Artistic Team
Rivka Worth and Vanessa Chapple are the co-directors of
In Your Arms.
We are dance and theatre artist/researchers who are interested in conversations and artful experiences with infants and adults which explore the connection between somatic practises of listening, moving and attunement and Indigenous ways of knowing and being.
We are inspired to make work that enlivens people to act with care, connection and love for nature.
VANESSA CHAPPLE is an artist-researcher, theatre director/dramaturg, and embodied voice teacher who works across text -based and physical theatre, dance, sound- art, music and voice and arts project curation. She has a love of working with community – her experience conceiving and implementing participatory performing arts, visual arts and music projects with people of Australia are extensive. Her practice is strongly collaborative, and inclusive – projects partners include: Arts Access, Asylum Seeker Resource Centre, Moreland City Council, Weave Movement Theatre, Womens’ Circus, Whittlesea Council, Arts Centre Melbourne, Newport Lakes Primary School, ArtPlay, VicHealth, Brimbank Council, CERES Environment Park, Melbourne Fringe Festival, The Village, Alpine Shire, YMCA, Footscray Community Arts Centre, Institute of Koorie Education (Deakin University), Melbourne Playback Theatre, Going Places, Victorian Institute of the DEAF, Multicultural Arts Victoria, Inner South Community Health Centre, Circus OZ.
Vanessa is a feminist activist and much of her directorial work has centred upon the telling of womens stories. She is a mother of 2 children and is based in Naarm (Melbourne). She was president of the Australian Women Directors Alliance (AWDA) for three years and presently is on the board of Community Music Victoria (CMVic).
Vanessa’s qualifications include BAHons.Psychology, Post-Graduate Certificate Voice Studies, Graduate Diploma Movement and Dance and graduate of The John Bolton Theatre School. Vanessa is a current PhD candidate at the Creative Agency Lab, School of Education, RMIT undertaking research in somatics and ecologies of listening within socially -engaged art practice. She is undertaking Somatic Movement Educator Practitioner Certification (BMC®) with Somatic Movement education Australasia.
RIVKA WORTH grew up talking to trees, rocks and flowers. Her love of dance and nature come together in her work, Eco Soma; devoted to re-building healthy relationships with nature through embodied practice. Rivka offers Eco-Somatic practices of listening, presence and renewal through physical and sensory bonding with the natural world. She is one of Australia’s leading exponents of Conscious Dance, facilitating diverse human embodiment in health, justice, education, arts and environmental settings. Her dance floors range from church halls, sandy lined shores, leafy green forests and red desert earth.
Rivka’s work reflects a lifetime career of facilitating dance and movement. She is former Artistic Director of Restless Dance Theatre, Company Chaos, Boilover Performance Ensemble, StArts with D and Hips Dance Collective and has developed numerous workshops and programs supporting a diversity of individuals and communities to create meaningful, impactful and expressive performance work.
Rivka’s qualifications include BA Dance, Eco-Somatic Educator, Certified 5Rhythms® teacher, Certified Futuring Trainer and she is currently studying as a Somatic Movement Educator Practitioner Certification (BMC®) and as a Somatic Experiencing Practitioner. Her job titles have spanned Artistic Director, Film Maker, Choreographer, Embodiment Coach, Community Cultural Development Officer, Author, Mother, Futurist & DJ. Rivka thrives on bringing humans together in ceremonial dance, where freedom, connection and transformation are individually and collectively embodied. Rivka is an Earth Ambassador who is dedicated to connecting us back to nature through our own embodiment. She is a queer mother of two men,a cat and a chook, living in the tree fringes of Naarm (Melbourne).
