Midsumma Pathways

Harriet Devlin (Artist Development Manager of Midsumma Pathways), asks Sam Martin about his experience as a participant of Midsumma Pathways.

Leisa Prowd is a Midsumma Pathways alumni, and she chats with Pathways Coordinator, Artist Development Manager Harriet Devlin about her experience in the mentorship program.

Ruby Armstrong-Porter (she/they)

Ruby Armstrong-Porter is a visual artist and educator who lives and works in Melbourne, Naarm. They were born in 1986 and are known for their work across many disciplines, most notably printmaking and chemistry based photography. They were the co-founder of NOIR darkroom, a gallery and photographic darkroom based in Coburg, Victoria. They were the recipient of the 2021 Midsumma Australia Post Art Award, a finalist in the 2023 National Photographic Portrait Prize and were a finalist in the 2020 Bowness Photography Prize. They have exhibited in Melbourne, regional Victoria and interstate. Their work is in the collection of the NGV as well as many private collections locally and internationally.

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Sarah Carroll (she/they)

Sarah Carroll (she/they) is a Rotuman/Australian queer multidisciplinary artist working across live performance, writing, directing, film/TV and movement.

Sarah is deeply passionate about creating work that pushes for female queer representation and the intersectionality of queer identities. Sarah is also interested in focusing on neurodiverse and mental health experiences and cultural identity interweaving her experiences coming from a mixed race background and growing up in Australia and Fiji.

Sarah strives to champion for underrepresented voices to be heard and create works that uplift and engage audiences in new and exciting ways usually with lots of sparkle and sass.

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Ellen Cisneros (they/them)

Ellen Cisneros explores cultural identity, mental health, gender and sexuality through interdisciplinary works spanning painting, illustration and sculpture. An Australian with Filipino and Latino heritage, Ellen's practice reflects a multitude of shifting contexts, inspired by their diverse heritage and the negotiation of their intersectional identity. Parameters of style and connection are explored as themes in Ellen's creations, often through the perspective of mental health advocacy. Currently working with painting, illustration and sculpture, their work often extends to moving image, photography, sound and collaborative initiatives.

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Patrick Gunasekera (he/him)

Patrick Gunasekera is a young writer, performer, and theatre artist of Sri Lankan migrant heritage, living and working on Whadjuk Noongar Boodjar. With evolving practices as an actor, dancer, singer, and pianist, his work explores how people become complicit in violence, and what agency means from marginalised positions. He is also a poet and award-winning essayist, with a passion for putting language to and transforming legacies of intergenerational trauma. He is currently revisiting the work of historical neurodivergent artists through an empathetic lens, and adapting his non-institutional cultural contexts into theatre and writing methodologies. Since 2019, he has proudly offered nuanced and ambitious coverage of underrepresented cultural work as an arts journalist in Boorloo (Perth).

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Em Tambree (they/them)

Em Tambree is a multi-hyphenate theatre-maker. Em undertook intensive Musical Theatre training at Centrestage, SHOWFIT & received their Diploma of Music at The Australian Institute of Music. Whilst their love for vocal performance was the origin of their artistic practice, their body of work has grown and evolved to reflect experience in almost every aspect of theatremaking; including acting, directing, producing, and stagecraft. The thread connecting all of their work is a love for telling stories (both old and new) that challenge the norm and champion historically ignored individuals & communities. They are the proud co-founder of TART. Theatre Collective.

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Rhen Soggee (they/them)

Rhen Soggee is a white migrant currently living and working on unceded Kaurna Yerta & Kulin Nations, studying on Bidjigal and Gadigal country. They are interested in contemporary, multicultural, inter/multidisciplinary and participatory arts. They seek to affect social change through the arts, specifically with multicultural, intersectional, feminist and queer agendas. Rhen works with community arts and cultural development values. They delved into arts management to facilitate conversations, experiences and understanding through arts, underpinned by an ideal to foster better crosscultural exchange in arts and beyond. They believe that immersive, participatory and challenging (multi)arts experiences can help us to reflect on who we are, how we are and how we interact, affect and are affected by the world around us. Rhen, as an Arts Manager, works across executive directing, business management and creative producing roles. Rhen has worked closely with First Nations, POC and Queer communities with a lens towards intersectional practice that embraces inclusion, sustainability and wellbeing. Rhen has worked across independent , S-M orgs, Statute Authorities and Majors, as well in event contemporary/commercial events and a wide range of arts and cultural festivals, alongside their advocacy work particularly for Queer communities. They are currently finalising an MFA of Cultural Leadership at NIDA. Rhen has a keen interest in contemporary and experimental arts, digital, hybrid and inter/multidisciplinary arts, especially in the Asia-Pacific region. They are currently the Senior Creative Producer at Next Wave and Co-Chair of the Post Office Projects Gallery and Studios Board and recently completed a term on South Australia's Rainbow Advocacy Alliance's Community Advisory Group.

ARTISTS

Alex Creece

Mentor: Paul Yore

Alex Creece is a writer, poet, collage artist, and average kook living on Wadawurrung land. She works as an Online Editor for Archer Magazine and a Production Editor for Cordite Poetry Review. Alex was awarded a Write-ability Fellowship in 2019 and a Wheeler Centre Hot Desk Fellowship in 2020. A sample of Alex's work was Highly Commended in the 2019 Next Chapter Scheme, and she was shortlisted for the Kat Muscat Fellowship in 2021. Alex’s writing has appeared in Australian Poetry Journal, SBS Online, Aniko Press, and more, and her collages have been exhibited at The Dax Centre and Geelong Art Space.

Photo credit: Bakri Mahmoud

 

Amy May Nunn

Mentor: Morgan Rose

Amy May Nunn is an award-winning, queer and neurodiverse writer and theatre maker, originally from the UK. Their work has been published in Voiceworks, Verandah, Metre Maids and Award-Winning Australian Writing. They are a two-time recipient of the Mathew Rocca Award for poetry, winner of the Express Media Award and the John Marsden Prize. They have been shortlisted for the Rodney Seaborn Playwrights Award and the Canberra Youth Theatre Emerging Playwright Commission. Amy is fascinated by heightened, uncanny worlds, and their work explores fantasy, escapism and magic realism.

 

Angelita Biscotti

Mentor: Luke George

Angelita Biscotti's practice cuts across disciplinary edges, deploying diverse materials and methodologies to explore decoloniality, cosmic wonder, the gender politics of intimacy, anti-respectability politics, and expansive ways of doing togetherness. Angelita is the author of two chapbooks: Innocent Eyes (Cordite 2017) and Else But A Madness Most Discreet (Vagabond Press 2018). Angelita's poetry and cultural criticism have been published in Sydney Review of Books, Jacobin, Overland, Liminal, Australian Poetry Journal, and more. As an artistic collaborator, Angelita curated the sold-out performance-art variety show On the 23rd Day Mars Was In Gemini at Midsumma Westside, delivered astrology-for-artist workshops as part of her SEVENTH Gallery studio residency, developed poetry prompts as a creative correspondent for Dancehouse's Now Pieces 7, gave a speech at Deep Soulful Sweats 10th anniversary at Chunky Move, performed in an ensemble cast at Alicia Frankovich's Rich In World/Poor In World at NGV Melbourne Now, and composed original sound design for Ebony Rattle's Winona 2023 season.

Photo credit: SanaShoots

 

Ben MacEllen

Mentor: Kate Mulvany

Ben MacEllen is an author, playwright, feminist, LGBTIQA+ activist/advocate, public speaker, actor, and disabled creative. He writes and speaks extensively about his experience as a transgender man. Ben's most recent project is his original one-man show ‘Transmansplaining’ which premiered in 2019 to critical acclaim. Using humour, storytelling, video diaries, and intimate disclosures, the show reveals his unique perspective of life and his journey to manhood, drawing on his memoir ‘A Cut Closer to Whole’ and 18 years living as a man. ‘Transmansplaining’ showcases Ben’s storytelling, comedy timing, and his ability to draw an audience into his unique experiences living as a transgender man.

