Alessandro Sciarroni is an Italian artist active in the field of Performing Arts with several years of experience in visual arts and theater research. His work starts from a conceptual Duchamp-like matrix using a theatrical framework and is featured in festivals, museums and unconventional spaces, across Europe, South and North America and Asia. In his creations he involves professionals from different disciplines and uses some techniques and experiences from dance, as well as circus or sports. His work tries to uncover obsessions, fears and fragilities of the act of performing, through the repetition of a practice to the limits of the physical endurance of the interpreters, looking at a different dimension of time, and to an empathic relationship between the audience and the performers. In 2019 he was awarded the Golden Lion for Lifetime Achievement in Dance by the Venice Biennial. Alessandro Scarroni is associate artist of MARCHE TEATRO.

Alfira, born in Perth of Acehnese-Irish descent, is a dance artist who specialises in traditional and contemporary Indonesian music and dance. In 2001, Alfira founded Suara Indonesia Dance. Her educational repertoire includes studying at the Institute of the Arts Yogyakarta and Surakarta (Central Java). In Aceh (North Sumatra) she researched and trained under master instructors in Acehnese sitting dances which are rhythmical body percussion dances, accompanied by devotional Islamic melodic songs. She holds a degree in International Studies (UNSW) and an Honours in Indonesian Studies at Sydney University, completing a thesis on the history and significance of Acehnese body percussion sitting dances.

Alfira performs as a solo artist as well as with her dance troupe at national and international festivals. Notably, her artistic contribution goes beyond pure entertainment. Alfira is a modest humanitarian who has spent time in Palestine, teaching body percussion dances in refugee camps as a method of trauma relief (2010). She has also been to Papua New Guinea in the Goroka highlands to teach workshops in villages (2011). In Aceh, 2006, she monitored trauma healing programs that taught traditional dance to victims of the 2004 tsunami and 30-year conflict in Aceh. Preserving and honouring her cultural heritage through dance is a key objective of Alfira's and subsequently her dance group have taught Indonesian dance workshops in hundreds of schools across Australia, New Zealand, South East Asia and Europe. She has collaborated with a number of Indonesian and Australian contemporary music ensembles and artists including: Lyn Williams AM and the Gondwana Choirs, Contemporary Asian Australian Performance (CAAP) the late Slamet Gundono, Rendra Freestone & The Rhythm Hunters, Agung Gunawan, Sawung Jabo, Jade Dewi Tyas Tunggal, Wei Zen Ho and earlier this year premiered Bunyi Bunyi Bumi at Asia TOPA with Murtala and Waangenga Blanco, co-directed by Raymond Blanco and Priya Srinavasa produced by Blakdance.

Azzam Mohamed is a dancer, performer, and educator. He has been dancing for more than 13 years, and has trained in an array of different dance styles, from Afro-House and Kuduro to HipHop, Popping and House. In 2019 he was champion of Destructive Steps, Australia’s premiere street dance competition. He performed in Nick Power’s contemporary and street dance crossover production produced by Intimate Spectacle, commissioned by Sydney and Adelaide Festivals in 2020, Two Crews. He was a key collaborator in Jack Prest’s The Risk of Hyperbole, (2021) his first full-length work as solo performer and choreographer, and continues to collaborate with Jack, including in Intimate Spectacle’s co-production with Art Gallery of NSW & Sydney Festival, MONUMENTAL (working title), in 2022 and returning in 2023 for Sydney Festival. He curated and directed Sculptured Riddims for Sydney Festival 2024, three club nights of street dancers responding to Michael Shaw’s inflatable sculpture Hi-Vis in the Thirsty Mile festival club space, celebrating diverse communities, cultures, and music genres with various dance styles—from street to club to Afro dance. Azzam’s full length work Katma, produced by PYT Fairfield, was commissioned through the Major Festivals Initiative and premiered at Sydney Festival 2025. He is a member of the Board of Critical Path. 

Ben Graetz, also known as Miss Ellaneous (aka Bogan Villea), is a powerhouse in Australia’s creative sector, with over 26 years of experience. Raised in Darwin on Larrakia Country with deep cultural ties to Malak Malak, Kungarakan, Muran Clan, and Badu Island, Ben has shaped the arts sector nationally and internationally. He is the Founder of BRG Productions, known for their celebration of diversity and inclusion. As Creative Director of major events like Sydney WorldPride 2023 and the Garrmalang Festival, Ben’s influence extends across communities, showcasing First Nations talent, LGBTQIA+SB advocacy, and cultural innovation.

Author, director, and producer Caroline Guiela Nguyen, founder of the Les Hommes Approximatifs theater company, creates fiction that captures the issues of our time. Director of the TnS since September 2023, she sees it as a place of life, hospitality, and constant reflection on the relationship between works of art and the community. She combines international influence with local creativity, opening the theater and its school to cinema and audiovisual media.

Cassandra is an award winning theatre director. Directing credits include; Rhinoceros (fortyfivedownstairs), World Problems (Melbourne Theatre Company), The Crocodile (Winner Best Director 2024 Green Room Awards), Far Away (fortyfivedownstiars), The Mermaid (La Mama Theatre - 2021 VCE Playlist), Dog Show (Melbourne Fringe Hub). She was the Associate Director on A Very Jewish Christmas Carol (Melbourne Theatre Company) and Assistant Director on The House Of Bernarda Alba (Melbourne Theatre Company).  Cassandra is a theatre maker deeply engaged with community-centered artistic practices. Having a long standing artistic collaboration with Samara Hersch (Body Of Knowledge, We All Know What’s Happening), THE RABBLE (LONE, UNWOMAN, YES, WAKE) and APHIDS (Oh Deer!, Easy Riders, Crisis Averted). Working alongside young people in co-authorship models is a core aspect of her practice and can be seen through the following collaborations: Adena Jacobs’ The Book Of Exodus, THE RABBLE’s LONE, Darebin Art's Let's Take Over Program from 2019 to 2022 and We All Know What’s Happening by Samara Hersch & Lara Thoms which toured national and internationally. Learn more at www.cassandrafumi.com

