Zya Kane is a Narrm, Melbourne-based theatre director and interdisciplinary artist working across contemporary, devised, text-based, sensory and immersive performance. A Chinese Malaysian-Australian artist, she approaches her practice through curiosity, collaboration and a fascination with how stories live within bodies, relationships and shared experience. Her work creates opportunities for audiences to engage with performance through different forms of attention, participation and discovery.

With over 25 years of experience across performance, devising, directing, teaching and sensory research, Zya's practice spans theatre, installation and experiential performance. Her work is shaped by cultural and sensory hybridity, layered storytelling and a particular interest in scent as a dramaturgical tool for evoking memory and emotion. She also brings an extensive background in cabaret as an MC and performer, with a strong sense of humour, improvisation and audience connection.

Zya holds a Master of Theatre Directing from the Victorian College of the Arts (VCA), where her research explored how directing practice develops through composing encounters that invite internal participation across connected works. Her directing draws on physical performance, sensory elements and environmental design to create layered performance worlds and shape how audiences encounter and engage with a work. Recent directing credits include Tree Full of Tragical Tales (Melbourne Fringe, 2025), Death a Cabaret (The Bowery, 2026) and After/Again (VCA, 2026). In 2026, she undertook industry secondments with Melbourne Theatre Company (Uncle Vanya), Back to Back Theatre and Chamber Made.

Zya has an ongoing collaborative relationship with Born in a Taxi, contributing as a performer and creative collaborator within ensemble-led, physically driven and experimental performance processes. She also works with Weave Movement Theatre, where she co-devises performances, directs, facilitates workshops and supports the creative leadership of artists. At YourDNA Creative Arts, she collaborates with neurodivergent and disabled artists to devise and produce original work, supporting creative agency and inclusive arts practice.

Internationally, Zya has collaborated with Teatro de los Sentidos in Spain on immersive theatre and installation environments, performed at MAP Performance Festival in Melaka, Malaysia, and worked as Assistant Director to Michiko Gaulier (École Philippe Gaulier / ITAP, Paris). She is also a current member of the Maroondah Arts Advisory Committee.

Her training spans physical theatre (Lecoq), improvisation, butoh, acting, and somatic, sensory and body-based performance practices.

Zya's artistic practice is guided by inclusivity, curiosity and a continuing interest in how live performance can create connection, collective imagination, humour and moments of transformation.