Photo credit: Bill Conroy

 

Caitlin Dear

Mentors: Philipa Rothfield & Danni Zuvela

Caitlin uses choreographic approaches to working interdisciplinarily across dance, live art, academia and practice-based research. She creates sensorially and intellectually engaging experiences, whether it be an action in a gallery, performance in a theatre or outdoor adventure in a public setting. Caitlin’s work prioritises community/audience participation, incorporating immersive or interactive elements to directly engage people with the inquiries of her projects. Thus, working toward dissolving boundaries between artist, audience, artwork and everyday life. Caitlin’s work has been described to (paradoxically) engender clinical wonder and focused multiplicity, encouraging audiences to ponder philosophical problems from an embodied perspective with a scientific sensibility.

 

Crystal Nguyen

Mentor: Sam Fox

Crystal Nguyen kickstarted her performance career at 15 placing 6th in the inaugural season of Vietnam's Got Talent. Crystal (who lives with Brittle Bones Disease) is a performing artist and disability advocate who has collaborated with organisations such as UNICEF to raise awareness and challenge the stigma surrounding disability and self-expression. Currently residing on Whadjuk country, Crystal's performing and devising credits include The Events (2018), Our Town (Black Swan State Theatre 2019), PASSING (Fringe World 2021), BESIDE (WA Youth Theatre Company 2021), The Complete Show of Waterskiing (Laura Liu) and From Here, Together (Emma Fishwick, 2022). As an emerging artist coming from a non-traditional background, born and raised in Vietnam, Crystal considers each project to be a fresh ground to learn from peers and offer her unique perspectives. Crystal desires to create theatrical works that celebrate the incidental queer and disabled joy, connecting marginalised communities together through the desire of belonging.

 

Cynthia Sobraty

Mentor: Tommi Parrish

Cynthia aka plasticmessiah is a nonbinary, Mauritian neuroqueer artist, writer, drag gremlin and musician based in Naarm. They have been tattooing since 2013 and have tattooed well over a thousand humans in their career. Their biggest love is drawing. They can be found doodling and painting in their studio at the Abbotsford Convent, or just about anywhere else really. Cynthia's work is a mind meld of their special interests, neurodiversity, pop culture, anachronism, the cursed and haunted, personal style, memoir, mental health and transmuting trauma and joy through artistic expression and dark humour.

 

Em Tambree

Mentor: Clemence Williams

Em Tambree is a multi-hyphenate theatre-maker. Em undertook intensive Musical Theatre training at Centrestage, SHOWFIT & received their Diploma of Music at The Australian Institute of Music. Whilst their love for vocal performance was the origin of their artistic practice, their body of work has grown and evolved to reflect experience in almost every aspect of theatre-making; including acting, directing, producing, and stagecraft. The thread connecting all of their work is a love for telling stories (both old and new) that challenge the norm and champion historically ignored individuals & communities. They are the proud co-founder of TART. Theatre Collective.

 

Jessie Ngaio

Mentor: Betty Grumble

Jessie Ngaio’s life story is one of not fitting in. Growing up queer in small town Aotearoa, New Zealand, she left school early due to what she now realises was undiagnosed autism and ADHD. For years, Jessie has worked in the adult entertainment industry as well as pursuing her passion for creative expression through training in the visual arts, clown, improvisational movement and Butoh. Along with exhibiting paintings and soft sculptures, she co-wrote and starred in the musical theatre production, Slutmonster and Friends (2013) surrealist comedy web series, “Trying My Best” (2017) and recently performed in the ensemble productions “Colour-Fool” and “Odd Hours” as part of “ButohOut!” Festival, 2021. She is currently working on her first solo performance, “Oh Yuck, It’s Me” to debut in October, 2022.

 

Kip Mac

Mentor: Victoria Falconer

Kip Mac is a classically-trained pianist and singer who specializes in hardcore, metal, grunge, and punk on piano. They are also autistic. Kip's work showcases the melodies beneath the distortion and shares the stories and cultural moments behind the songs. Blending in serious cultural criticism with irreverent campy frivolity and low-brow jokes, Kip's shows are often a cathartic look at supposedly "masculine" hard-rock genres and the fans and subcultures that love them.

 

Rhen Soggee

Mentors: River Lin & Jeff Khan

Rhen Soggee is a white migrant currently living and working on unceded Kaurna Yerta & Kulin Nations, studying on Bidjigal and Gadigal country. They are interested in contemporary, multicultural, inter/multi-disciplinary and participatory arts. They seek to affect social change through the arts, specifically with multicultural, intersectional, feminist and queer agendas. Rhen works with community arts and cultural development values. They delved into arts management to facilitate conversations, experiences and understanding through arts, underpinned by an ideal to foster better cross-cultural exchange in arts and beyond. They believe that immersive, participatory and challenging (multi)arts experiences can help us to reflect on who we are, how we are and how we interact, affect and are affected by the world around us. Rhen, as an Arts Manager, works across executive directing, business management and creative producing roles. Rhen has worked closely with First Nations, POC and Queer communities with a lens towards intersectional practice that embraces inclusion, sustainability and wellbeing. Rhen has worked across independent , S-M orgs, Statute Authorities and Majors, as well in event contemporary/commercial events and a wide range of arts and cultural festivals, alongside their advocacy work particularly for Queer communities. They are currently finalising an MFA of Cultural Leadership at NIDA. Rhen has a keen interest in contemporary and experimental arts, digital, hybrid and inter/multidisciplinary arts, especially in the Asia-Pacific region. They are currently the Senior Creative Producer at Next Wave and Co-Chair of the Post Office Projects Gallery and Studios Board and recently completed a term on South Australia's Rainbow Advocacy Alliance's Community Advisory Group.

 

Sar Fegan

Mentor: Morgan Rose

Sar Fegan lives and works on Wurundjeri country. They are a white dyke writer, artist and sometimes drag-thing who uses experimental forms to explore memory, madness and mess. Their works for stage include Engraft co-written with Sophie Chauhan and This is my Body co-created with Luke Macaronas. Sar’s writing has also appeared in Voiceworks, Going Down Swinging and Butch Is Not a Dirty Word. They are sometimes insane, often in pain, and always ready to fall asleep.

 

Teague Leigh

Mentor: Luke David

Teague Leigh is an autistic trans man from planets unknown, currently residing on Wurundjeri and Bunurong Country. Once upon a time he was anthologised in various works and performed his spoken words around the country. Now he is a photographer, letting his landscape images speak for him. Future Teague is looking at getting his hands dirty painting with acrylic and incorporating his collaged landscape images on canvas.

Photo credit: Bakri Mahmoud

 

Vivien Triantafillo

Mentor: Alice Dixon

Vivien is a dance artist that works with material, body, improvisation and choreographic processes. Their creative practice is focused on space, body and story. Through creative processes, they explore states of being, critical territories and the construction and deconstruction of binaries. Vivien is currently studying a Masters in Dance at the VCA where they are investigating the nuances of dance storytelling, documentation, dance writing, and choreography as research. A mover, maker and curator, Vivien works in solo and group collaborative processes and is developing a work for presentation in Midsumma Festival 2024.

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MENTORS

Alice Dixon

Mentoring: Vivien Triantafillo

Alice Dixon is a choreographer, dancer, teacher and performer working across contemporary dance, theatre and experimental performance. She has worked with Australian and international artists and companies including: Natalie Cursio, Lucy Guerin, Monica Bill Barnes & Company, CHUNKY MOVE (Antony Hamilton), Opera Australia, Mish Gregor and Lara Thoms (Aphids), Rawcus, Victoria Chiu, Reckless Sleepers, Phillip Adams BalletLab, Walter Dundervill, Euginia Lim, Rob McCreddie, Prue Clark and Emilie Collyer, Emma Riches, QL2 Youth Dance Company, Nebahat Erpolat, Deanne Butterworth, Gabrielle De Vetri and One Step at a Time Like This amongst others. Since 2013 Alice has worked in collaboration with fellow dance and performance makers William McBride and Caroline Meaden. Together they have made and performed eight original works of dance and theatre, carving out a distinctive aesthetic and formal contribution to the local dance ecology. Alice Will Caroline has presented work in festivals and venues including Dance Massive, Next Wave, FOLA (Festival of Live Art), Dancehouse, Carriageworks, the Substation, Temperance Hall, Arts House, Abbotsford Convent, Northcote Town Hall and the National Gallery of Victoria. Their most recent work ‘What’s Actually Happening’ was presented as part of the Keir Choreographic Award 2022. Their work together has been recognised by numerous awards and nominations including the 2020 Green Room Award for Best Ensemble (Dance).