Artist/producer/creative-director CHAII is an Iranian Artist from Aotearoa New Zealand. CHAII’s creative vision was apparent on debut EP Lightswitch and her recent Album ‘Safar’. Having music featured in EA Sports’ FIFA 21 Soundtrack + Trailer for Ms Marvel, ‘Nobody Know’ iPhone 12 + featured in Netflix Original film ‘The Old Guard’, ‘South’, featured in Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater soundtrack + FENDI’s global FENDIVA campaign and more, leading to CHAII being announced as the most synched artist in The Rolling Stone Australia/NewZealand. Being the first ever NZ Spotify RADAR artist and NZ’s first artist on a Coke Studios collab, collaborating with Australian artist Tones and I and Australian DJ/Producer Young Franco to create their single ‘Can’t get you off my mind’.

CHAII’s dynamic multicultural blend of influences not only brings listeners into her world, but also digs deep into the roots of her Persian background. Born in Iran where music was a big part of her culture she showed a lot of interest in creative outlets, by the time her family moved to New Zealand when she was eight years old, that interest had bloomed into an obsession and now a full time life of making music.

CHAII’s (Mona’s) background - Early university years completing Design/Audio engineering qualifications. For 10+ years CHAII has worked and done various different roles in the creative industry including working for music labels, creative directing, film producing, audio engineering & Producing. As of 2019 CHAII went into pursuing music full time. Her Track ‘Digebasse’ went viral and led to her signing a global deal with label BMG.

Chenoa Deemal Co-Writer & Provocateur Chenoa Deemal is a proud Thiithaarr Warra (Guugu Yimithirr), Kaanju and Ayapathu woman. She is an award-winning actress, receiving a Matilda Award for Is That You, Ruthie? Her stage credits span leading companies including Queensland Theatre, La Boite, Ensemble, Riverside Theatres and Melbourne Theatre Company. Screen Credits: Safe Home, Troppo, and Summer Love. The Bogong’s Song marks her first writing credit, alongside co-writing her own feature film with Rough Sea Films. Training: QUT (BFA ACTING), ACPA.

Co-Creator, Director Clare Watson is a multi-award-winning director and theatre-maker. In 2023, she was appointed Artistic Director of Windmill. Her first work for the company, Hans and Gret, enjoyed a sell-out season at the Adelaide Festival.  From 2016-2022 she was Artistic Director of Black Swan State Theatre Company and the former Artistic Director at St Martins Youth Centre. Clare has directed work for several major theatre companies and festivals including Malthouse Theatre, Belvoir, Melbourne Theatre Company, State Theatre Company South Australia, Sydney Theatre Company, Edinburgh Festival, Adelaide Festival among others. She directed a production of Cyrano adapted by Virginia Gay which won a Fringe First Award in Edinburgh and was nominated in London for 3 Offies Awards including Best Production and Best Director. Clare is the recipient of a Sidney Myer Performing Arts Award.

Conflictorium is a non-collecting, participatory museum that addresses the ideas, questions, and structures of conflict. Through interdisciplinary and intersectional approaches, we create spaces that are emotionally resonant, intellectually rigorous, and radically inclusive. We centre lived experiences of conflict—personal, political, and historical—and treat these narratives not only as documentation, but as heritage and artefact in their own right.

Dan is the Artistic Director of Dan Daw Creative Projects. Dan Daw Creative Projects is a disabled-led company which is leading the way in creating accessible international touring work that blurs the lines between theatre, dance and activism. Dan has presented his work at British Dance Edition (UK), Swedish Performing Arts Biennale (Sweden), Sydney Festival, Sydney World Pride, Rising Festival and APAM (Australia), Kampnagel, Sophiensaele and Radikal Jung (Germany), Trafo (Hungary), Auawirleben Theatre Festival (Switzerland), Teatro Municipal do Porto and Culturgest (Portugal), Onassis Stegi (Greece), Performance Space New York (USA). Dan began working as a performer with Restless Dance Theatre (Australia) in 2002, and since then has gone on to work with some of the world’s best, including: Force Majeure, Queensland Theatre, Sydney Theatre Company (Australia), National Theatre Scotland (UK) and Skånes Dansteater (Sweden). Dan’s critically acclaimed live performance work has toured to over twenty venues around the World, been nominated for a UK National Dance Award in 2022 and more recently awarded a Green Room Award for Best Contemporary and Experimental Performance during his 2023 season of The Dan Daw Show at Rising Festival and APAM. A Sadler’s Wells Associate Artist and working as Auawirleben Theatre Festival Associate Curator (2024 – 2025), Fokus Tanz Co-curator (2024), Internationale Tanzmesse NRW Associate Curator (2021 – 2024), Associate Artistic Director of Candoco Dance Company (2021), Sadler’s Wells Summer University Artist (2015 – 2018) and Associate Director of Murmuration (2015 – 2022), Dan continues to work at the forefront of disability-led performance making and international performance programming.

DJ Habibeats is a powerhouse in the global dance music scene, hailing from SF and based in LA. Best known for his explosive event Habibi's House, he sells out venues worldwide. His percussion-heavy sound fuses Amapiano, Baile Funk, and Jersey Club with Middle Eastern, African, Brazilian and Latin influences. 

