Our Team

  • Daniele Constance is an artist with a focus on social, civic and inclusive arts practices, currently working on the land and waters of Kombumerri Country as part of the Yugambeh Language Region, Gold Coast. Daniele creates artistic works that draw from community engaged, site-specific and contemporary arts, performance and dance practices.

    Daniele works with care, transparency and with relationships at the center of her work. Her work is informed and shaped by community engaged and inclusive arts methodologies.

    Daniele has presented independent performance and contemporary art works with: Footscray Community Arts Centre, Festival of Live Art, Melbourne Fringe Festival, Testing Grounds, La Boite Theatre, Metro Arts, Supercell Festival of Contemporary Dance, Horizon Festival, Castlemaine State Festival, HOTA, IMA and Undercover Arts Festival. She has trained with Force Majeure, One Step At A Time Like This, held mentorships with Chris Williams (PVI Collective, Dadaa) and Kate Sulan (Rawcus). Daniele was the founding Director of inclusive and disability-led arts collective Aha Ensemble.

  • Sarah worked in the Art Department for the film and television industry in Sydney before moving up to the Northern Rivers in 2003 to work at SAE College. She worked at Byron Writers Festival for 13 years where her role grew and encompassed operations and programming amongst other responsibilities During that time Sarah worked with five different directors and significantly contributed to the growth from being a three person organisation to its current state of seven arts workers and a team of more than 30 contractors.

    Sarah started her Operations Manager role with Sprung in June 2022.
    She has a BA (Hons) in Multimedia, First Class.

    Sarah is on the Board of SeedArts and is an experienced Personal Support Worker.

  • Ash is an experienced arts worker, having worked across the arts both onstage and off.

  • Paul ‘Moonshine’ Walker is a dancer, performance artist and community arts worker based on Bundjalung Country in Northern NSW. With more than 20 years’ industry experience, Paul works across dance, theatre, live performance, cabaret, drawing and socially engaged practice. A graduate of London’s Central School of Ballet (2007), his work explores how embodied and creative practices can foster connection between people, communities and the more-than-human world.

    A central focus of Paul’s practice is creating inclusive, accessible arts experiences with marginalised communities. Since 2017, he has worked extensively with disabled artists as a facilitator, choreographer and collaborator. His roles have included supporting participants with diverse access needs through Milk Crate Theatre (2017–2019), performing with RUCKUS Ensemble (2018), leading the Dance Ensemble at Studio Artes in Hornsby (2017–2019), and currently working with Sprung Dance Theatre in the Northern Rivers (2023–present). Across these contexts, Paul prioritises autonomy, creative agency and joyful embodiment, cultivating environments where disabled artists can develop their artistic voices and flourish.

    Paul is also committed to community-led creative recovery and social connection. He led and directed I Will Survive / We Will Thrive (2022–2024), a project developed in response to the Northern Rivers floods that supported LGBTIQA+ communities through free, trauma-informed workshops in performance and artmaking. Supported by NORPA, Arts Northern Rivers (Country Arts Support Program) and Tropical Fruits Inc, the project culminated in public showings, exhibitions and community celebrations.

  • Anat Yariv is a dance movement therapist, facilitator, and contemporary dance artist based in the Northern Rivers. With over 20 years of experience in dance, her practice brings together Contact Improvisation, performance-making, and therapeutic movement.

    Anat holds a Bachelor’s degree in Dance Education and a Master’s degree in Dance Movement Therapy from the University of Melbourne. She has worked across diverse contexts with children, adults, and artists. Her work is grounded in embodiment, creativity, and the belief that every body has a unique way of moving, expressing, and connecting.

    As a facilitator, Anat creates supportive and responsive spaces where participants can explore movement, collaboration, and presence at their own pace. She brings a trauma-informed and inclusive approach, with sensitivity to access, group dynamics, and individual experience.

    At Sprung Ensemble Days, Anat looks forward to supporting a shared creative process—where movement becomes a way to meet, communicate, and create together.

  • Simone is a producer, director, teacher, performance maker and broadcaster who has specialised in circus and physical theatre for over 30 years, with a fondness for making extraordinary work in ordinary places and co-founding grass roots organisations to do so.

    In 2024, Simone co-founded the post menopausal, post-post punk outfit Mutton, in 2018 she co-founded community arts organisation SeedArts and was Executive Director till 2025. For SeedArts she produced, wrote and directed ‘The Xrossing’ a large-scale tightwire project in Lismore celebrating Aboriginal tightwire legend, Con Colleano. Simone loves teaching physical comedy with Sprung and has also worked as a monkey with the ABC TV,  a humour valet with the Arts Health Institute, a lollipop lady with Roundabout Theatre & all manner of things Circus Oz. Simone is interested in making work at the intersection of circus, music, satire and some other street.