 

Betty Grumble

Mentoring: Jessie Ngaio

Emma Maye Gibson (AKA Betty Grumble) is a Warrane/Sydney based performance artist. Largely through the avatar/war mask/love letter/critter of Betty Grumble she engages her body as a medicinal site of performative catharsis, often in a genre smash of ritual physical theatre, cabaret, performance art and multi-media. She has her Masters in Fine Arts/Arse and has presented work at Darwin Festival, Brisbane Festival, Vivid Festival, Festival of Dangerous Ideas, The Sydney Opera House, Glastonbury, Edinburgh Fringe, Griffin Theatre, The Bearded Tit and festivals around the world. She is currently touring the offering Enemies of Grooviness Eat Shit, a work about Grief, Pleasure & Justice. 

 

Clemence Williams

Mentoring: Em Tambree

Clemence is a Director for opera and theatre and a Composer and Sound Designer for theatre. Clemence has worked for STC, MTC, Belvoir, Bell Shakespeare, Sydney Chamber Opera and Independent theatres across Melbourne and Sydney to create new, urgent and accessible work.

 

Kate Mulvany

Mentoring: Ben MacEllen

Kate Mulvany OAM is an award-winning actor, playwright, screenwriter, librettist and dramaturg who has worked internationally on stage and screen. She has performed as Richard III, Cassius and Lady Macbeth, and has written 25 plays, including her autobiographical work "The Seed" and her epic adaptation of Ruth Park's "The Harp in the South" trilogy. Kate lives with a disability, and her life story has been covered by Australian Story; One Plus One and the 7:30 Report. Kate was the youngest ever recipient of the prestigious Mona Brand Award and also won the esteemed Sidney Myer Award. In 2020, Kate was awarded a Medal of the Order of Australia for her contribution to Australian Arts and received an Honorary Doctorate from Curtin University.

 

Luke David

Mentoring: Teague Leigh

Luke is an Australian photographer based in Melbourne, born in 1978. His practice is centred around investigating culture and identity through landscape photography, incorporating both the natural and built environments. Having completed an Advanced Diploma of Photography at PSC, Luke has been recognized as a finalist in multiple awards such as the CLIP Award, Australian Photographic Awards, Head On Festival Landscape Award and Mullins Conceptual Prize. Luke has a robust commercial practice and has recently worked with the Victorian Pride Centre, Thorne Harbour Health, Q+, Ritz Cartlon and Dorsett hotels and Nevile & Co. Commercial Lawyers.

 

Morgan Rose

Mentoring: Amy May Nunn & Sar Fegan

Morgan Rose was born in New Orleans, grew up in New Mexico, and currently lives in Melbourne. She is an internationally produced playwright, performance maker, and dramaturg. In addition to her text-based work she has a background in physical theatre and devising. Recent works include: Virgins and Cowboys (writer, Theatreworks, Griffin Theatre), Everyone Is Famous (writer, Riot Stage/Speakeasy), Lord Willing and the Creek Don’t Rise (writer, MKA/MTC NEON), The BachelorS17E05 (co-creator, The People/La Mama), and desert, 6:29pm (writer, Red Stitch). She is co-founder of the company The People (thepeoplemaketheatre.com) and the current co-artistic director of Melbourne-based company Rawcus (rawcus.org.au).

 

Paul Yore

Mentoring: Alex Creece

Paul Yore was born in 1987 in Naarm, and lives and works on stolen, unceded Gunaikurnai land. Yore completed studies in painting and anthropology at Monash University in 2010, before taking up full time work as an artist. He is celebrated as a prominent queer artist working across installation, sound, video, collage, and textiles. Yore has shown in major institutions across Australia, and extensively internationally, including in Austria, Belgium, France, Germany, Mexico, the Netherlands, Poland, South Korea, the UK and USA. His work is held in various public and private collections, both in Australia and internationally.

 

Philipa Rothfield

Mentoring: Caitlin Dear

Philipa Rothfield is honorary Fellow at Dance, VCA, Honorary Professor of Dance and Philosophy of the Body at the University of Southern Denmark, also Honorary Senior Lecturer in Philosophy and Politics at La Trobe University. She is Creative Advisor at Dancehouse (Melbourne, Australia), and Co-Editor of the Dancehouse Diary. Recent publications include Dance and the Corporeal Uncanny, Philosophy in Motion (Routledge, 2021) and Practising with Deleuze (co-authored)(Edinburgh University Press, 2017). She is a dance reviewer with over 70 reviews to her name, is Chair of the Dance Panel of the Melbourne Green Room Awards, and has served on a panel of judges for the Melbourne Fringe Festival. She practises dance improvisation, Qi Gong and Yoga.

 

River Lin

Mentoring: Rhen Soggee

River Lin is a performance artist working across the contexts of visual art, dance and queer culture through making, researching, and curating. Art-historical references are often infused into River’s compositions where he investigates cultural representation, social engagement and performativity of mediums. His work has been commissioned or presented by institutions and artist-run festivals, including the Centre Pompidou, Palais de Tokyo and Centre National de la Danse (Paris), Tokyo Real Underground Festival, the KANAL Centre Pompidou and KAAI Theatre (Brussels), Live Art Development Agency (London), the Manifesta 11 (Zurich), Buzzcut Festival (Glasgow), Month of Performance Art Berlin, Rapid Pulse International Performance Art Festival (Chicago), Draw to Perform and Tempting Failure (London), ANTI Contemporary Art Festival (Kuopio), the M+ Museum (Hong Kong), Asia Contemporary Art Week (New York/ Dubai), Serendipity Arts Festival (Goa), the Rockbund Art Museum, Ming Contemporary Art Museum and TANK (Shanghai), the 2020 Taiwan Biennial, 2016 Taipei Biennial and Taipei Fine Arts Museum, and the Liveworks Festival (Sydney) among others.

 

Sam Fox

Mentoring: Crystal Nguyen

Sam Fox is a director and writer living in Boorloo, upon Whadjuk Noongar land. He works across contemporary performance, literary fiction and various forms of collaborative cultural projects. Additional to artistic roles, Sam's approach to collaboration encompasses organising and facilitation within community, educational and activist contexts. Sam is currently a PhD candidate at the University of Western Australia where he is writing a novel about collectivisation and monstrous cultures of resistance. Recent roles include: co-producer of Rachel Arianne Ogle’s And The Earth Will Swallow Them Whole; mentor and collaborator with artist Patrick Carter on his Yedi / Songs project; and artistic director of the 'Experience Collider' project. Hydra Poesis, the company that Sam ran from 2006-2016, still exists, but lies in a deep cryogenic sleep.

 

Tommi Parish

Mentoring: Cynthia Sobraty

Tommi Parrish is a trans cartoonist born in Melbourne and currently living in Western Massachusetts in the US. Tommi's 2019 book 'The Lie and How We Told It' won the Lambda Literary Award. They were the 2020 Centre for Cartoon Studies fellow and have been highlighted by the New Yorker, PBS, Granta, Pitchfork and many more. Tommi's next book will be released early November with Fantagraphics books and has already been translated into German, Swiss and Italian.