Edith Amituanai is a New Zealand-born Sāmoan photographer working from Tāmaki Makaurau (Auckland). From interiors, to driveways, to communities, Amituanai’s practice is concerned with the environments that shape who we are. Domestic interiors as transitional sites of migration feature heavily in the artist’s early work. Her ongoing study of the Sāmoan transnational community and their homes has taken her to Sāmoa, New Zealand, France, Canada, and the United States, each location and subsequent generation revealing new and dynamic ways that culture does and does not travel with people as they move around the globe. In 2008, Amituanai was nominated for the Walters Prize for her series Dejeuner that examined a new Pacific diaspora, expatriate New Zealand Sāmoan rugby players living and working in Montpellier, France and Parma, Italy. Since then, she has literally and politically widened the photographic frame to include the street. Her first photographic foray into a cultural community not her own was the series La Fine Del Mondo (2009–2010). Helping the Lai family, Chin refugees from Myanmar, settle into their new home in Massey, West Auckland, her friendship with the family deepened, she began photographing them in their home, and eventually followed the children of the family out onto the street. Her first solo exhibition, Mrs Amituanai, that records moments on and around her wedding day, was held in 2005 at Anna Miles Gallery. That year she was the youngest artist to feature in the survey publication, Contemporary New Zealand Photographers. Two years later, she was inaugural recipient of the Marti Friedlander Photography Award, and the following year she was the first Walters Prize nominee of Pacific descent. Her first major survey exhibition opened in 2019 at Te Pātaka Toi Adam Art Gallery at Te Herenga Waka Victoria University of Wellington. In the same year she became a member of the New Zealand Order of Merit for services to photography and community. Amituanai has exhibited extensively in galleries and museums across Aotearoa and internationally. In 2022 her work was exhibited in the Busan Biennale, Korea. Her artwork is held in national and international collections including Auckland Art Gallery Toi o Tāmaki, Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa, Govett-Brewster Art Gallery and QAGOMA (Queensland Art Gallery).

Emma Donovan is a celebrated Gumbaynggirr and Yamatji singer and songwriter, renowned for her powerful voice and fearless storytelling. She first emerged as a teenager with Stiff Gins before joining The Black Arm Band and fronting acclaimed soul outfit The Putbacks. With albums Dawn and Crossover, Donovan cemented herself as one of Australia’s most vital artists, blending gospel, country, and soul with her cultural roots. She has graced major stages including WOMADelaide, Bluesfest, and the Sydney Opera House, and was inducted into the NIMAs Hall of Fame with her family band The Donovans. In 2025 she unveiled Take Me to the River - a joyous, soul-stirring work that captures her at the height of her powers. 

Enji returns with her new album Sonor. Following the success of her last record, Ulaan, Enji went back to the studio at the end of last year – by far the busiest in her musical life so far – to process everything through writing and recording new music. 

On her third album on the Squama label, the Mongolian singer explores questions of identity and belonging through metaphoric language, vigilant and always hopeful. Musically, like its predecessors, Ursgal and Ulaan, Sonor sits somewhere between jazz and folk, without being clearly confined to a single genre. On stage, Enji performs her new songs with River Adomeit on bass and co-composer Paul Brändle on guitar. 

Educated at the school of rigor, of precise, demanding Korean discipline, Eun-Me Ahn is also a daredevill performer, ready for all kind of piracies. Some have seen her jump from the top of a crane, then attack a piano with axe and scissors, rip from herself her fairy dress made of white ties, to distribute the pieces to the audiences while performing a teddybear dance, bury herself with a clown costume under a rain of balloons, be locked behind bars in a duet with a chicken, or dressed up as a mushroom… But one would be wrong in thinking it is mere provocation. It is rather the affirmation of a curiosity and a freedom held by work and style, pushed to their most unexpected limits.

Championing Local Voices in Global Communities FORM Dance is the leading producer and presenter of Australian independent contemporary dance in Western Sydney. We are an artist-lead organisation, operating with highly experienced leadership team of Paul Selwyn Norton as Creative Director and Naomi Hibberd as Creative Producer. As festival directors, producers and pedagogues we bring our entrepreneurial expertise and global connectivity to the local NSW dance sector

Harriet Gillies is an award-winning performance artist, dramaturg and director. She makes interdisciplinary, digital, durational, participatory, immersive and hybrid contemporary performance. She has presented works across Australia, New Zealand, Europe, North America and Taiwan. She has been supported by arts organisations and government agencies at regional, national and international levels, and received professional artistic mentorship from acclaimed international artists Lynsey Peisinger, Robert Wilson and Marina Abramović. Her creative practice explores the internet and the role it has played in the changing psychology and social structures of society. She explores these ideas through a deeply non-linear, queer and nihilistic frame. She is passionate about making work that allows audiences to sit inside paradoxes – experiences that are at once silly and emotionally profound.

Few acts have stayed at the top of their game like indie-dance magicians Hot Chip. Across more than two decades and a deep discography, the London quintet have perfected a dancefloor-ready sound that is by turns melancholy, soul-stirring and all-out euphoric.

Beloved by Australian audiences, their return for Sydney Festival – playing two nights in the iconic Concert Hall – arrives at a crowning moment. In 2025, the band unveiled Joy In Repetition, a greatest-hits collection celebrating their 25 years of music making with depth and durability. Their roof-raising catalogue, alongside a new single, “Devotion”, that wraps listeners in a warm hug. 

Steeped in classic house and shimmering synth-pop, and illuminated by frontman Alexis Taylor’s unmistakable voice, Hot Chip remains one of modern music’s most life-affirming live acts. Come ready to dance, laugh and lose yourself in the music. 

Noongar rap and R&B sensation, INKABEE. Bursting onto the national scene in late 2022 with his debut single “Beat the Odds”, the teenage wunderkind continues to impress. His Bars of Steel performance of “We Dat Good” with FLEWNT amassed over 10 million views on TikTok.    

He’s shared stages with artists like Barkaa, JK-47, Kobie Dee, and JMilla, featured at some of the country’s most iconic venues, and performed abroad at the SummerStage in Central Park, New York, and the International Indigenous Music Summit in Toronto. At SXSW Sydney (2023), Chance the Rapper dubbed the 13-year-old “the future of Australian hip hop”. From viral freestyles to world stages, INKABEE isn’t just rising – he’s arrived.  

