Lian Loke is an interdisciplinary artist, based in Warrane/Sydney, working with the body and movement as material. Drawing from Bodyweather, somatic and shamanic dance traditions, her work blends performance, costume and installation to explore shifting hybrid identities, ritual, energy and metamorphic embodiment. She likes to perform in non-traditional performance spaces to stir up the sediment, spirits and status quo - most comfortable in the in-between spaces shaped by her Malaysian-Chinese and Anglo-Australian heritage. Her working processes are often bottom-up, generating actions, meanings and new movement languages from improvisations and interactions with props, costume and interactive machines. Her approach to costuming the body in performance explores costume as sculpture and environment, opening the sensuous and liminal space between the body and cloth.
As a solo and ensemble dancer and movement improvisor, she has performed in immersive, participatory, durational and traditional performance environments with de Quincey Co (2013, 2014, 2017), The Living Room Theatre (2015, 2017, 2018), Sydney Performance Contemporary (2015), Volcana Brainstorm, Yokohama, Japan (2019), SHErobots, The Netherlands (2024), FEM-me exhibition, Bankstown Arts Centre (2024) and MAP Fest, Melaka, Malaysia (2024, 2025). Most recently, she wrote, developed and performed a full-length solo contemporary performance work Why You Not Eat (2026) in collaboration with The Living Room Theatre director Michelle St Anne, exploring how grief resides in the body and transforms the daily social life and rituals of care of a family.
She has been awarded Australia Council for the Arts funding for creative development and curation of multi-disciplinary interactive art and performance: Musify-Gamify (2016), Luscious Apparatus (2011). She was a participating artist in the inaugural Experimental Choreographic Lab (2024), Critical Path Choreographic Research Centre and Performance Space, Sydney.
Lian’s research in the field of human-computer/robot interaction studies and stages the interactivity of humans and machines through a choreographic, somaesthetic and playful lens. Her work explores how to design embodied and movement-based interactions and experiences with emerging technologies that support human agency, creative expression, skill and vitality. She has created interactive kinetic installations in collaboration with architect Dagmar Reinhardt for exhibition and theatre (award-winning set design for The Spence Room, I Love Todd Sampson, The Living Room Theatre Company 2013). As a curator, she has co-produced exhibitions presenting state-of-the-art ideas that critique and materialise creative and speculative applications of emerging technologies. SHErobots: Tool, Toy, Companion (2022) is the first exhibition of its kind in Australia to showcase the pioneering and emerging work of women in robotics, across art, design, architecture and technology; followed by Ecologies of Care (2024) in The Netherlands.
She is passionate about making our cities, streets and public spaces more creative, playable and liveable. She has curated and mentored artists to produce outdoor interactive movement-triggered media installations and performances (ElectroSK8, EDGE Sydenham, 2019, Inner West Council). She was a member of the Arts and Culture Advisory Committee, Inner West Council and is a founding member and Chair of the Inner West Creative Network established in 2022.
Email: [email protected]
As a solo and ensemble dancer and movement improvisor, she has performed in immersive, participatory, durational and traditional performance environments with de Quincey Co (2013, 2014, 2017), The Living Room Theatre (2015, 2017, 2018), Sydney Performance Contemporary (2015), Volcana Brainstorm, Yokohama, Japan (2019), SHErobots, The Netherlands (2024), FEM-me exhibition, Bankstown Arts Centre (2024) and MAP Fest, Melaka, Malaysia (2024, 2025). Most recently, she wrote, developed and performed a full-length solo contemporary performance work Why You Not Eat (2026) in collaboration with The Living Room Theatre director Michelle St Anne, exploring how grief resides in the body and transforms the daily social life and rituals of care of a family.
She has been awarded Australia Council for the Arts funding for creative development and curation of multi-disciplinary interactive art and performance: Musify-Gamify (2016), Luscious Apparatus (2011). She was a participating artist in the inaugural Experimental Choreographic Lab (2024), Critical Path Choreographic Research Centre and Performance Space, Sydney.
Lian’s research in the field of human-computer/robot interaction studies and stages the interactivity of humans and machines through a choreographic, somaesthetic and playful lens. Her work explores how to design embodied and movement-based interactions and experiences with emerging technologies that support human agency, creative expression, skill and vitality. She has created interactive kinetic installations in collaboration with architect Dagmar Reinhardt for exhibition and theatre (award-winning set design for The Spence Room, I Love Todd Sampson, The Living Room Theatre Company 2013). As a curator, she has co-produced exhibitions presenting state-of-the-art ideas that critique and materialise creative and speculative applications of emerging technologies. SHErobots: Tool, Toy, Companion (2022) is the first exhibition of its kind in Australia to showcase the pioneering and emerging work of women in robotics, across art, design, architecture and technology; followed by Ecologies of Care (2024) in The Netherlands.
She is passionate about making our cities, streets and public spaces more creative, playable and liveable. She has curated and mentored artists to produce outdoor interactive movement-triggered media installations and performances (ElectroSK8, EDGE Sydenham, 2019, Inner West Council). She was a member of the Arts and Culture Advisory Committee, Inner West Council and is a founding member and Chair of the Inner West Creative Network established in 2022.
Email: [email protected]
Photo by Alex Wisser
I live and work in Warrane/Sydney and acknowledge the Gadigal people as the original custodians of the land, water and sky. I pay my respects to elders and community who continue to care for Country and all beings.