 

Victoria Falconer

Mentoring: Kip Mac

Victoria Falconer (she/her) is a performer, multi-instrumentalist and musical director. 2022 projects include the debut of Frank Ford Commission-winning THE VALI MYERS PROJECT (Adelaide Cabaret Festival); SMASHED: THE BRUNCH PARTY (Adelaide Fringe) and LIZZIE (Sydney Festival). Musical direction credits include a queer reimaginging of OKLAHOMA! (Black Swan State Theatre), ONCE (Darlinghurst Theatre Company) and COURTNEY ACT (London). Victoria has won Best Cabaret at Adelaide Fringe twice (2018/2011), Spirit of the Fringe with GLITTERY CLITTERY (Edinburgh Fringe 2018), and received Green Room and Sydney Theatre Award nominations for musical direction. She is Mentorship Director for THE PEOPLE OF CABARET, an initiative advocating for IBPOC performing artists.

Artists

Adele Aria

Adele Aria is a queer disabled writer, advocate/activist, and artist whose work explores themes of social justice, human rights, and the politics of identity and existence. Primarily focused on domestic and family violence, they write non-fiction, poetry, art criticism and reviews, and performance writing which draw on experience, research, and studies. Adele’s writing has featured in international and Australian publications and literary events. Writing across multiple forms, Adele has been awarded several fellowships. As a person of colour, they are grateful to be living in Boorloo of Noongar Country.

Pronouns: they/them

 

Ben Goss

 

Ben Goss is a Melbourne based actor and theatre maker originally from Tasmania. A VCA graduate, he is passionate about exploring how the theatre and screen industries can become more accessible and inclusive. Recent credits as an actor include Leopard Print Loincloth for Kissing Booth Productions, and the play development of Yiraway (Mirage), written by Bronte Gosper. He was a recipient of the VCA's Irene Mitchell Award for Excellence in 2019.

Pronouns: he/him

Photo credit: Andrew Raszevski

 

Ebony Rattle

Ebony Rattle is a sound designer, sound engineer, writer and director based primarily on Wurundjeri Land. In the sound department, they have worked extensively, both nationally and internationally, in commercial and independent theatre, broadcast and orchestral and contemporary music. Their writing and directing practice focus on conveying theme rather than narrative, delving into lived concepts of gender, identity and disability. Writing/directing credits include Ring, Ring! (2021, Theatreworks) and BLITZ (2019, Alex Theatre St. Kilda). They are currently working on their next project, A PLACE FOR DOGS, with Antipodes Theatre Company.

Pronouns: they/them

Photo credit: Chloe Morgan

 

Ellen Cisneros

Ellen Cisneros explores cultural identity, mental health, gender and sexuality through interdisciplinary works spanning painting, illustration and sculpture.  An Australian with Filipino and Latino heritage, Ellen's practice reflects a multitude of shifting contexts, inspired by their diverse heritage and the negotiation of their intersectional identity.  Parameters of style and connection are explored as themes in Ellen's creations, often through the perspective of mental health advocacy. Currently working with painting, illustration and sculpture, their work often extends to moving image, photography, sound and collaborative initiatives.

Pronouns: they/them

 

Alex Craig

Alex Craig is a Queer Blind dance artist and performance maker. Exploring belonging, connection, identity and place, Alex works collaboratively, opening and holding space for a collective experience of dance and storytelling not centred on the visual. They invite audiences to gather physically and virtually, to listen and participate; sharing written translations of choreographed movement, instructional scores for interacting with public spaces, communication and navigation systems based on bodily sounds and vocalisations, and active conversations.

Pronouns: they/them

 

Lillian Paterson

Lil is a writer, director and video artist. Her debut short narrative film, Call History (2020), explores queer identity and the claustrophobia of grief. Featuring Zoe Terakes as the sole on-screen character, Call History screened at festivals across the country. In 2018, Lil wrote and directed Lives In Action alongside Hawanatu Bangura. Made as part of the Bus Stop Films program, Lil and Hawanatu mentored and collaborated with fourteen neurodiverse filmmaking students to develop the short documentary. Lil has worked as an assistant director, researcher and director’s assistant on feature films, short films, and television commercials. She is currently a freelance writer on historical documentaries and developing a short film and queer romance feature script set in 19th century Australia.

Pronouns: she/her      

Photo credit: Andrew Sikorski 

 

Purnima Padmanabhan

With experience as a writer and filmmaker, Purnima Padmanabhan’s approach to storytelling is marked by vivid worlds and diverse narratives. Her work often explores themes surrounding generational trauma, queer identities, intersectionality and chosen families. She has found home in horror and science fiction, with drama as the beating heart in both. Experimenting with a variety of forms - graphic novels, films, plays and podcasts - she has a few projects in development, ranging from a sci-fi comic to a folk horror play.

Pronouns: she/her

 

Rosanna Hewson (Rosie Roulette)

Life’s a game of chance, and this little sex-tra terrestrial creature has just crash landed and is ready to play with you!

A queer little Theylien from another planet, Rosie Roulette has many talents, most notably their ethereally, high vocals which are known for being out of this world! Gay, disabled and dangerous (well, mostly to themself) they are also well versed in the arts of disabiliTEASE and Nerdlesque! Producer of GEEK OUT! Nerdlesque and proud disability advocate, there’s no stopping this cheeky and geeky disabili-babe!

With a professional background in musical theatre and a BA from the National Academy of Singing and Dramatic Art (NASDA), Rosie brings a dramatic flare and captivating character to each performance. They are also holder of titles such as the PACANZ Young Performer of the Year winner for Speech and Drama (2013), Fast Track Singing Showcase winner (2015) and are the Australian reigning Psychobilly Queen (2018)!

So if you’re looking for an ass-tronomically good time then look no further… because it’s time to place your bets on Rosie Roulette!

Pronouns: they/them

 

Sarah Carroll

Sarah Carroll (she/they) is a Rotuman/Australian queer multidisciplinary artist working across live performance, writing, directing, film/tv and movement.

Sarah is deeply passionate about creating work that pushes for female queer representation and the intersectionality of queer identities. Sarah is also interested in focusing on neurodiverse and mental health experiences and cultural identity interweaving her experiences coming from a mixed race background and growing up in Australia and Fiji.

Sarah strives to champion for underrepresented voices to be heard and create works that uplift and engage audiences in new and exciting ways usually with lots of sparkle and sass. 

Pronouns: she/they

Photo credit: Farrah Aviva

 

Sarah-Jayde Tracey

Sarah-Jayde is a theatre maker/performer living and working on Wurundjeri land. Their creative practice centre’s experimental works that explore themes of class politics, disability, and queer performance through an intersectional feminist framework. Sarah-Jayde’s most recent collaboration, Hedda GablerGablerGabler, with PaperMouth Theatre will be presented La Mama Theatre in 2022.  They are a 2021 Aphids Supermassive Mentorship recipient, mentored by Mish Grigor. Their newest work Are You Better Yet? was featured in the 2021 Antipodes Winter Lab and the Melbourne Fringe, Common Rooms and Access Victoria’s artist development Tiny Tests in 2022.

Pronouns: she/her

 

Vivien Triantafillou

Vivien Triantafillou is a visual artist, dancer, choreographer and textile designer. She is currently researching the interaction of art, movement and technology. Her inventive and multi-coloured textiles interplay with the creation of dance performance. Vivien’s spiritual disciplines and creative arts practices are influenced by the body and nature’s architecture, dance legacies, motion technologies, and her lived experience of invisible disability and the Spirit filled life. 

Pronouns: she/her

 

Mentors

Adena Jacobs (she/her)

Mentor of Ebony Rattle

Adena Jacobs is a theatre director based in Naarm (Melbourne) and the Artistic Director of independent company Fraught Outfit. Her distinct body of work incorporates queer and feminist renderings of ancient texts, hallucinatory landscapes and rich sound scores. Her work has been presented at major festivals and venues including Carriageworks, Sydney Opera House, MIAF, Dark Mofo, MTC, Theatre Works, Malthouse Theatre and Belvoir where she was Resident Director in 2014/15. Internationally, she has directed for English National Opera in London and Tokyo Festival. In April 2022, she will premiere a new production of Die Troerinnen (Trojan Women) at Vienna’s Burgtheater.  