Director and Co-Adaptor Queensland Theatre: Dear Brother, 37 (with Melbourne Theatre Company), At What Cost? (with Belvoir St Theatre), City of Gold (with Griffin Theatre Company). Other Credits: As Director: Victorian Opera, The Visitors, JUTE Theatre: From Campfire to Stage Light, Performing Lines: Hide the Dog, The Season, La Boite Theatre: From Darkness, Bigger and Blacker, ILBIJERRI Theatre Company/Belvoir: Coranderrk, ILBIJERRI Theatre Company/Arts House: Blood on the Dance Floor, Archie Roach Foundation: Into the Bloodstream. Positions: Head of First Nations Theatre (Current Position), Associate Artistic Director, Resident Dramaturg, Associate Artist, Queensland Theatre, Associate Director, ILBIJERRI Theatre Company, Resident Artist, Playwrighting Australia. Isaac is a Noongar man. Awards: 2025 Matilda Awards – Best Direction and Best Mainstage Production 37, 2018 Green Room Awards – Best Direction and Best Mainstage Production The Season.

Jack Prest is a mid-career arts professional working as composer, mix/master/recording engineer and interdisciplinary artist. His practice incorporates electronic, avant-garde and ambient music, sound art, new media, video and performance.  He is a senior engineer at Studios 301, Australia’s most prestigious recording facility, with engineering credits including: Sony, Future Classic, Bruce Springsteen, The Preatures, Sampa the Great, Kool Keith, Flume, Urthboy, David Campbell, Delta Goodrum, Jonti, Santpoort, Anatole, Donatachi and Godtet. The Risk of Hyperbole was his debut full-length performance work as lead artist and director, having created scores for numerous dance and theatre works previously. These include Branch Nebula’s 2013 Helpmann Award winning Whelping Box and Nick Power’s Australian Dance Award nominated Between Tiny Cities, and MFI commission Two Crews. Works for which he has composed have featured at: Sydney, Darwin, Bleach, Adelaide, Brisbane & Junction Festivals, Sydney Opera House, Dance Massive, APAM, Carriageworks, Next Wave, Festival, Queenstown Arts Festival, La Place & Compagnie par Terre (France), Freespace (Hong Kong), and over 20 venues in 10 countries visited by Between Tiny Cities. Jack also collaborated with Azzam on his full-length work Katma, which premiered at Sydney Festival 2025. 

Jannawi Dance Clan is a First Nations intergenerational dance collective based in Western Sydney. Founded in 2008 by Artistic Director Peta Strachan, Jannawi meaning ‘with me, with you’ in Dharug language, centres on Indigenous storytelling through dance and performance, embodied language revitalisation, traditional movement and new forms. Jannawi celebrates the strength, resilience and stories of Aboriginal people in NSW. Community, identity and culture are strong values in their practice with a large commitment to revitalise language and heighten the voices of Darug peoples and histories. Jannawi is the only Sydney dance group led by Dharug custodians and community. Jannawi performs and teaches to inspire other Indigenous people to practise cultural values and identities. Committed to honour and share knowledge, they encourage awareness and understanding of the world’s oldest living Indigenous culture. Jannawi has a rich artistic body of critical, relevant work & is highly regarded. They are regularly called on to represent Dharug culture at prestigious First Nations and mainstream cultural events including; the 16th Annual Coastal Dance Festival 2023 in Canada; 22nd Biennale of Sydney presented by the MCA; Dance Rites at the Sydney Opera House; FIFA Women's World Cup 2023; Sydney Festival 2020; Fire Fight Australia; ANZ Stadium; as well as regular ceremony performances for Survival Day - Yabun Festival and Wagan-ma-gule, Morning Ceremony at Sydney’s Botanical Gardens.

Naarm-based Joel Bray is a proud Wiradjuri performance-maker who draws on his heritage to choreograph potent, humorous, and deeply human works that interrogate sex, history, and healing. His works as Artistic Director of Joel Bray Dance blur ritual and revelry Joel’s choreographies —including Biladurang, Considerable Sexual License, Daddy, and Monolith—have been commissioned by major players like RISING, Malthouse Theatre, Sydney Dance Company, and the National Galleries of Australia and Victoria, and tour globally. His works are crafted in collaboration with Elders and Community, spring to life in unorthodox spaces.

Co-Adaptor Queensland Theatre: Debut. Other Credits: As Writer: Malthouse Theatre: The Return, Heart is a Wasteland (with Ilbijerri Theatre – National Tour); As Co-Writer: Ilbijerri Theatre: Black Ties; As Director: Orana Arts: A Little Piece of Heaven (with Yirramboi Arts Festival). Film: As Director & Writer: Still We Rise; Water (ABC); Out of Range (SBS). As Director, Co-Writer & Producer: Off Country; As Director & Co-Writer: Katele (Mudskipper); As Producer: Spear (Toronto International Film Festival); Sand (The Turning) (Berlinale); The Warriors (ABC). Commissions: Australian Centre for Moving Image (ACMI): Canopy (multi-channel installation; adapted into a large-scale mural – Melbourne Metro); As Video Component Producer: Ricardo Idagi: Upi Mop Le. Positions: Creative Director, Brown Cabs; Writers Residencies: Malthouse Theatre and Footscray Arts; 2024 Inaugural First Nations Writers Residency, New York City and Boston; Board Member, Bangarra Dance Theatre. Awards: Victorian Premier’s Literary Award The Return; AIDC & ADG Best Documentary Awards Still We Rise; ADG Best Documentary Award Off Country (As Co-Director); FlickerFest & Melbourne International Film Festival - Best Australian Short Awards Katele (Mudskipper) (As Co-Writer); 2023 Sidney Myer Creative Fellow recipient.

