Our Team

  • Jenna is a strategic thinker and innovator with a strong record of cultivating and managing partnerships and projects that deliver arts-led social and economic outcomes. Dedicated to connecting communities to the arts and growing the capacity of artists, arts organisations and audiences, Jenna prioritises quality relationships, strategic innovation, and sustainable outcomes. She has a progressive and authentic approach to arts leadership that centres meaningful collaboration, action learning, and accountability.

    Jenna has a Bachelor of Fine Art (Hononurs) from the Queensland College of Art (2016). Her experience includes arts administration and management, business development, programming (producing and curating), and education. Prior to joining Sprung!! Jenna was the Producer of Special Initiatives at Metro Arts (Brisbane) and co-founded the artist run initiative people+artist+place (p+a+p). Additionally, Jenna has worked for the Queensland Museum, UAP (NYC), CREATIVEMOVE, Positive Solutions and more.

    Jenna loves to cook, to get up at the crack of dawn, and to read. You’ll often find her at the local farmers’ markets or on the beach.

  • 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. Prior to the Festival she worked as a Jetset Travel, Byron Bay where in addition to holiday and corporate travel arrangements, was also the ticketing office for Byron Writers Festival. Sarah started her Operations Manager role with Sprung!! in June 2022. She has a BA (Hons) in Multimedia, First Class.

    Sarah can be found most mornings on the beach with her dog, she loves to scuba dive and travels as much as possible to experience new cultures.

  • Ainslee Palmer is an Actor, Theatre Maker, Producer and Movement Director with a passion

    for play and artistic curiosity. After graduating from the University of Southern Queensland with

    a Bachelor of Creative Arts (Theatre) in 2013, Ainslee moved to New York City where she

    worked with Tectonic Theatre Project as a teaching artist and performer with various theatre

    companies. In 2017 Ainslee moved to Brisbane and worked in Arts Health in several aged care

    facilities around Southeast Queensland: facilitating workshops with people living with dementia.

    In 2018, Ainslee formed a strong collaboration with White Rabbit Theatre as a performer,

    producer and facilitator working with young people as well as young adults with disabilities and

    in 2019 joined the company as Associate Director. Alongside her work as Associate Director

    and Theatre Maker, Ainslee is excited to join the team at Sprung Dance Theatre as Producer.

    Ainslee is currently working on her debut one-woman show Ready or Not which will take place

    as a Pilot Season at HOTA Home of the Arts in April 2024.

    Ainslee describes her practice as a feminist based safe, inclusive environment to break rules, give a voice to the voiceless.

  • Katie Cooper-Wares is a neurodiverse, 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 -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.

Adam van Kempen - Sectretary

Adam van Kempen, the principal of BvK Solicitors & Attorneys,  is a long-serving member of the Sprung!! Board. He graduated with honours from Southern Cross University School of Law & Justice with a Bachelor of Laws. After completing his high schooling in Brisbane and Sydney, he trained as a chef operating restaurants and catering businesses in Sydney before working as the Executive Chef at a 5-star hotel in China. In 2002 Adam merged his extensive first-hand small business experience with a law career when he returned with his family to live in the Northern Rivers. 

A Far North Coast ‘local’, Adam grew up in the region, and returned some 15 years ago, having decided that cities are a great place to visit.   

He joined the Byron Writers Festival Board in 2012 where he is currently Chair. He is proud to be involved with the Byron Writers Festival as well as other community organisations such as SPRUNG!! Integrated Dance Theatre and Screenworks Northern Rivers. Adam has a consistent and strong commitment to local community.

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.