As a dramaturge, Adena has collaborated with artists including Lucy Guerin, Melanie Lane, Aaron Orzech, Nick Coyle and renown Indonesian filmmaker Kamila Andini as part of Asia TOPA.  

Adena is the recipient of MIAF’s Harold Mitchell Fellowship, the George Fairfax Memorial Award and two Green Room Awards. IN 2018, Adena Jacobs' and Damien Ricketson's THE HOWLING GIRLS was awarded the prestigious Music Theatre NOW prize presented by the Music Theatre NOW Network and ITI as part of Operadagen Rotterdam, and the Best Vocal/Choral Work by APRA AMCOS at the 2019 Art Music Awards.

 

Angus Cameron (he/him)

Mentor of Lillian Paterson

Angus Cameron is a playwright and academic based in Melbourne. He is the author of Dirt, which has toured Australia and received 20 five-star reviews, and six awards, including Best Theatre, Critics Choice and the Frank Ford at Adelaide Fringe, and Best Theatre at Perth Fringe. Other works include Australia Open, which was part of Melbourne Theatre Company’s Cybec Electric season in 2019 and was produced by bub at Kings Cross Theatre in 2020. He also wrote The Profit, which was part of Sydney Theatre Company’s 2017 Rough Drafts program; Cavemen, which was longlisted for Red Stitch’s INK program and which was staged as a reading at Gasworks as the winner of their Midsumma Playtime award; On Behalf of Everyone Everywhere, part of a collection of short ‘play for Australia’ at Arts Centre Melbourne; Human Error, produced by Bakers Dozen; as well as several other works. In addition to these companies, he has worked with, Simon Stephens, Australian Theatre for Young People, the Hellenic Festival, the Emerging Writers Festival and Small and Loud. He is completing a Ph.D. in theatre with Raimondo Cortese at the Victorian College of the Arts.

 

Daniel Monks (he/him)

Mentor of Ben Goss

Daniel  Monks is an actor and filmmaker. He was awarded Best Actor in a Play at the 2020 The Stage Debut Awards. He was nominated for Best Lead Actor in a Feature Film at the 2018 AACTA Awards, and Best Male Actor in a Play at the 2018 Helpmann Awards and 2018 Green Room Awards. In 2015, he won the Arts Award at the NSW/ACT Young Achiever Awards, and was awarded the Young Filmmaker of the Year at the 2014 WA Screen Awards. He has performed at the National Theatre, Donmar Warehouse, Malthouse Theatre, Sydney Theatre Company, and in 2022, will be starring opposite Emilia Clarke in Chekhov's "The Seagull" in the West End. He is an AFTRS graduate, and his first feature film "Pulse" won the Flash Forward Busan Bank award at the Busan International Film Festival 2017, the first Australian film to ever do so.

 

Gianna Mazzeo (she/her)

Mentor of Lillian Paterson

Gianna Mazzeo is an Italian-Australian writer/director based in Melbourne. She writes within the genres of drama and black comedy, telling stories about the environment, her culture, sexuality and the female condition. Her work in the field is diverse, starting her career in advertising and now freelancing across narrative film, music video and branded content. Gianna has had a short film published on global video channel, NOWNESS and her music videos have received multiple Rage 'Wild One' picks. Gianna is now steering her career toward dramatic storytelling, hoping to uncover new angles on important stories that challenge viewers to see the world differently.

Jake Preval (he/him)

Mentor of Ellen Cisneros

Jake Preval is a visual artist living and working in Naarm. His practice spans sculpture, photography, installation and performance. He completed his MFA at the Victorian College of the Arts where he was awarded the Lionel Gell Foundation Award. Recent solo exhibitions include Spring1883 showing with Sarah Scout Presents, slowtrade at the Warrnambool Art Gallery, A Warm Body To Hold at Fort Delta and Haiku for a Honey Girl at Blindside. He designed the installation and costumes for the performance work SICK that premiered at Temperance Hall as part of Midsumma 2022. He was a finalist in the BalletLab McMahon Contemporary Art Award 2018, Keith & Elisabeth Murdoch Travelling Fellowship 2017 and the John Fries Award in 2016. His work is held in public and private collections across Australia and New Zealand.

 

Jax Jacki Brown (they/them)

Mentor of Adele Aria

Jax Jacki Brown (they/them) is an LGBTIQA+ disability rights educator, writer, speaker and spoken word performer. Jax runs their own business in LGBTIQA+ disability rights and inclusion where they provide guest speaking, education, workshops and training. Jax is a producer and performer in Quippings: Disability Unleashed, a performance troupe which stages entertaining and provocative work by disabled folks. They are interested in how we can build resilience, pride and community for LGBTIQA+ disabled people and are passionate about intersectional equality.

 

Michelle Ryan (she/her)

Mentor of Holly Craig

Michelle has enjoyed a career that has spanned over 30 years in the arts and was the recipient of the 2020 Australia Council for the Arts Award for Dance.

Michelle was appointed Artistic Director of Restless Dance Theatre in 2013 and has created major works for the company for presentation in festivals both nationally and internationally.

Michelle celebrates diversity in all elements of her work.

 

Victoria Falconer (she/her)

Mentor of Sarah Carroll

Victoria Falconer is a cabaret artist, multi-instrumentalist and musical director. Currently hosting festival hit Smashed: The Brunch Party (Weekly Pick of Adelaide Fringe 2021), she is also co-creator of feminist firebrands Fringe Wives Club, whose debut Glittery Clittery played on stages including Soho Theatre (London), Griffin Theatre (Sydney), Darwin Festival, Melbourne International Comedy Festival (receiving a Best Newcomer nomination), BATS Theatre (Wellington) and Edinburgh Fringe, where they received the Spirit of the Fringe Award in 2018. Victoria has received the Best Cabaret award at Adelaide Fringe twice (2018/2011), and nominations for a Sydney Theatre Award (Once, DTC) & Green Room Award (Glittergrass, Malthouse). Other musical direction credits include Lizzie (Sydney Festival), Insane Animals (HOME Manchester), Courtney Act’s Under The Covers (London), and Oklahoma! (Black Swan State Theatre Company). She is a founding director of The People of Cabaret initiative, formed to advocate for BIPOC-identifying performing artists.

 

Vidya Rajan (she/her)

Mentor of Purnima Padmanabhan

Vidya  Rajan is a cross-disciplinary artist working across writing,  contemporary performance making, comedy, digital and screenwork. She has been a recipient of the Wheeler Centre's Hot Desk Fellowship, Melbourne Festival's Director's Lab Program and Screen Australia's Developing the Developer Initiative. She has recently worked as a writer and performer with ABC Comedy,  SBS, Theatre Works, Artshouse, Audible, Griffin Theatre and The Blue Room. Her work has also appeared in APJ, McSweeney's, Liminal, Cordite and Running Dog amongst others.  She is a former writer-in-residence at the Malthouse Theatre, and is currently under commission on a number of screen, stage, and digital/multi-artform projects.

 

Zoey Dawson (she/her)

Mentor of Sarah-Jayde Tracey

Zoey Dawson is an award-winning playwright and screenwriter based in Melbourne, Australia. Her recent playwriting credits include CAESAR (La Boite), Australian Realness (Malthouse Theatre), Conviction (Darebin Arts), Calamity (Melbourne Theatre Company), Madonna Arms (Next Wave/Artshouse), I Know There's a Lot of Noise Outside (I'm Trying To Kiss You/La Mama) and The Unspoken Word is Joe (La Mama/Griffin Theatre/Brisbane Festival). Her work has been nominated for 10 Greenroom awards, including Best New Writing for Conviction. She holds a Master of Screenwriting from VCA and teaches Script Writing and Performance Studies at Melbourne Uni.

Artists

Andy Rijs (Andy Amor)

Andy Rijs (Andy Amor) is an emerging fashion and textile designer, whose bold and innovative designs incorporate vibrant colour, sculptural silhouettes, and unique prints, imbued with a sense of individualism and fun. They have a passion for designing for diversity, and creating accessible, genderless, fashion-forward clothing. They're currently working towards launching a range of chest binders, to fit a diverse range of bodies.

