Dave founded Dionysus to develop a more artistic and compelling culture in Canberra. Through an extraordinary range of quality cultural projects shown on this site, his team program and manage places to become meaningful destinations. For a video on David's current work, see this HerCanberra interview.

Driven by contemporary philosophies of culture and meaning (esp. deconstruction and post-subjectivity), Dave has connected skills across programming, arts administration, event management, branding and communications, hospitality, government regulation, place visioning and place management to widen the creativity and critical response of hundreds of thousands of people. This creates more exciting places to visit and live, and nurtures harmonious communities to value creativity and, over time, greater existential meaning. In today’s fragmented world, that’s what we need most.

He is the sole Director of Dionysus and volunteers as both the President of MusicACT and a Director of Australian Dance Party.

Gupi is a native visual communicator. Gupi spent time studying architecture under Professor Mario Botta at Università della Svizzera Italiana in Switzerland. She combines her skills in architecture, photography and graphic design; to add art, colour, and fun to our stories. Despite speaking four languages, visual representation is Gupi's speciality, giving spice and excitement to the everyday.

Gupi uses her superpowers of visual design and communication, to create beauty in any story they tell, be it through a photo, words or a hilarious Tik-Tok. In Argentina, Gupi specialised in storytelling for events. She might be short but she dreams big! She combined her event management and visual representation skills to produce Climactivo, an international Climate Change summit with 20,000 people, and also led a team of 15 to deliver a 500,000 people, 10 day festival for Argentina's bicentenary.

Gupi can always be found behind the camera, sharing smiles with all those around her.

As the City Place Manger, Kristi's diverse experience in events, performance and community engagement gives her fresh and acute eyes over our city. Kristi started dancing before she could walk. Dedicated to movement and performance, she spent her youth representing Canada as an internationally ranked Rhythmic Gymnastic. Sparking a desire to explore and perform, Kristi moved to the big apple at 18 to study at the renowned Neighbourhood Playhouse School of Theatre. As a performer and athlete who faced physical challenges for years, Kristi found Yoga as a way to heal herself. Her career path led her to become a Yoga Instructor and ambassador to the Global Baptiste Yoga Community. This newfound passion led her to Australia and her role as the National Programs Manager for Power Living Australia Yoga. During the past decade, Kristi has lived in Sydney and Perth. She now lives in Canberra with her husband, two energetic young boys and beloved kelpie, Pearl. Recently, Kristi worked as the ACT Engagement Coordinator for the national not-for-profit, GIVIT, providing support to community service providers across the territory. Someone who strives to improve the lives of all Canberrans, Kristi fell in love with the heart and soul of our bush capital. As Dionysus's new City Place Manager, she will work with business owners and stakeholders to increase the beauty and vibrancy of the city. You can catch her sipping coffee or wine with friends, laughing, and playing with her family in her free time.

Rachel is our expert event manager focusing on large-scale events such as seasonal festivals and Dairy Road Market. Rachel loves creating memorable experiences for audiences and has done so for over a decade. She has built a strong reputation in Canberra for her work as Operations Manager for the National Folk Festival, Production Manager for the Canberra International Music Festival and Program Coordinator for the Centenary of Canberra team.

With 20 years of experience in the performing arts, Rachel performed at the Sydney Olympics 2000 Opening Ceremony before graduating from the ANU School of Music. She has performed with the Canberra Symphony Orchestra, was Orchestra Manager for the Canberra Pops Orchestra, and a Stage Manager of Llewellyn Hall. Rachel has worked with large national touring companies, including Opera Australia, and many local community organisations.

Rachel has a passion for youth development and in 2008 she coordinated the Pacific School Games Opening Ceremony with 2,000 performers. Her background in events and music led Rachel to create summer music programs for the Young Music Society as the Artistic Director, and as Artistic Convenor at Music for Canberra, she managed the Canberra Youth Orchestra. As outreach coordinator for Musica Viva's in-school program, Rachel created mentoring workshops with talented international musicians to inspire young creatives.

And after working on landmark events such as Australia Day, New Years Eve and the Beijing Torch relay early in her career, Rachel remains inspired to create new and meaningful events for the Canberra community.

Fabio is our man in charge of the Soul Defender, from piloting the Mothership to curating her projects, installing the sound, lights and everything in between. He manages the party arm of the company with Escape Ferocity, Canberra's beloved underground electronic music event brand. In contrast to the creative roles, he also manages compliance for all of Dionysus' projects, making sure everything is fabulously safe, yet still stupidly spectacular. Interestingly, his background revolves exactly around all those things...

Always involved with event management and electronic music from a very young age, where his career progressed to an internationally renowned artist, performing on some of the biggest festival stages in the world, such as Boom Festival in Portugal and Rainbow Serpent here in Australia. The business side of things very much interested him since the start, becoming involved with labels, event organisers and key players behind the scenes came naturally. His events back in Brazil had a special touch, bringing together all his experiences from around the globe.

On a side note, he is an avid wakeboarder who loves being out in the water and an aspiring aircraft pilot; he feels the Soul Defender has been the closest thing to actually flying.

Ben (or Buda to his friends) is the texpert of Dionysus. A graphic designer by profession, a video editor by passion, but a professional technology fiddler by necessity. Over the past ten years, he has designed and developed websites and applications in Argentina, a multi-award winning technology company based in Spain, Portugal, Brisbane and Canberra.

He credits his patience and ability to solve complex problems to one thing: lego, which propelled him into nerdom.

Ben studied and later taught graphic design and audiovisual media at UNSTA (Tucumán, Argentina), and also taught in Tasmania.

Ben combines his video editing and VJing skills with design and event curation, working with some of the most prestigious events in Argentina and top DJs for multitudinous electronic parties.

At Dionysus, Ben brings event management and place activation into the 21st century through new software workflows, website developments and building innovative technology solutions.

Yana Young is our Dickson Place Manager. Yana hails from Indonesia, studied event organisation, speaks five languages fluently, and has now made Canberra her home. Yana has a unique perspective on placemaking in that she sees it through various multicultural lenses, as well as being able to compare and contrast the Dickson environment to her experiences living in Southeast Asia. Yana's ability to speak with community stakeholders at their level, in their language, where they are is a great boon for Dionysus and Dickson, and her integration into the multicultural and multilingual community in Canberra makes her a wonderful addition to our team.

Freddie McGrath Weber is a multiskilled problem solver working across marketing, event management, agriculture, fabrication, and creative industries. At Dionysus, when stuff breaks he's 'Mr. Fix It', in addition to backing Dave's brilliant and bizarre ideas in his role as Functions and Fabrications Lead.

Freddie graduated from the Australian National University with a Bachelor of Commerce, majoring in Marketing, and a Bachelor of Visual Arts, majoring in Sculpture. His artistic practice stems from an environmentalist mindset that takes the form of documentary photography and sculptural works influenced by his interactions with nature. Outside the arty party, his bread and butter are marketing and events work where his talents stem from content creation through to event management and innovation. Outside of the studio or big smoke, you can find Freddie on his family farm in the Majura Valley developing agribusiness ideas that have local and industry impact.