Lead Artists: Jahra Wasasala, Ooshcon, Henry Lai-Pyne, Harrison Hall, and Sam Mcgilp
Collaborator and Performer: Byrin Mita
Sound/Music: Spewer + Solsa
Sound Performers: Myles Masarei, Solsa
Set Design: Ava Clifforth, Thomas Watson
Lighting Designer: Giovanna Yate Gonzalez
Unreal Design, Luca Dante
Systems Support: Max Brading
Initial Concept and Technical Development: Liam Wolfe

Jahra Wasasala
Jahra (Arieta) Wasasala is a Fijian/Pākehā world-builder, movement psychopomp and writer of realms. Within Viti/Fiji, they hail from the provinces of Macuata and Ba. Jahra centres dance as a chosen tool of transmutation, living-memory and embodiment, expanding their work into sound, adornment, poetry, sculpture, costume and digital realms.

Based in the relational space between one world ending and another world beginning, Jahra’s practice calls in creature-led language, Tagata Moana future-mythos, belief immersion and other-worldly physicality. Their work has travelled across Aotearoa, Australia, Hawai’i, New York, Berlin, Guåhån and Canada, with commissions and performances for major cultural institutions and artists internationally. Jahra works in continuous creative partnership with Ooshcon through CONJAH, facilitating workshops, holding festivals, creating solo and ensemble works, and empowering each other’s practices.

Oosh
Ooshcon “The Decipherer of Circles” is an experimental Hip Hop movement artist of Samoan and palagi origin, based in Aotearoa/New Zealand. An award-winning Hip Hop theatre choreographer, respected Hip Hop and open-style battler, and sought-out performer, Ooshcon works through experimental skills across a range of Street Dance styles.

His practice moves between animation techniques, contemporary elements, unpredictable character work, live sound and Pasifika perspectives. Ooshcon has choreographed and performed internationally, including his character solo performance Glitch at the Grand Théâtre, Maison de la Culture de Tahiti, and the award-winning Experimental Hip Hop theatre work Blueprint, created with Toa Paranahi. More recently, he directed Aotearoa’s first Krump-Theatre work, HYPAMASS. Alongside Jahra Wasasala, Ooshcon forms CONJAH, a creative partnership creating touring work, facilitating workshops, holding festivals and empowering each other’s practices.

Sam Mcgilp
Dr Sam McGilp is a new media artist and researcher working on Wurrendjeri country in Naarm. He works with emerging technologies to create new dramaturgies for performance, and new opportunities for shared making.

Sam’s practice is collaborative and interdisciplinary. He works non-hierarchically to build things together with other artists that they couldn’t imagine alone. He has worked in this way, collaboratively devising and making with artists from Australia, Japan, Taiwan, the UK and Korea. This work has been presented in leading contexts nationally and internationally including : Now or Never Festival, CTM Festival (DE), Soft Centre, Sydney Opera House, ACMI, ACC Festival (KR), DAC (TW).

Sam’s PhD research investigated Digital Iterations - digital artworks and performances with a shared ontogeny. It was undertaken in partnership with Chamber Made at RMIT University as part of the Agile Opera ARC Linkage project. For this research he received the Vice Chancellor’s PhD Scholarship and the Emerging Scholar Award from the Art in Society Conference.

Henry Lai-Pyne
Henry Lai-Pyne is a Naarm based new-media artist. Lai-Pyne completed a 2023 Activators Residency at Chunky Move, which preceded the development of TADRA, a mixed-media dance performance, presented as part of Frame Biennale. Lai-Pyne and collaborators were awarded 2023 CultureLab residency at Arts House and Basement Theatre (Aotearoa). Henry is in residency at the Centre for Projection Art. His works have been presented at ACMI, Arts House, Soft Centre, Chunky Move, CPA, AsiaTOPA, Melbourne International Film Festival, and AIDLAB Hong Kong.

Harrison Hall
Harrison Hall’s work situates contemporary performance and dance in experiential art environments. His recent works traverse states of flux within digital and live worlds, working to increase the embodied experience in mixed digital and live performance contexts.

His hybrid choreographic works have premiered at Sydney Opera House, ACMI, Dancehouse, CTM festival (Berlin), ACC (Korea), Zerospace (New York) working with a range of local and international artists. His awards include a Green Room Award, MIFF selection and recently the Expand Lab Moving Image Commission.

The seeds of GG were rooted in our playful and social experiences of gaming. We were first drawn to games as a base for contemporary investigation because we are all world-builders in our practices, and the rules of game worlds are entirely up for grabs. We reflected on what these worlds tell us about our own society, and how our own practices are driven by the formal fantasy they offer. In doing so, we confronted the disconnect between our escapist and activist impulses - and have created this work into that gap.

The experience of developing GG has echoed our memories of console, couch co-op. We created playful interactions between media and performance for each other and worked within them together. Making something distinctly of each of us.