Pronouns: they/them
Photo credit: Andy Rijs

 

Dasha

Dasha works across theatre, dance and experimental/contemporary performance as a maker, writer and performer. She explores photography, site-specific work, long-form journalism as well as incorporating visual theatre, music and new technologies as part of an expanded practice. Cross-cultural theatre/contemporary dance practices, contested-complex histories, hybrid spaces, disability access aesthetics and provocative conversations are recurring themes. 

Pronouns: she/her or they/them
Photo credit: Alexis Desaulniers-Lea

 

Diimpa

Eclectic and esoteric, Diimpa is an avant composer, soundscape weaver and sonic wizard. He is a proud mixed Kabi Kabi autistic queer man who works with keyboard instruments to create worlds of effortless magic and sound journey. Filled with electric pulses or ambient textures, Diimpa’s unique brand of contemporary minimalism is, at its heart, transcendent.  

Pronouns: he/him

 

Emma "Ruby" Armstrong-Porter

Emma "Ruby" Armstrong-Porter is a visual artist and educator who lives and works in Melbourne, Naarm. They were born in 1986 and are known for their work across many disciplines, most notably printmaking and chemistry based photography. They were the co-founder of NOIR darkroom, a gallery and photographic darkroom based in Coburg, Victoria. They were the recipient of the 2021 Midsumma Australia Post Art Award, a finalist in the 2023 National Photographic Portrait Prize and were a finalist in the 2020 Bowness Photography Prize. They have exhibited in Melbourne, regional Victoria and interstate. Their work is in the collection of the NGV as well as many private collections locally and internationally.

Pronouns: she/they
Photo credit: Jessica Schwientek

 

Evie Clayton

Evie is a synthetic chemist, science communicator and circus artist who likes to apply the same curiosity and critical thinking to both science and circus. Evie's specialties are aerial rope, handstands and synthetic glycobiology. They are expanding their artistic practice to dramaturgy and creative development, exploring medical misogyny, cissexism and heterosexism, and drawing on their lived experiences as a queer, non binary person and chronic pain patient. 

Pronouns: they/them
Photo credit: Benjamin O’Dea 

 

Fox Kennedy

Fox Kennedy is a queer, feminist, fat, socialist, collage and visual artist born in Kalgoorlie. They are interested in building safer spaces and challenging violence in communities through art, and talking about personal and political issues with a kitsch aesthetic. Fox is working with art that engages ideas of chronic illness, disability, activism, accessibility, trauma, healing and community building.  

Pronouns: she/her or they/them
Photo credit: Fox Kennedy 

Jamila Main

Jamila Main is a trained actor and award-winning playwright who makes work that operates within queer, feminist dramaturgies, and centers queer stories and people with disabilities. Their work often explores autonomy, trust, and joy, utilising the expressive possibilities of queerness in all its pure unbridled potential.  

Pronouns: they/them
Photo credit: Sam Oster 

 

Jasmine Shirrefs

Jasmine Shirrefs is a Deaf, non-binary and queer writer who experiments with form, narrative, memory and communication to explore the experiences of living in the intersections.  

Pronouns: they/them
Photo credit: Dulcie Shirrefs 

Joel Lago

Joel Lago is an actor, poet and performance-maker learning to be uncompromising and unapologetic in his disability and queerness. Joel aims to create art and media that address and challenge social perceptions of disability.  

Pronouns: he/him
Photo credit: Susan Papazian 

 

Leisa Prowd

Leisa Prowd is a dancer and physical theatre performer, developing a practice where exploring her own physical identity as a person with a visible skeletal disability. Leisa explores and confronts ideas of what it is to be a dancer, what it is to radically accept and celebrate the body in all its intricate diversity.  

Pronouns: she/her
Photo credit: 3 Fates Media 

 

Patrick Gunasekera

Patrick Gunasekera is a young writer, performer, and theatre artist of Sri Lankan migrant heritage, living and working on Whadjuk Noongar Boodjar. With evolving practices as an actor, dancer, singer, and pianist, his work explores how people become complicit in violence, and what agency means from marginalised positions. He is also a poet and award-winning essayist, with a passion for putting language to and transforming legacies of intergenerational trauma. He is currently revisiting the work of historical neurodivergent artists through an empathetic lens, and adapting his non-institutional cultural contexts into theatre and writing methodologies. Since 2019, he has proudly offered nuanced and ambitious coverage of underrepresented cultural work as an arts journalist in Boorloo (Perth).

Pronouns: he/him

 

Pearl Blackk

Emerging Creative - Access Producer/ Designer and artist Pearl Blackk (Melody Shotade), is known for co-designing accessible interactive live and digital workshops and creative presentations with her peers.

Pearl's commitment and advocacy has been demonstrated through 4 years of practice in embedding access and inclusion into the creative design, engaging with as many intersections of our community as possible.

Pearl's collective work has been supported by community groups, local, state, federal government initiatives, local festivals including Midsumma and Fringe, local commissions, private sponsorship.

Pronouns: she/her
Photo credit: Linda Scanlon

 

Sam Martin

Sam Martin is a Deaf, Hard of Hearing and Gay theatre maker and filmmaker, exploring ideas of the many facets of identities, inclusivity, navigating English and Auslan, and empowering and encouraging Deaf, disabled and queer communities.  

Pronouns: he/him
Photo credit: Julian Pertout 

 

Yasemin Sabuncu

Yasemin Sabuncu is a multidisciplinary artist working across performance, writing, visual art, film and television, who aims to create stories that uplift, engage, and promote diversity in innovative ways. Yasemin explores ideas of belonging, identity, liminality, spirituality, the environment, race, disability rights, questioning the status quo, and being “the other.”  

Pronouns: she/her
Photo credit: Yasemin Sabuncu 

 

 

Mentors

ANNI DAVEY OAM

Mentoring EVIE CLAYTON

Anni Davey OAM is the current Artistic Director of The Flying Fruit Fly Circus. Anni has a significant history with Australian contemporary circus, working in many capacities with Circus Oz since 1987 (including acrobat, director, acting general manager, and technical coordinator). In the 1990s, Anni was a founding member of two influential and significant independent performing companies Club Swing, and Crying In Public Places. As a director, her award winning and critically acclaimed practice has seen her work with Sarah Ward (Yana Alana), Maude Davey (My Life In The Nude), Circus Oz (Twentysixteen; Straight Up; Model Citizens), Sandfly Circus (Total Rebuild; NIBJLM; Come Fly With Us), and as guest director on a work-in-development with New York City’s LAVA dance company. With her twin sister Maude Davey, Anni is co-creator of the sold-out, nationally touring cabaret prognostication Retro Futurismus. She has also sat on the Board of Melbourne Fringe for ten years, including two years as Chair, and was Chair of the Australian Circus and Physical Theatre Association (ACAPTA) for seven years.

Pronouns: She/her

 

DANIEL MONKS

Mentoring JOEL LAGO

Daniel Monks is an actor and filmmaker. He has worked in acclaimed and major roles across the Australian and UK theatre and screen industries, as well as on independent and fringe stages. Daniel has also been recognised as an important and leading figure in centring disabled actors in the stories told on stage and screen. He has been awarded the 2019 Best Theatre Actor Award (Monsta Awards), the 2015 Arts & Fashion Award (NSW/ACT Young Achiever Awards), the 2014 Young Filmmaker of the Year (WA Screen Awards), and received nominations for the 2020 Stage Debut Awards (UK), 2019 BAL Awards, the 2018 AACTA Awards, the 2018 Helpmann Awards, the 2018 Green Room Awards, and the 2016 WA Screen Awards.

