The Future of Performance - Panel

Paul Mason has been Director Music at the Australia Council since 2009. Prior to that he worked extensively in broadcasting and live music presentation and sat on the boards of various music organisations. Paul previously established and managed the successful Australian Music Radio Airplay Project (AMRAP). He has also been a board member of the Music Council of Australia and was President of Music NSW.

David Berthold has directed for most of Australia's major theatre companies, as well as internationally. He is currently the Artistic Director of Brisbane Festival. He was previously AD and CEO of La Boite Theatre Company (2008–14), Griffin Theatre Company (Australia's leading new writing theatre company, 2003–06) and Australian Theatre for Young People (Australia's flagship theatre for young people, 1999–2003). He was also Associate Director of Sydney Theatre Company (1994–99), and Artistic Associate of the Queensland Theatre Company, 1991–94. He has also directed productions for Melbourne Theatre Company, Playbox Theatre, Black Swan, Belvoir, the Sydney Opera House, NIDA, QUT, Opera Queensland, Auckland Theatre Company, the Royal National Theatre (London), Theater an der Parkaue (Berlin), and in London's West End. He was the Festival Director of World Interplay 2007. In 2013 and 2014, he curated a stream of independent theatre for the Brisbane Festival.

Lindy Hume is one of Australia’s leading directors, acknowledged internationally for fresh interpretations of a wide variety of repertoire. She is equally recognised for progressive artistic leadership,recently as Festival Director for Sydney Festival (2010-2012) and Perth International Arts Festival (2004-2007), and before that as Artistic Director of OzOpera, Victoria State Opera and West Australian Opera.. As a director she has created over 50 major productions across Australasia and internationally: Opera Australia, New Zealand Opera, Deutsche Staatsoper (Berlin), Opera Theatre St Gallen (Switzerland), Handel Festspiele Halle, Aldeburgh Festival (UK), Houston Grand Opera and Leipzig Opera; and has won several prestigious awards, including Helpmann and Green Room Awards for Best Director for the World Première of Richard Mills’ Batavia. A passionate advocate for regional arts, Lindy currently sits on the Boards of South East Arts (Chair) and Regional Arts NSW. The University of Western Australia awarded Lindy Hume the Honorary Degree of Doctor of Letters in 2007.

Steph Hutchison is a choreographer, performer, and artist-researcher. She is an experienced and sought after artist with background in contemporary dance, improvisation, circus arts, physical theatre, dance video and dance technology. Steph has created work for numerous dance technology projects at Deakin Motion.Lab involving real-time motion capture systems, robots, haptic, 3D stereoscopic environments, transmedia dance works and artificial intelligence performance systems. She has worked with Motion.Lab on two Australian Research Council Discovery projects in dance technology, as well as several industry collaborations. Her recent performances include ‘Emergence’, real-time motion capture AI performance with John McCormick at Metanoia Theatre in Melbourne and within digital art symposiums in Ghent and Vancouver. Steph also collaborated on ‘The Crack Up’ a transmedia dance performance by Kim Vincs at the Merlyn Theatre.

Kristina is a lecturer at the Queensland University of Technology. Her research interests include the education of the aspiring professional musician. In 2014 she completed a PhD, From music student to industry professional: An entrepreneurial learning design, which developed a curriculum model for student-run enterprise. As an accomplished jazz vocalist, Kristina has performed with Don Burrows and his quartet, Tommy Tycho and the QLD Symphony Orchestra, Frank Bennett, and she has supported such artists as Tina Arena, James Morrison, Grace Knight, Vince Jones, Marcia Hines and Glen Shorrock. Kristina released her first album in 2001, which was awarded a Sunnie Award in the Queensland Recording Industry awards. Most recently Kristina recorded a jazz album ‘One Bright Star – A Christmas Album’ for Rhondalay Music based in Los Angeles.

Yanto Browning is an associate lecturer in music & sound at the QUT and also works as a freelance music producer, composer, sound engineer and mix engineer.has done several award winning and charting recordings of late including Mosman Alder, the Medics, Karl S Williams, Art of Sleeping, Kate Miller-Heidke and Jac Stone and is a lovely chap. He is the composer at CreateX for the Garden of Miniscule Delights and the 3D movie Mudskipping