Alongside works on paper and videos, Julia Phillips works primarily with ceramics and metal, creating sculptures reminiscent of functional objects. Her works are metaphors for social and psychological experiences, metaphors that are both mechanical and bodily, and that typically focus on experiences of power relations between individuals or between an individual and an institution. Julia Phillips (b. 1985) was born in Hamburg and lives and works in Chicago. She has had solo exhibitions at MoMA PS1 in New York and Kunstverein Braunschweig, and was featured in the Berlin Biennial, the New Museum Triennial, the Venice Biennial, and the Whitney Biennial. Her work has been shown at museums including the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, the Museum Brandhorst in Munich, the Museu de Arte de São Paulo, and the Studio Museum in Harlem. Her work is held in numerous public collections including the Museum of Modern Art New York, the Art Institute of Chicago, the Museum MMK für Moderne Kunst in Frankfurt a. M., and the Moderna Museet in Stockholm. Julia Phillips recently completed her first public art work commission titled Observer, Observed for the NY High Line and published her first monograph titled “Energy Exchange” with Mousse Publishing, Milan. She is currently working on her first institutional solo exhibition in the UK at the Barbican Centre in London.

Kankawa Nagarra is a Walmatjarri Elder, teacher and mentor, human rights advocate, and a passionate environmental activist. She was born in the traditional lands of the Gooniyandi and Walmatjarri peoples of north western Australia.

Kankawa spent her childhood listening to the tribal songs at cultural ceremonies, and when she was taken from her family to the mission she was taught hymns and Gospel songs with the choir. On the pastoral lease where she was sent to work Country Music was everywhere and she heard Rock and Roll for the first time on the station gramophone. But it wasn’t until many years later her musical journey truly began when she stopped to listen to a busker outside a shop in Derby, WA. It was the first time she’d heard the Blues and it awakened something in her. Through it she found a medium to express all her thoughts and feelings and it inspired her to turn these into songs. The empathy of her message extends from those she sees struggling around her to the entire planet being ravaged for profit.

In July 2023 her friend Darren Hanlon traveled to Wangkatjungka to record a collection of her songs on Country that has now become her first vinyl LP. Kankawa chose specific locations between there and Fitzroy Crossing that held meaning to her and the songs she chose to sing. The centrepiece title track song ‘Wirlmarni’, which means ‘disappearing’, is a plaintive duet and laments the passing of the great tribal men that she remembers fondly.

The twelve tracks that make up the album offer a cross section of Kankawa’s entire musical experience - shifting gracefully between musical styles, languages, and moods, backed by the buzz of night bugs and call of daytime birds. In turns humorous, warm, and real about the hardships of life and the pillage of the land she holds dear, the record is the closest thing you can get to spending time with the great Kankawa herself. You can even hear the rustle of tin foil wrapping kangaroo tail for the BBQ.

Once released on Hanlon’s own label ‘Flippin Yeah Records’ in partnership with ‘Mississippi Records’ the album was picked up by the judges of the prestigious AMP (Australian Music Prize) awards. It went on to win which thrust Kankawa into the national and international spotlight.

Kelly “Lovemonster” Dezart-Smith is a curator, creative producer and writer living on Gadigal country. They work across contemporary art, experimental performance, culture and nightlife. Their creative practice aims to centre care, bla(c)k dreaming and narratives of individuals and communities who are systematically marginalized. Their hope is through the sharing of the latter stories and artworks we can move towards a more just, equitable and caring world.

Lovemonster is part of the inaugural Parallel Curatorial Fellowship. A dynamic group of curators and art practitioners that are looking at structural change with, beside and beyond the museum. They are also the former public program curator at the Museum of Contemporary Art Australia, MCA Late.

Lovemonster writes about nightlife, performance and culture. They are a contributor to Archer Magazine, SF Bay Guardian, SFMOMA’s Open Space, and the previous  co-editor of 4U MAG. 

@girlwhereyouat 

Khalid Abdalla is an actor, producer, writer and filmmaker. Nowhere is his first play. He is known most notably for his performances in The Crown as Dodi Fayed, Marc Forster’s The Kite Runner, and in the Paul Greengrass features United 93 and Green Zone. He produced and starred in the Egyptian feature In the Last Days of the City, directed by Tamer El Said, and in Tala Hadid’s The Narrow Frame of Midnight, and appears in Jehane Noujaim’s Oscar nominated documentary about the 2011 Egyptian revolution The Square. He has recently completed filming on his next role in a remake of The Day of the Jackal; and performed in Mnemonic with Theatre de Complicité at The National Theatre. Khalid is a founding member of three cultural initiatives in Cairo – Cimatheque, Zero Production and Mosireen. He is also an Honorary Fellow of Queens’ College Cambridge. Brought up in the UK to Egyptian parents, Cairo and London are his two cities.

Latai Taumoepeau makes live-art-work. Her faiva (body-centred practice) is from her homelands, the Island Kingdom of Tonga and her birthplace Sydney, land of the Gadigal people. She mimicked, trained and un-learned dance, in multiple institutions of learning, starting with her village, a suburban church hall, the nightclubs and a university. Her faivā (performing art) centres Tongan philosophies of relational space and time; cross- pollinating ancient and everyday temporal practice to make visible the impact of climate crisis in the Pacific. She conducts urgent environmental movements and actions to assist transformation in Oceania. Latai engages in the socio-political landscape of Australia with sensibilities in race, class and the female body politic; committed to bringing the voice of unseen communities to the frangipani-less foreground. In the near future she will return to her ancestral home and continue the ultimate faiva of sea voyaging and celestial navigation before she transforms into ancestor.

A leading Sydney-based physical theatre company, and acclaimed champions of artful aerial performance, Legs On The Wall boast an evolving repertoire of contemporary works which disrupt cultural expectations and transcend language barriers. Legs' performances incorporate the lyricism of dance and the enchantment of circus with the expressive heft of the theatre. Routinely reimagining what's possible in the conventional auditorium, Legs On The Wall has also forged a global reputation for bringing excitement, wonder, humour and gravitas to public spaces.