Pronouns: he/him
Photo credit: Marnya Rothe

 

FI MURPHY 

Mentoring JASMINE SHIRREFS

Fiona Murphy is a Deaf poet and essayist. Her work has been published in Kill Your Darlings, Overland, Griffith Review, the Big Issue, among other publications. In 2019, she was awarded the Overland Fair Australia Essay Prize and the Monash Undergraduate Creative Writing Prize. In 2018, she was shortlisted for the Richell Prize and highly commended by the Wheeler Centre Next Chapter program. Her memoir, The Shape of Sound, is forthcoming from Text Publishing in 2021.

Pronouns: she/her
Photo credit: Ebony Dennis

 

JAYE HAYES 

One of two mentors for FOX KENNEDY

Jaye is a dance/media/installation artist, embodied thinker, creative facilitator, somatic movement educator and chronic illness warrior. They have developed a queer-crip arts practice at the intersections of dance and disability, somatics and technology, research and therapy. Jaye has a BCA Hons (Dance) from Deakin University and 25 years experience as a professional arts practitioner. Prior to the onset of chronic illness they presented work nationally and internationally. Highlights include residencies at Performance Space (Sydney), Banff Centre (Canada) and Bootlab (Berlin), and commissions for ACMI (Melbourne) and PICA (Perth). Jaye’s current focus is research, facilitation and curation. They are completing a Masters in Therapeutic Arts Practice at MIECAT & collaborating with The Dax Centre as curator of the 'Queer My Head’ project.

Pronouns: they/them or she/her

 

JEN CLOHER 

Mentoring DIIMPA

Jen Cloher is a highly respected recording and performing artist and co-founder of Milk! Records (Courtney Barnett, Tiny Ruins, Hand Habits). She has released four albums, her most recent Jen Cloher (self titled) was nominated for the Australian Music Prize and debuted at number 5 on the ARIA charts. Her debut album Dead Wood Falls (2006) was nominated for an ARIA for Best Female Artist. In 2017 she was crowned Double J's 'Artist of the Year' and won the AIR Award for 'Best Independent Artist’. In 2011, Jen founded I Manage My Music a series of workshops and master classes to assist self managed artists with releasing music in Australia.

Pronouns: they/them or she/her
Photo credit: Lauren Connolly

 

JENNY WATSON 

Mentoring EMMA (RUBY) ARMSTRONG-PORTER

Jenny Watson was born in 1951 in Melbourne, Australia. She completed her Diploma of Painting, National Gallery of Victoria Art School, Melbourne, Australia (1972) and Diploma of Education, State College of Victoria, Melbourne, Australia (1973). From 1978-1984 she was a Partner in Art Projects, Melbourne, (Artist run space). Since 2002 Jenny has been an Adjunct Professor, Queensland College of the Arts, Griffith University, Australia.
She has exhibited extensively nationally and internationally in countries including London, Belgium, Austria, Switzerland, USA, Japan, Canada, UK, Vietnam, Germany, Italy, New Zealand and India. In 1993 Jenny represented Australia at the 45th Venice Biennale, Italy.
Jenny states: ”For 25 years my work has been concerned with possible relationships between text and image in a conceptual/minimal installation dialogue… It is the dialogue between these random aspects of everyday life that I am interested in.  In this way a space opens up between the text and the image."

Pronouns: she/her

 

JODEE MUNDY OAM 

Mentoring SAM MARTIN

Jodee Mundy OAM is an award winning interdisciplinary artist and creative director. 

Committed to producing high quality theatre works, public events, installations, festivals and artistic interventions, her works bring together diverse cross sections of the community who may not regularly encounter one another. Her works include: Imagined Touch (Presented at Arts House, Sydney Festival and Barbican Centre, London) and Personal ( Sydney Opera House, Darwin Festival).  Jodee is the only person who hears as everyone in her immediate family is Deaf. Her native language is Auslan and English is her second language.

Pronouns: she/her

 

JULIA YOUNG 

One of two mentors for FOX KENNEDY

Julia Young has over a decade of experience in the arts industry, working in commercial and public galleries, art fairs, and private collections. She is currently Curator and Collections Manager at The Dax Centre, which provides artists with lived experience of mental health issues opportunities for creative expression while fostering social change by expanding the public’s awareness of mental illness and breaking down stigma through art.

Pronouns: she/her

 

KATE MULVANY OAM 

Mentoring JAMILA MAIN

Kate  Mulvany OAM was born on Yamatji land. She is an award-winning playwright, screenwriter, librettist, dramaturg, and actor. Her written works include  The Seed, Masquerade, Medea,  Jasper Jones,  Mary Stuart, The Mares, and an adaption of Ruth Park’s  The Harp in the South  trilogy. As an actor, Kate has performed as Richard III for Bell Shakespeare and in Every Brilliant Thing for Belvoir, both of which won her Helpmann Awards for Best Female Actor. Kate’s life as an Agent Orange survivor has been covered on Australian Story, 7:30 Report and One Plus One. She can currently be seen opposite Al Pacino on the Amazon Prime show Hunters, produced by Jordan Peele. Kate is a proud member of Actors Equity.

Pronouns: she/her
Photo credit: Sally Flegg

 

KRISHNA ISTHA 

Mentoring DASHA TAN

Krishna Istha is a London-based writer, comedian and theatre-maker working both locally and internationally. Their practice is trans-disciplinary (theatre, comedy, opera, performance art) and often about taboo or underrepresented experiences of gender, race and sexual politics. Currently, they are an Arts Admin Bursary artist (2020-21) and a delegate on The Network (Edinburgh TV Festival ‘20).

Pronouns: they/them

 

MACK (JULIEMC) MCNAMARA 

Mentoring BLACK PEARL

Julie McNamara (Mack) is Artistic Director of Vital Xposure, a London based disability-led touring theatre company. She is an award winning documentary filmmaker, a 2019 Miegunyah Fellow of University of Melbourne and a recipient of a Southbank Show Award ITV. She’s previously brought The Butch Monologues to Midsumma at Theatreworks and her Quirkshops for the Fabulously Bent as part of Alyson Campbell’s Feral Queer Camp.

Pronouns: they/them or she/her
Photo credit: Wanda Golwag

 

MAUDE DAVEY OAM 

Mentoring LEISA PROWD

Photographer: Suzanne Phoenix

Maude Davey OAM has been making performance in and out of Melbourne for more than thirty years. She trained as an actor at VCA and regularly appears in films, on television and on stage. She has traveled the world with Finucane & Smith in their famed theatre and variety shows (2004 – 2020) as well as with her own acclaimed music/theatre/cabaret outfit, Crying In Public Places (1988 – 2004). She has made four solo shows over three decades; the most recent, My Life in the Nude, has been performed to rapturous receptions all over Australia. In 2018 she and Mama Alto initiated the Gender Euphoria project, which has been hailed as the most significant celebration of transgender identities yet seen on the Australian stage. She is a recognizable face on Australian Television, with credits including Offspring and Summer Heights High. Awards include Outstanding Performance in a Featured Role for Melancholia by Declan Greene (Malthouse Theatre), several nominations for Best Actress, and an Order of Australia Medal (2020) for Contributions to the Performing Arts.

Pronouns: she/her

 

NATHANIEL HAGEMASTER 

Mentoring PATRICK GUNASEKERA

Although Nathaniel dabbles in various things -- creating video essays as his drag persona (Agony Myers), sewing and costume design, sketching portraits, and doing fx make-up -- he is ultimately a writer. His work often involves cultural critiques that relate to drag, gender, kink/fetishism, body type, disability, and media analysis through personal narrative, academic essays, and sometimes poetry. As someone who is perpetually out of place as a biracial Aspie with an unusual gender expression and personality, Nathaniel aims to challenge common taboos related to sexuality, normative concepts of gender performance, and basic assumptions of popular culture with his writing.

Pronouns: he/him
Photo credit: Nathaniel Hagemaster

 

RYAN KING 

Mentoring ANDY AMOR, in 2020 only

Ryan King has a wealth of knowledge, passion and experience spanning many creative industries including Costume Design & Fashion Manufacturing, Dance & Theatre, and Interior Design. Currently Operations Manager at Cooper Robinson Interiors, Ryan brings to this mentorship fashion industry expertise from his prior work as an independent designer, maker and manufacturer with a specialty in dance & athletic wear.