  • Jazz’s studies in landscape architecture and social work have fostered a deep curiosity about how places shape how we feel and how connection to self, others, and community unfold through the spaces we share. She brings experience across mental health and disability support with an approach grounded in curiosity, appreciating strengths, and supporting people to build on how they experience and move through the world. Through her work at Sprung, Jazz witnesses the joy of self-expression, the connection found in movement, and the sense of belonging and mutual care that become possible through trust and support.

  • Katie Cooper-Wares is a neurodivergent, interdisciplinary performance artist and creative producer specialising in the forms of dance theatre, storytelling and comedy.

    Her collaborative, socially-engaged practice is driven by the untold stories of diverse artists and communities and the need to bring these to light through art.

    Katie is the founder of the Creative First Aid Alliance which advocates for the arts in the recovery of the Northern Rivers post catastrophic 2022 flood event/s. She is currently receiving two arts leadership mentorships by the Creative Recovery Network and also through the Front and Centre: Arts Leadership Program (Accessible Arts)

    Recent training & collaborations include Force Majuere, Zen Zen Zo Theatre, Giovanni Fusetti, Action Theatre Australia, La Pocha Nostra & Mattel Destro, Adelaide Fringe Festival, Woodford Folk Festival, HOTA, NORPA and countless other festivals, events, organisations and artists regionally and nationwide.

OUR BOARD

CHAIR - Brian Tucker

Until his retirement Brian had been working since 1980 as an accountant for visual and performing artists, writers, filmmakers and other creatives, and as an auditor of not-for-profit arts and disability support organisations, arts peak bodies, Indigenous Art Centres, and other organisations supporting families and individuals in remote communities. He is committed to particularly supporting those who are marginalised by disability, remoteness, economic prospects and hardship.

There is an old saying “you can take the boy out of the bush but you can’t take the bush out of the boy” so it’s no surprise that, growing up on the Atherton Tablelands and (from age 15) working on properties on Cape York, he relished working in the Art Centres on remote communities with Trudy the (Landcruiser) Troopie who lived in Alice Springs. The corrugated tracks and sand-hills of the Central and Western Deserts were an enjoyable escape from traffic lights and roundabouts.

He has been the Treasurer of over forty arts organisations, from the big (Queensland Performing Arts Trust, Brisbane Youth Service) to the small (Arts Law Centre of Queensland) to the tiny (Brisbane Independent Filmmakers), and is an advocate for fair and ethical treatment of artists, Indigenous and non-Indigenous.

Over the years he has built up a sizeable art collection and his only yet-to-be-fulfilled goal is to be a writer.

Elliot Bledsoe

Elliott Bledsoe runs Agentry, an arts marketing micro-consultancy working nationally and based in Meanjin/Brisbane on Turrbal and Jagera Country. Agentry supports artists, arts organisations and arts groups to introduce marketing strategy and optimise their marketing communications efforts – whether IRL, URL or hybrid (in-person, online or both). Increased marketing competency, confidence and curiosity in the arts helps more Australians become aware of and access, enjoy and participate in diverse arts experiences.

His work focuses on on the 7 Ps of marketing as a framework for building strong and resilient arts brands. This is complimented with tools to understand arts customers and audiences through customer segmentation and to position arts brands in response to the competitive environment they find themselves in. Through collaboration and co-design Elliott helps arts clients to build an informed strategic layer to their marketing activities, which supports marketing planning, brand identity management, storytelling through content and continuous improvement through measurement, analysis and evaluation.

Since starting Agentry in 2017 he has worked with ArtsHub, the Australian Network for Art and Technology (ANAT), BlakDance, Brisbane Chamber Choir, CircuitWest, the Institute of Modern Art (IMA), the International Federation of Arts Councils and Culture Agencies (IFACCA) and many others.

In 2020 he graduated from RMIT University with a Master of Marketing and is recognised as a Certified Practising Marketer, accredited by the Australian Marketing Institute since 2024. In 2021 and 2022 he was the Arts Marketing and Digital Competency mentor in the Regional Arts Services Network (RASN) Creative Business Champions (CBC) program. Before starting Agentry he held marketing and content positions with the Queensland Writers Centre, ABC Radio National at the Australian Broadcasting Corporation, the Australia Council for the Arts and others.

