The Team

Artistic Director

Kyall Shanks

Kyall is a Naarm/Melbourne based contemporary dance artist. Kyall works within in a variety of different areas within the dance industry, including performing, teaching, choreographing, directing and producing for minor and major scale professional companies, institutions, national festivals and organisations. Kyall also works within a number of youth, education and community dance contexts, and is passionate about increasing the accessibility of dance on all levels. Kyall's creative practice is an extension of this, often using introspection, humour and absurdism to reflect on and point out behavioural patterns and structures of society.

Upon graduating from the Victorian College of the Arts in 2015, they were awarded the Orloff Family Trust award for Most Outstanding Dancer. Since then they have danced for Tasdance, Antony Hamilton Projects, Chunky Move, Matthew Bourne’s New Adventures, Opera Australia, The Delta Project and Liquidskin Dance Company. In 2017-2018 Kyall undertook an 8 month international residency program with DanceBox in Kobe, Japan, and then spent 3 months in Sweden as a member of ilYoung 2018. 

Notable projects and achievements include working as both a Professional Cast Member and Community Dance Lead for the Arts Centre Melbourne/Matthew Bourne 'Lord Of The Flies' project, helping create the 2019 Dance Massive work 'Simulcast', as well as Stephanie Lake Company's 2020 Melbourne Fringe work 'Multiply'. In 2022 Kyall produced Tamara Cubas’s large scale community work ‘Multitud’ for RISING, as well as working as Co-Artistic Director of the Australian Youth Dance Festival.

Currently Kyall is a Creative Associate of Assembly 197 and Tasdance, and works as Artistic Director to the preprofessional youth dance company Yellow Wheel. Since 2021 Kyall has worked as a Community Dance Lead for City of Melbourne, as part of the core team that helps create and produce the annual Moomba Parade. Kyall also works as an educational consultant for Chunky Move, contributing to their Experiences for Schools program and school engagements.

Executive Assistant

Jacqui Maida

Born and based in Naarm, Jacqui Maida has been involved in dance since very early childhood, and sees it as an integral and significant part of their identity. Jacqui is a keen improviser, with a strong fascination in creative thinking, tangible movement tasks and structured improvisation, which are all trademarks of past works. Having 9 years of professional dance teaching experience across all ages and skillsets has led Jacqui to their current title of Artistic Associate of Yellow Wheel, which encompasses a mix of delivering company technique class, working intimately with the Artistic Director (Kyall Shanks), social media and administrative responsibilities, and rehearsal direction. In 2019 Jacqui acquired a Cert IV in Dance Teaching and Management, alongside a Diploma in Elite Dance Performance.

Jacqui’s choreographic debut was made in I Wish I Was A Droid for Melbourne Fringe 2020, and last year they represented Yellow Wheel as a Youth Ambassador at the Australian Youth Dance Festival. Also in 2022, Jacqui was a successful applicant of Dancehouse’s Emerging Choreographers Program, and presented a work in progress as part of Out Of Bounds, held by Lucy Guerin Inc and Temperance Hall. This year Jacqui has carried out week-long residencies at both QL2 Dance in the ACT, and Fling Physical Theatre in Bega NSW, developing an improvisational framework titled: The Lettuce, Book and the Lighting Desk, which brings awareness to the identification, manipulation and transitions of improvised movement.

For more information on head to: https://www.jacqui-maida.com

Artistic Advisor and founding artistic Director

Adam Wheeler

Adam is a Stompin & Victorian College of the Arts Alumni and currently the Artistic Director of Tasdance in Launceston. He has an invested interest in the development of youth and emerging dance practice that spans over a decade. In this time he has founded Yellow Wheel, Victoria’s premier pre-professional dance company and works as an Artistic Associate of Stompin. He was previously the Head of Contemporary Development at Transit Dance and over the past decade he has created and produced dance works with companies such as Chunky Move, Tasdance, 2NDTOE, Yellow Wheel, Stompin, Steps, QL2 and Fling Physical Theatre.

For more information on Adam head to www.adamjwheeler.com