Lonnie Holley (b. Birmingham, AL, 1950) is a multidisciplinary visual artist and improvisational musician, whose work explores themes of personal and collective history, racial inequality, environmental catastrophe, and American identity. Born into the harsh reality of Jim-Crow era Alabama, Holley’s early life was defined by transience, cruelty, and economic hardship. Separated from his family as a young boy, Holley spent three years at The Alabama Industrial School for Negro Children, a brutal state institution that has been called a modern-day slave plantation. Growing up impoverished, Holley made do with what he could find, often the broken and discarded objects of human consumption – materials he refers to as, “trash, garbage, and debris.” His ability to combine these objects into beautiful and socially resonant works of art made Holley a leading figure in the long-overlooked movement of Black Southern visual artists. Holley’s work has been exhibited internationally and can be found in major museum collections including the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Smithsonian American Art Museum, National Gallery of Art, and many others.

Born in Oaxaca, Mexico, Mare Advertencia returns hip-hop to its powerful roots: speaking truth to power. Her music explores the hard truths of life as an indigenous Zapotec woman, exposing patriarchal systems of power and inequality.     

These deep themes and activist zeal run from her solo EPs, including 2022’s rousing Siempreviva, through to 2025’s angry and urgent “Wake Up” with fellow Mexico-born firebrand Elis Paprika. In 2022, the song “Árboles Bajo El Mar”, performed by Lirika and singer Vivir Quintana, featured on the Black Panther: Wakanda Forever soundtrack alongside luminaries like Rihanna and Stormzy.     

Milton Lim (he/him) is a digital media artist, game designer, and performance creator based in Vancouver, Canada. His research-based practice entwines publicly available data, interactive digital media, and gameful performance to create speculative visions and candid articulations of social capital. This line of inquiry aims to reconsider our repertoires of knowledge aggregation and political intervention in the contemporary context of big data and algorithmic culture. Milton holds a BFA (Hons.) in theatre performance and psychology from Simon Fraser University. His work has been presented across Canada, and internationally in the US, Argentina, the UK, Hong Kong, Singapore, and Australia. He is a co-artistic director of Hong Kong Exile, an artistic associate with Theatre Conspiracy, a founding member of Synectic Assembly – an Artificial Intelligence focused art collective, and an Artistic-Leader-in-Residence at the National Theatre School of Canada. Learn more at miltonlim.com

Mindy is recognised for pioneering guzheng performance in non-traditional genres such as experimental, jazz, western classical, electronic and improvisation and has won multiple national and international awards such as the Australian Asian Leadership Award 2023, the 2022 Sidney Myer Fellowship and ‘Best Musician’ Music Victoria Awards. She was the 2023 Melbourne Recital Centre Artist in Residence – the first to play a nonwestern instrument. Monica is a composer and creative technologist who works in cross-disciplinary forms combining cutting-edge technologies in fields as diverse as computer vision, gaming engines and movement computing with sound. Teaching and researching at the University of Melbourne, Monica is the recipient of multiple scholarships and awards and was recently artist in residence at the Grainger Museum and the Melbourne Electronic Sound Studio. With Chinese and Malaysian-Chinese diaspora heritage, both Mindy and Monica are recognised as cultural leaders in the sector and have worked extensively in collaborative art-making and research to establish deeper and reciprocal musical connections between Australia and Asia.

Originally from Aceh in North Sumatra, is a well known choreographer in Indonesia, and one of only a few people in Aceh who holds a Masters in dance. Since the age of eleven, he has trained under traditional teachers in Banda Aceh, and was one of the last generations to practice sitting body percussion dances as a Sufi practice. Today, these dances are practiced and performed for entertainment. His primary specialty is in Acehnese body percussion dances, sitting dances and Rapai Geleng - a group sitting dance using Rapai frame drums. Murtala is frequently interviewed as a scholarly reference. Having also trained in West Sumatra, he has learnt and mastered other Sumatran dances and Randai (a form of traditional theater, where dancers wear galembong pants which they use to create rhythmical patterns, as well as using their bodies creating tapuak galembong.) In the immediate aftermath of the tsunami in Aceh 2004, Murtala returned to his homeland to work on the emergency relief effort. Whilst in the Aceh, he undertook a number of roles and responsibilities in the area of evacuation and logistics. He furthered his contribution by establishing a local NGO where he taught traditional dance, as well as training the teachers of tsunami and conflict victims. He was Director of the NGO until 2006. He went on to study Masters in Dance in Central Java Indonesia and has since traveled around Indonesia and to Australia, Europe, Fiji and Singapore where he has taught Acehnese dance and music to primary school, high school and university students.

Murtala is a frequent performer at various festivals around Australia, taught choirs, acted in theater and film. He has a Bachelor of Performing Arts majoring in traditional dance from the Institute of the Arts, Padang Panjang, West Sumatra, Indonesia and holds a Masters of Dance Choreography from the Institute of the Arts Surakarta. As a choreographer, writer and dancer, Murtala's works includes;

 • Gelumbang Raya, development in Aceh 2025
• Bunyi Bunyi Bumi, co-devised for Asia TOPA premiere 2025
• Opening ceremony of PKA -5 The Aceh International Art and Culture Exhibition where he choreographed more than 500 dancers in Aceh's main stadium with Kaka in 2009
• Rantau (journey undertaken by Sumatran men) Belvoir St theatre, Sydney for Coolie, Asian Australian festival Feb 2011
• Rampak Aceh (2007) in Solo & Sydney
• Perkangku Kaki (2005) in Aceh & Padang Panjang
• Hantu hutan, tahun tuhan (2004) in Padang Panjang
• He has also published a book on New Creation dances, titled "Tari Aceh: Yuslizar & Kreasi Yang Mentradisi " (2008)

Natalie is a performer from the South Coast NSW, and a graduate of the Australian Institute of Music’s BMus in Musical Theatre. She made her professional debut in 2019 as Muriel Heslop in the national tour of Muriel’s Wedding The Musical, earning Helpmann and Green Room Award nominations. Her stage credits include On A Clear Day You Can See Forever (Seymour Centre), As You Like It (Melbourne Theatre Company), and The Lovers (Bell Shakespeare), for which she was nominated for a Sydney Theatre Award. Natalie made her TV debut in the ABC comedy Aftertaste, returning for its second season, and appeared in Netflix’s A Perfect Pairing. In 2024, she starred in Ride The Cyclone and Zombie!: The Musical (Hayes Theatre), Return To Paradise (ABC), and the feature film The Deb, which premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival to critical acclaim.