Pronouns: he/him

 

TJ DAWE 

One of two mentors for YASEMIN SABUNCU

TJ Dawe is a writer, director, performer and dramaturg, specialising in solo shows. He’s performed his shows Tired Cliches, Labrador, Medicine and Marathon at the Adelaide Fringe, and has participated in more than one hundred fringe festivals worldwide. He co-wrote a play that became the feature film The F Word, starring Daniel Radcliffe. He co-created The One Man Star Wars Trilogy, which has been touring the world since 2001. He teaches a course on solo show creation online. He lives in Vancouver.

Pronouns: he/him
Photo credit: David Morris

 

VICTORIA FALCONER-PRITCHARD 

One of two mentors for YASEMIN SABUNCU

Victoria Falconer is a cabaret artist, MC, multi-instrumentalist and musical director. She is co-creator of acclaimed feminist firebrands Fringe Wives Club, whose debut show Glittery Clittery has been presented at the Southbank Centre, Soho Theatre (London), Griffin Theatre (Sydney), Darwin Festival, Bats Theatre (Wellington) and at Edinburgh Fringe, where it received the Spirit of the Fringe Award in 2018. As a performer, Victoria’s shows have twice received the Best Cabaret Award at Adelaide Fringe (2018/2011). In 2020 she was nominated for a Sydney Theatre Award (Once, Darlinghurst Theatre Company) and a Green Room Award (Glittergrass, Malthouse Theatre) for musical direction. Other MD credits include Insane Animals (HOME Manchester), Courtney Act’s Under The Covers (Underbelly, London) Unroyal Variety (Hackney Empire) and Sasquatch The Opera (Summerhall, Edinburgh). She is currently musical director for Black Swan State Theatre Company’s queer re-imagining of Oklahoma!, premiering in December 2020.

Further info: maestramusic.org/profile/victoria-falconer

Pronouns: she/her
Photo credit: Charlie Sambrook

 

Artists

Abbie Madden

Mentored by Robbie Curtis

Abbie Madden is Artistic Director and founder of inclusive dance and circus company Blindful. Their current work My Sight - Their Sight has just completed an Australian tour, performing at the Western Australia Circus festival and FRINGE WORLD Perth 2018. Abbie took part in Melbourne Fringe 2017, with a show called Blindful and won Best Emerging Producer, supported by Milke. Abbie is originally from Australia where she trained at Gravity Dance Studios and Adelaide College of the Arts in their Bachelor Program.

Abbie was also a member of the world renowned Australian Dance Theatre's Youth Ensemble where she worked with Choreographers Larissa McGowan and current company dancers. After seeing award winning comedy dance theatre group ponydance perform in the Adelaide Fringe 2013 Abbie relocated to Belfast to fulfil her dream of working with them and became a company member for two years. Whilst in the UK and Ireland Abbie worked with various independent dance companies, musicians and collectives. You can see her in music videos for Ryan McMullan (now touring with Ed Sheeran), Donal Scullion and Loris.

A highlight was presenting a video work at PS2 Gallery in Belfast as part of a 2016 exhibition that Abbie curated with the Go Girl Collective. Abbie is a versatile performer and choreographer with experience in dance performance along with creative research and developments, film, physical theatre and musical theatre. The direction she wishes to head in right now is merging dance and circus with disability, how can these disciplines become more accessible. Particularly to those with a vision impairment, which comes from Abbie's own experiences being born with congenital glaucoma.

 

Christopher Bryant

Mentored by Amelia Roper

Christopher Bryant is an award-winning playwright, author, and performer. He has studied at NIDA (Master of Fine Arts (Writing for Performance), 2014/15), and worked with a range of companies including Gob Squad, fortyfivedownstairs, Malthouse Theatre, the State Library of Victoria, ATYP, La Mama and MKA. As a playwright he's been shortlisted for the Griffin Award (Home Invasion, 2015), Belvoir St Theatre's Phillip Parsons Fellowship (The Mutant Man, 2014), and the Arch and Bruce Brown Playwriting Competition (The Mutant Man, 2015).

Recent work includes his play Intoxication (Myron My, 2016), which he also performed in, and his "dark, expressionistic thriller" The Mutant Man (British Theatre Guide, 2017). Intoxication won the Queer Development and Mentorship Award at the 2017 Melbourne Fringe, and toured Australia in 2017 & 18. He's had scripts published through Playlab and Australian Plays, and he was the inaugural recipient of the Russell Beedles Performing Arts Fellowship at the State Library of Victoria (2015).

As an author he's been shortlisted for the Scribe Nonfiction Prize (2017) and the Frankie Magazine "Good Stuff" Award (2017). He has completed a Wheeler Centre Hot Desk Fellowship (2017), and is due to complete a residency at Bundanon Trust in 2018 to complete his narrative non-fiction collection, Accidents Happen. He has been published in Hello, Mr. Magazine, Thought Catalog, and That Reminds Me, as well as appearing at the Emerging Writers' Festival and NYFW. He teaches with Monash University, where he's completing his Ph.D. under the supervision of Jane Montgomery Griffiths.

 

Clareo O'Shannessy

Mentored by Sapidah Kian

Clareo is a transdisciplinary artist in visual art, performance and spoken word poetry. As a bisexual, she is unable to find scripts that demonstrate her experiences of bisexuality, so she writes her own. Clareo is interested in creating and performing content with nuanced approaches to bisexuals' personalities and traits. She also aims to be very progressive in her approach to gender and identity. Healthy artistic conversations around mental health are also a priority for Clareo, as she has lived experienced as a survivor.

Clareo's love of word play, visual intricacies and physical theatre, all with a queer feminist lens, assist in the unique poetic landscapes of her plays. Clareo is completing her final year of a Bachelor of Fine Art at Monash University. She has a long history of exhibiting in Melbourne, including a career highlight in 2012, as a part of REVAMP Collective's exhibition, HABITAT, at the NGV Australia.

 

Creatrix Tiara

Mentored by Maude Davey

Creatrix Tiara works with creative arts and media, technology, games, community cultural development, and education to explore ideas around community, identity, liminality, belonging, and social justice.

She's a life-long writer, a strident activist for rights to self-determination and personal choice, and has built a reputation for creating challenging, catalysing creative and community work that deals with race, gender, sexuality, and nationality. Currently she's very interested in exploring the ways that arts, media, performance, games, and other mediums can be used to convey and support experiences of transience and flux while also building empathy and understanding for experiences and stories outside one's own.

 

Elvin Lam

Mentored by Justine Miles

Elvin is based in Melbourne and started dancing in his late teenage years. Before dance, he trained in figure skating for 10 years and attended different competitions. He was also an actor for Deaflympic, films, TV and theatre before he strapped on his first pair of dancing shoes. He joined Deaf Can Dance in 2006 and had performances in Melbourne, South Australia and Queensland. Currently he is with The Delta Project and the latest performance was Under My Skin at Arts Access Victoria and Next Wave Festival in 2016. He is also a skilled comic illustrator.

 

Ruby Allegra

Mentored by Quinn Eades

Ruby Allegra is a 24 year old queer, genderfluid visual artist, makeup artist, speech pathology student and activist from South Australia. Their background is in fine art, and Ruby incorporates painting, pencil sketching, poetry and abstract contour portraiture to explore themes of disability, sexuality, gender, intersectionality and mental illness in their art. Ruby is also co-founder (with artist and poet Wallis Prophet) of The TheyThem Collective, a queer and gender diverse artist collective.

 

Sophie Rose

Mentored by Alison Bennett

Sophie Rose is an artist and student living in Narrm/Melbourne. Her practice looks at the body in states of sickness and girlhood through writing, objects and video.

Recent exhibitions include:

Remedial Works, curated by Andrew Verano at PICA, Perth (2017) and Real Life Fantasies, curated by Patrice Sharkey at Westspace, Melbourne (2017).

 

Mentors