YUMI UMIUMARE Creator / Performer
Born in Hyogo, Japan, Yumi is the only Japanese Butoh Dancer in Australia and the creator of original Butoh Cabaret works. Originally a member of the seminal Butoh Company DaiRakudakan in Tokyo, she came to Australia to perform at the Melbourne International Festival in 1991. She has appeared in numerous dance, theatre and .lm productions in Australia, Japan, Europe, and south-east Asia. She is also an independent performance artist, and has performed at many major national and international dance festivals. including Adelaide Festival, Perth Festival, Melbourne International Festival, Canberra National Multicultural Festival, Hong Kong City Fringe Festival, Trace-Post Butoh Festival (Copenhagen), Image of Asia Festival (Copenhagen), JADE2002 (Tokyo), Festivale dell Colline torinese and Portevenere Festivale, (Italy) and Japanese Theatre season (Paris).

Her unique Butoh Cabaret series, DasSHOKU Productions, features Yumi in Tokyo DasSHOKU Girl (winner of Green Room and Fringe Awards), a provocative Butoh Cabaret performed at the Melbourne Fringe in 1999 and toured around Australia. The adapted version, DasSHOKU Cultivations!!, had a sell-out season in Osaka in 2003. Her other major dance theatre productions are Fleeting Moments (two Green Room Awards 1998), How could you even begin to understand? (collaboration with Tony Yap, Green Room Award 2001), in-compatibility (Melbourne International Festival 2003), INORI-in-visible (toured Takarazuka City, Japan, Melbourne and Copenhagen). She has also worked in the theatre/ dance productions in Australia with Playbox, Handspan Visual Theatre, N.Y.I.D, Theatre Kantanka, Marrugeku and Chunky Move. Yumi has worked with Moira Finucane and Jackie Smith in Short Shape Shift (2003), The Saucy Cantina (Hong Kong City Fringe 2004), and recent season of The Burlesque Hour (Australia 2004, Edinbourgh 2005).

MATT CROSBY Creator / Performer
Matt graduated from the Nida in 1981 and apart from theatre in Australia, has collaborated regularly in Japan for the last decade. In 1995 he received a Japan Foundation Fellowship when he studied with Tadashi Suzuki, and in 2000 an Asialink residency when he performed and toured Japan with Shinjuku Ryozanpaku, a company that he maintains strong contact with to this day.

Matt was artistic director of the Actor's Furniture Group 1996 to 2000 generating new or adapted texts which he directed. The core of AFG were a company of .ve performers and composer Robin Cumming that trained regularly in various performance techniques such as Suzuki, Grotowski, Kristen Linklater and neuro-kinetic forms they developed themselves. AFG produced .ve seasons of critically acclaimed multi-disciplinary performance in Melbourne.

Matt's theatre credits include The Chronicals of Macbeth directed by Tadashi Suzuki at Playbox Theatre Melbourne, Adelaide and Tokyo Festivals 1992; Faust directed by Barrie Kosky at MTC 1993; King Lear directed by Lech Mackiewicz at Playbox, Tokyo, Korea 1993; Blue Hour directed by Renato Cuccolo Adelaide Festival 1996 & Melbourne; Return written and directed by Crosby at the Nagoya Museum of Contemporary Art 2000; Meat Party directed by Michael Kantor at Playbox Melbourne Festival 2000; Tokyo DasSHOKU Girl directed by Yumi Umiumare, Adelaide Cabaret Festival 2002, Kultour 2003, Hazama directed by Kim Sujin with Shinjuku Ryozanpaku Tokyo/Korea World Cup Arts Festival 2002; The Cool Room directed by Deborah Leiser at La Mamma and B Sharp 2003, Sandakan Threnody directed by Ong Keng Seng, Singapore, Brisbane and Melbourne Festivals 2004 and Undertow directed by Juha Vanhakartano South Australian State Opera, Adelaide Festival 2004, Budapest and Helsinki.s

BEN ROGAN Creator / Performer
After graduating from the West Australian Academy of Performing Arts in 1993, Ben has performed in numerous productions including Natural Life directed by Michael Kantor at Playbox, Art and Soul at MTC directed by Kate Cherry and A Dogs Play at Playbox directed by David Bell. He has also worked with Belvoir Street Theatre in Ham Funeral directed by Michael Kantor and with Blackswan Theatre in Perth, and also in After Dinner directed by Andrew Ross. He was in Undertow directed by Juha Vanhakartano South Australian State Opera, Adelaide Festival 2004.