Relatedly, Elliott also has extensive experience in copyright, with a focus on the interplay between rights and creative practice.

sigrid macdonald

Sigrid Macdonald, Independent Arts Worker and Access Consultant. Northern Rivers-based Creative, Arts Worker and Cultural Cultivator Sigrid Macdonald has a specialist interest in the intersection between Deaf community and culture and the creative arts sector. Sigrid’s current practise focuses on the exploration of culture and identity of the unique Northern Rivers Deaf community, and cultivation of relationships and collaborations between artists and arts workers and Deaf people, both as practising artists and as audiences. 

Her approach is informed by her own lived experience of Deafness, involvement in a regional Deaf community with a significant but largely undocumented cultural history, as well as her own desire for creative pursuits and connection. 

These influences along with holding roles in the community sector since 2006, have pushed Sigrid to play with processes which build bridges between cultural and social realms. Sigrid’s pursuit of relationships between the political, cultural and public spheres is a practise often termed as cultural mediation. Sigrid currently works in collaboration with other Deaf community members, social and community organisations, government bodies, regional galleries, festivals, artists and arts/cultural institutions to explore and realise opportunities for meaningful and tangible Deaf audience engagement.

Vice chair - Dr Barry Hill

Barry Hill is the Course Coordinator for the Bachelor of Contemporary Music program at Southern Cross University Northern Rivers Campus. Barry holds a PHD in Music From Southern Cross University and a Honours degree in Music from Monash University and has completed Executive leadership training at the University of British Colombia Vancouver.  

Barry has cultivated a lifelong passion for performing.  Over his 30-year professional career He has performed in a wide variety of Music Dance, Theatre and multimedia productions in Australia and Overseas.  He has had a long association with accessible arts projects, performing with Company Chaos (Lismore) , Restless Dance Company (Adelaide) ,  Weave Movement Theatre (Melbourne), Theatre of the Ordinary (Melbourne) , CandoCo (Manchester),  LATT Theatre Company (Seoul) and NORPA (Lismore).  As a Music Educator, Barry has taught in a wide variety of community education contexts and is currently a member of the Federal Government TEQSA register of Music Education experts. He is an award winning researcher who is passionate about the role art plays in society. 

Barry chose performing arts as a lifelong career after participating in high school theatre performance cured a severe childhood stammer and music performance gave him a creative outlet after an injury destroyed one of his hip joints.  

Luna Moon

Luna Moon is a multidisciplinary artist originally from Seville, now living and working on Bundjalung country. She has formal training in the performing arts, visual arts, and art therapy, and her artistic practice explores the interface between the physical, emotional and psychological body. 

“Looking back on my life, I found that unconsciously my studies and careers have been navigating in parallel between art and health. As an artist, my multidisciplinary practice, through the mediums of painting, sculpture, art installations, video, sound and photography, explores the possibility of the physical, emotional and psychological body. I am focusing, researching and experimenting with art as a tool for healing”.

Treasurer - JoAnne Eager

Joanne Eager is a practising accountant with over eight years’ experience working in arts organisations including Ausdance Queensland and the Brisbane Powerhouse. Currently Joanne is the Acting Finance Manager at Queensland Ballet based at the Thomas Dixon Centre in Meanjin/Brisbane. A keen dancer, in 2015 Joanne participated in a week-long integrated dance residency facilitated by Philip Channells, which culminated with a performance at the inaugural Undercover Artist Festival at Bille Brown Theatre. These days Joanne likes to stretch out her rusty desk-bound psoas with yoga and get her blood pumping with Samba.

FRANK COUGHLAN

Frank Coughlan brings his experience as a social worker and parent of a person with Down Syndrome (Tara Coughlan) to his role on the Sprung Board. As the partner of a Sprung founder, Robyn Brady, he participated in the evolution of Sprung from the beginning through various roles including Board Member, occasional counsellor for Sprung dancers and participants, tech support, and workshop facilitator. His workshops offered Sprung participants and support workers fun activities to enhance grounding, emotional expression and communication in an accessible and relaxing way. 

Frank currently works part-time as a Child and Family Worker in Social Futures’ Mijung Jarjums Kids In Mind program and as a counsellor at Headspace, Lismore. He also works privately with groups and individuals using a gentle and supportive Deep Imagery process.  

He graduated from Trinity College Dublin and worked in Dublin for one year in an innovative children’s residential care program and for seven years as an inner-city Child Protection worker. In Australia, for seven years he was a counselling supervisor at Kids Help Line and for three years served as a Pastoral Care worker at a Brisbane Primary school.  

In the past Frank served for five years as the President of the C G Jung Society of Queensland.