Raised between Saudi Arabia, Japan and the UK, DJ-producer Nooriyah is renowned for her bouncy, high-energy sets that showcase the sounds of the SWANA (Southwest Asia and North Africa) region. Mixing the likes of Arabian pop, Jersey Club, Afrobeats, amapiano and trap into a sound that’s all her own, Nooriyah is known for her iconic Boiler Room session and recent blazing features at Glastonbury and Coachella. 

Paris Paloma is a rising feminist voice transforming personal catharsis into collective power. Her new single “Good Boy” (featuring Emma Thompson) skewers patriarchy with wit and honesty, following her Gold-certified anthem “Labour,” which surpassed 600 million Spotify streams and inspired women’s rights movements worldwide. Her debut album Cacophony (2024) exceeded 1 billion streams, praised for its theatrical blend of grief, love, and healing. Beyond music, Paris fuses fashion and storytelling through collaborations with Dior, Prada, and Bora Aksu, and performed “The Rider” for The Lord of the Rings: War of the Rohirrim. From Derbyshire beginnings to touring with Stevie Nicks and Florence + The Machine, she’s become a visionary feminist force.

Patrick Blenkarn (he/him) is an artist working at the intersection of performance, game design, and visual art. Often engaging with the politics of participation and interactivity, his recent works feature sustained investigations into the subjects of language, labour, democracy, and the art economy, with projects ranging in form from video games and card games to stage plays and books. His work has been featured in film festivals, galleries, and performance festivals across Canada, and recently in Argentina, Mexico, Germany, and the Arctic. Patrick has a degree in philosophy, theatre, and film from the University of King's College and an MFA in interdisciplinary art from Simon Fraser University. He is passionate about languages, speaking English, French, Spanish and German. Learn more at patrickblenkarn.com

Peta Strachan is a Dharug woman from the Boorooberongal Clan, she has been working in the performance space for 35 years as a multi-disciplinary dancer. During Strachan’s career she has danced with Bangarra, performed for the 2000 Sydney Olympic oopening and closing ceremonies and has performed around the country. Strachan is the Artistic Director of Jannawi Dance Clan and freelances as a dancer, choreographer, teacher, and costume maker. Dharug culture is at the centre of everything Strachan creates, and she has dedicated years of work to creating one of Australia’s most renowned Matriarchal dance clans. Alongside Julie Jones and Chris Tobin, she is a member of ACE’s Dharug Knowledge Holders Group. From the rich storytelling traditions of Aboriginal Sydney NSW Jannawi Dance Clan shines a light on strength, resilience and artistry of Aboriginal women, men, youth and dance culture today.

Raf-Saperra is at the vanguard of a cultural renaissance – UK-born and globally rooted, he merges the visceral soul of Punjabi folk with the uncompromising edge of contemporary hip-hop. His genre-defying sound, marked by raw vocal delivery and sharp lyrical presence, has carved out a lane all his own-bridging centuries-old traditions with the modern street ethos.

With an undeniable Global presence, Raf has headlined sold-out tours across the UK, USA, Canada and Australia, along with collaborating with legendary South Asian artists such as Ustaad Dildar Hussain and Sukshinder Shinda all the way to East Coast rap royalty Conway the Machine and Dave East.

From the perspective of her Indigenous Fijian and Anglo-Australian heritage, Tawale explores the identity of the individual within collective systems. Examining through self-performance, Tawale draws on personal experiences of race, class, ethnicity and gender formed by growing up in suburban Australia. “My cultural identity is a constant focus in my art work. I explore inherent conflicts of being from a mixed heritage that simultaneously includes and excludes me from the dominant culture - that is, a colonial Australian society. This is a position of constant dislocation, or more accurately a state of translocation. My interest in these critical standpoints is based on an attitude of defiant analysis of colonial structures and narratives that persist in contemporary society.” Tawale completed an undergraduate degree in Media Arts and Masters of Art at RMIT University, Melbourne and a Masters of Fine art and Sydney College of the Arts, University of Sydney. Having exhibited nationally and internationally most notably at the Australian Centre for Contemporary Art; Spring Workshop in Hong Kong for Para Site gallery; the FCACHeartsJogjatour of Jogakata Indonesia. Tawale undertook a Indigenous Visual and Digital residency at the Banff Centre in Alberta Canada and received the Inaugural 2017 Create NSW Visual Arts Midcareer/Established Fellowship. Tawale recently undertook the Australia Council for the Arts six-month residency at Acme, London, focusing on colonial archives; Fijian Objects, imagery and written records. Tawale is currently Associate Lecturer of Screen Arts at Sydney College of the Arts, University of Sydney.

Salty Brine is a New York-based cabaret artist, playwright and actor. He is the creative force behind The Living Record Collection, a series of cabaret performances which weave together iconic, popular albums with cultural touchstones from classic literature to history and beyond. The LRC contains twenty-one shows and counting. The Guardian says Salty is, “a storyteller in total command of voice, a cocked eyebrow and his audience”. Salty has presented works at Lincoln Center, Pangea, Soho Theater and at his artistic home, Joe’s Pub at the Public Theatre. He is the recipient of a Bistro Award for outstanding creative artistry, was a member of the Joe’s Pub Working Group (2020) and was named one of Time Out New York’s “LGBTQ influencers you should know”. As book writer Salty is in collaboration with world-renowned composer Alan Menken on the sci-fi musical ATINA: EVIL QUEEN OF THE GALAXY.