MOIRA FINUCANE Dramaturge
Moira Finucane is a writer, performer and creator of theatre. Her collaboration with theatre creator and director Jackie Smith has created the signature work of Finucane & Smith; intimate theatrical spectacles where burlesque, variety, vaudeville, cabaret and fairy tale are melded into indelible visions of gender, power, violence and desire. Together, they have produced over forty short and full length performance seasons for major arts festivals, theatres, galleries and clubs, including the award winning The Saucy Cantina, The Burlesque Hour and their most recent critically acclaimed gothic wonderland Gotharama.

Finucane's work across genres has led to diverse collaborations including; with Chunky Move in the creation of the site speci.c monstrous Dress Shop for Arcade; with designer and installation artist Anna Tregloan in the creation of Gotharama and Tregloan's Futile Tactile; with visual artist Mirka Mora in the forthcoming Mirka Mora Tent of Art and The Carnival of Mysteries, and with Yumi Umiumare. These include Short Shape Shift (2003), Moira, Jackie and Yumi's .rst intensive cross-pollination across physical styles and energies; the creation of short works for The Burlesque Hour; and, in November 2005, The Banquet Room, drawing in Anna Tregloan in the creation of a world where two demonic sisters settle down to the business of supper in their tiny madly constructed banquet room at Dancehouse.

MARY MOORE Set Designer
Mary has designed productions for many theatre, opera and dance companies in the UK, and Australia. Her most recent designs were Boston Marriage for the State Theatre Co. South Australia and Einstien On The Beach for Leigh Warren and Dancers at S.A. Opera Studio.

She worked with Yumi Umiumare on her own experimental works that integrate the live performer with video and installation art: MASTERKEY, which was commissioned by the 1998 Adelaide Telstra Festival. She has also created EXILE, an installation of electronic images with Japanese Butoh performer Tomiko Takai, which premiered in the 2000 Sydney Spring Festival and subsequently performed in the 2000 Shanghai International Festival..

In 2001 she received a fellowship from ARTS SA that has enabled her to continue this experimental work. She is currently developing a performance work on the subject of Twins. In 2001 she was the creative director and designer of The MEMORY MUSEUM, a site speci.c multi-media installation commissioned for the Centenary of Federation .

Celebrations For the last two years she was a participating artist of the .rst Cultural Diversity Cluster, an initiative of the Australia Council's Multicultural Advisory Committee.

HOSHIKA OSHIMI Costume Designer
Melbourne based Fashion Designer from Kanazawa, Japan. Hoshika works extensively in the texture and concepts of materials. She worked as a costume designer for Yumi Umiumare's .rst major production Fleeting Moments (1998) and Tokyo DasSHOKU Girl (1999). She has shown her work in the Melbourne Fashion Week since 2001 and recently her work autumn /winter 2006 collection was shown in Euroluce, presented by Monument Magazine

Her works have also appeared in many major magazines and newspapers such as Financial Reviews and were involved in the fashion designer feature stories for the Channel Ten coverage of the Melbourne Cup Carnival for 2001.

TATSUYOSHI KAWABATA Sound Designer
Melbourne based Composer originally from Miyazaki, Japan. Tatsuyoshi has composed music for TV, animations and fashion parades. He has worked with Yumi Umiumare since 1995 in the original Tokyo DasSHOKU Girl and did sound mixing for her production Fleeting Moments (1998), INORI-in-visible (2000) and Tokyo DasSHOKU Girl (1999). He has composed all music for ESS HOSHIKA LABRATORY's fashion parade in the Australian Fashion Week and the Melbourne Fashion Week since 2001. He was the winner of Grand Prix at YAMAHA East West Competition 1984, Tokyo and selected special award at All Japan Light Music- Competition 1984, (YAMAHA MUSIC).

DORI BICCHIERAI Lighting Designer
Dori has worked with Yumi Umiumare on various productions since 1998. She is the Technical Coordinator for the Melbourne International Arts Festival, Melbourne Big Day Out and soon for the Commonwealth Games Cultural Program. She spent most of 2005 on tour with UK comedian Ross Noble and also Rove McManus' stand up tour of Australia and New Zealand. Dori also teaches lighting at Victoria University of Technology, and works freelance around Melbourne as a lighting designer and technical production manager.