Eva Aymami Rene is a scholar, dancer and choreographer. A Senior Lecturer of Dance at ARU, her research focuses on performance of political identities and the construction of gender identity in contemporary Europe.
Having completed her PhD thesis, Choreographing the Silence, Women Dancing Democracy in Post-Franco Spain, at the University of Surrey, Guildford, Eva continues her research in dance as a corporeal language to speak of memories and silence in Post-Franco Spain. A Fulbright Scholarship recipient, she has also researched dance as a construction of social protest at UCLA's Department of World Arts and Culture.
Eva has danced and choreographed in different theatre productions in Barcelona with La Fura dels Baus and Less 4 Souffles, and in Los Angeles with Maria Gillespie and Victoria Marks, while she also developed community projects with the American Veterans Association, Pina Bausch in Germany and Rosas Dance Company in Brussels.
Eva graduated in 2001 in Social and Cultural Anthropology, from the University Autonoma of Barcelona, and simultaneously from the Contemporary Dance and Choreography programme at the Institute of the Theatre, the conservatory of Barcelona, Spain.
Patricia Di Risio is a lecturer in Film, Media and Journalism at Monash College (Monash University). She completed her doctoral thesis at the University of Melbourne and her research focuses on unconventional representations of women and femininity in 1990s Hollywood.
Patricia’s research explores the impact of such representations on genre filmmaking practices and considers the positive and innovative changes that feminist and queer discourses have had on commercial cinema.
Patricia has taught film, media and theatre studies in Italy, the UK and Australia. She is a filmmaker profiles writer for the Melbourne Women in Film Festival (MWFF) and a freelance theatre reviewer for Stage Whispers.
Melina Scialom is a performer, choreologist, dramaturge and dance researcher. She is currently a Research Fellow at the Postgraduate Programme in Performing Arts (UFBA) in Brazil, where she collaborates with Professor Ciane Fernandes in her Somatic-Performative Research approach, and teaches undergraduate and postgraduate courses.
With a PhD in Dance from the University of Roehampton, UK, and a Specialist Diploma in Choreological Studies (Trinity Laban, UK), Melina's current interests lie in contemporary practices associated to Laban praxis, practice-based, embodied and somatic research enquiries in the field of dance making and dramaturgy.
Melina is artistic director of the dance company Maya-Lila (since 2005) where she performs and dramaturges dance performances.
Naz Yeni is a theatre-maker, movement practitioner, researcher and lecturer. She trained in Hacettepe University Ankara State Conservatoire (Turkey) and Birmingham School of Speech and Drama (UK).
Her acting credits include Lady Macbeth for Creation Theatre Company (Oxford) and chorus for City of Birmingham Touring Opera.
Naz's MA was in applied linguistics (King’s College London). Her MEd was in drama education (Cambridge University). Her PhD research at ARU is on theatre stylistics.
While re-training as a physical performer, Naz has studied the Six Viewpoints with Mary Overlie as well as with Anne Bogart and SITI Company, trained with Eugenio Barba and Odin Teatret, specialised in Laban-based creative dance and movement analysis. Her directing credits include Turkish State Theatres and Arcola Theatre’s Creative Disruptions Festival (London).
