desire Lines - A Few Short Plays About AIDS (International AIDS day), Twelfth Night (Power of Will), The Breakfast Club (QANGO Productions).
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 COLIN has a long association with Zen Zen Zo since composing
for the 1994 Kyoto season of Macbeth. Since that time he has adapted
this score three times and written music for 7 more Zen Zen Zo
productions, Unleashed, The Man Who Sold The World, Steel Flesh,
Oedipus, The Odyssey, Wicked Bodies and those With Lucifer. He has also
written music for several Queensland Theatre Company productions,
Television documentaries and short films along with numerous forays
into the pop production world. Colin is currently teaching at the
Queensland Conservatorium of Music and conduction research into
cross-disciplinary collaboration.
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 From 2003 - 2007 STEVEN was the Associate Director and Senior Teacher of/for
Brisbane based theatre company, Zen Zen Zo Physical Theatre. During this
time, his credits included: The Lost Lords (Director/Designer. Hong Kong
07), Dracula (Director/Designer. Old Museum - Brisbane 07), An End to
Dreaming (Director/Designer/Performer. Brisbane/London/Hong Kong 06), Slide
(Director/Designer/Performer. London/Brisbane 06), Persia
(Director. Australian
Business Arts Foundation Annual Awards Ceremony 06), Macbeth
(Director/Actor.
World Shakespeare Congress Opening Ceremony 06), Sub-Con Warrior 1 (Co-Director/Actor/Choreographer.
Site Specific Outdoor Work - Brisbane 06 Winner of 2 Del Arte Awards - Best
Director and Best New Work), those with Lucifer (Director/Choreographer/Designer. Substation 4, Brisbane 05), XLD Express: The Mayne Inheritance (Co-Director.
QPAC, Cremorne Theatre - Brisbane 04), The Odyssey (Actor, Asst.
Movement Director. QPAC, Cremorne Theatre - Brisbane 04), Romeo and
Juliet (Director/Actor/Designer. Queensland Arts Council Tour, Independant
QLD Tour, National Education Conference, DVD release - Brisbane, Sydney,
Hong Kong 04 - 07) as well as a number of secondary schools residencies
including The Dream (Director/Designer. Kelvin Grove State College 06) and
Azdak's Garden (Director/Designer. Brisbane Girls Grammar - The Judith
Wright Centre 05).
In 2008, Steven became an Associate Artists with Zen Zen Zo Physical Theatre and in this capacity will be one of the directors of Hong Kong: Fa
Hoi Fu Kwai and co-choreographer of Zeitgeist.
In his role as Senior Teacher with Zen Zen Zo Physical Theatre, Steven
taught a number of intensives and on-going training programmes specialising
in the Suzuki Method of Actor Training and Butoh including Winterstomp,
Melbourne Stomp and Youth Intensive Small Stomp.
In 2007, Steven became the Artistic Director and founder of The Danger
Ensemble, directing the company's first production at The Edinburgh
International Fringe Festival and subsequent Australian Tour in
collaboration with U.S musician Amanda Palmer (The Dresden Dolls), Who
Killed Amanda Palmer (Edinburgh/Melbourne/Sydney/Brisbane 2007). The
Danger Ensemble were the key performers and creatives in the interactive
experience A Step In Your Shoes (Brisbane 2007). For the ensemble Steven
is currently developing new work Di Zun Vet Aruntergeyn.
Other theatrical highlights include: Sex Cubed: The Mourning After (Writer.
Laboite Theatre Company - The Roundhouse Theatre, Brisbane 06), David
Fenton's PHD work Unstable Acts (Actor. The Loft - Queensland University
of Technology 06/05/04), modLOVex (Director/Performer. Vena
Cava/Queensland University of Technology and The Straight Out of Brisbane
Festival 05), The Romany Project (Movement Director. The Year of the
Independents - !Metro Arts 04), Pretty Piece of Flesh (Director/Performer.
Straight Out of Brisbane Festival 04), Used Play
Ground (Director/Writer/Performer. !Metro Arts - Brisbane 03), So Broken Director/Performer. !Metro Arts - Brisbane 03), Small
Mercies (Actor.
Laboite Theatre Company, Laboite 02).
Since 1999, Steven has worked as an actor, director, choreographer, writer,
designer, movement director, performer, stylist, poet and programme
coordinator.
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