Sione Tuívailala Monū, born in 1993 in Auckland, New Zealand, is an interdisciplinary artist of Tongan descent. They divide their time between Canberra, Australia, and Auckland, New Zealand, working across various mediums including photography, moving-image, fashion and adornment, performance, and drawing. Their work delves into themes of identity, family, and the Pasifika queer experience in the diaspora.  A significant aspect of Monū's practice involves the Tongan fine art of flower design, known as nimamea'a tuikakala. Traditionally, this art form utilises fresh tropical flowers, but due to their scarcity in Aotearoa (New Zealand), Monū adapts by using vibrant plastic flowers sourced from local shops. This approach not only honours cultural traditions but also reflects the adaptability inherent in diasporic life.    Monū's work has been showcased in numerous exhibitions across New Zealand and Australia. Notable solo exhibitions include Stories, City Gallery Wellington Te Whare Toi, 2023; Queer Encounters, Art Gallery of New South Wales, Warrane Sydney, 2023; Kindred: A Leitī Chronicle (w/ Manu Vaeatangitau), Auckland Art Gallery Toi o Tāmaki, 2022;  'Ao Kakala Ōtautahi, SCAPE Public Art Season 2021, Ōtautahi Christchurch, 2021, and Leitī, Perth Institute of Contemporary Arts, 2021.  In recognition of their contributions to the arts, Monū received the 2024 Emerging Pacific Artist Award from Creative New Zealand.

Founded in 1932 by the Australian Broadcasting Commission, the Sydney Symphony Orchestra has become one of the world’s finest orchestras.

Resident at the Sydney Opera House and led by Chief Conductor Simone Young, the Sydney Symphony is Australia’s flagship orchestra and performs over 180 concerts each year to more than 350,000 people. The Orchestra performs in venues throughout Sydney and regional New South Wales, and international tours have earned the Sydney Symphony Orchestra worldwide recognition.

The Sydney Symphony Orchestra concerts encompass masterpieces from the classical repertoire, alongside works by some of the finest living composers and collaborations with major guest artists, connecting audiences with the profound experience of live music.

Thom Smyth is a Co-Creator & Producer working across queer and experimental performance, events and festivals. Through Unfunded Empathy, he supports Sydney's most exciting LGBTQIA+ artists, fostering bold ideas that bring communities together. In 2026, he and Sam Watson-Wood will launch Superposition, a new festival conceived for the Blue Mountains UNESCO World Heritage Area. His work spans institutions to underground parties, always centered on unashamedly political celebrations of possibility. As co-creator of Queer PowerPoint, he has grown the project into an internationally commissioning platform across Australia, New Zealand, and Taiwan, supporting 100+ artists, plus regional touring and a residency model launching in 2025. With national company Performing Lines, Thom produces groundbreaking artists like Amrita Hepi, Betty Grumble and Paul Mac, including major international tours of Rinse to Festival d'Avignon and across Europe and Turkey.

Travis is a writer, performer and theatre maker from Bristol. For stage, Travis wrote and performed in their debut show Burgerz which won the Total Theatre Award at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival, sold out at Southbank Centre and Traverse Theatre and toured internationally. Their latest theatre commission, Sound of the Underground, premiered as part of the Royal Court's new season in 2023 to critical acclaim. Travis currently has a new show for stage in development with the Southbank Centre and Hackney Showrooms, and their project PUSH THE BUTTON is in development with Green Door Theatre in Australia. For screen, Travis is developing projects with Lookout Point and See Saw. Travis' debut book None of the Above: Reflections on Life Beyond the Binary was published in 2022 by Canongate and in the US by Feminist Press in 2023. It was listed in TIME Magazine's 100 books of 2023. Their work has also earned them a place on Forbes’ 30 Under 30 list 2021, the Dazed100 list and in 2023 as an Evening Standard's future stars of stage and screen.

Victoria Spence has made work in Live Art at the intersections of cultural, contemporary, community and creative arts practice as a performer, dramaturg, curator and producer. Since 2002. has been shaping culture and practices in how we live and die and create our funeral rites. She is the founder of Life Rites, Holistic Funeral Directors specialising in bespoke doula-led end of life, funeral and ongoing bereavement care in the greater Sydney area and NSW. She brings to her work at Life Rites a deep understanding of the value and importance of how dramaturgical and performance making strategies inform her ceremonial practices as the key factor in laying the best foundation for healthy grieving and in re invigorating our life, death and funeral rites. In 2010 as a recipient of the Australia Council for the Arts ‘Connections’ Residency she established the Living with our Dead NFP organisation resulting in the establishment of a communal grieving event, Picnic Among Friends. She holds a Bachelor of Arts, Hons, in Philosophy and Performance from the UNSW Hons, (1994) and a Post graduate diploma in Death, Dying and Palliative Care, USYD Dept of Social Work. She is a trained Bereavement Counsellor and a recognised Somatic Educator.

Vidya Rajan (Naarm/Boorloo) (she/her) is an artist who makes work for live, screen and digital space. A graduate of the VCA, she has a background in contemporary performance, screenwriting, and interactive media. Her practice is often interested in play, speculative narrative, colonial legacies, game design and emergent technology. Her work has been programmed by orgs like Arts House, Darwin Festival, The Blue Room, Griffin, Malthouse and Belvoir; and she’s variously acted in & written for shows on ABC, Netflix, SBS, Amazon among others. Recently, her digital projects have been shortlisted for the International New Media Prize, The Freeplay game awards, and acquired by ACMI. https://www.vidyasrajan.com/ 

Co-Creator, Writer Virginia Gay is an award-winning actor, writer and director. She recently starred in Colin From Accounts, SBS' Safe Home, Savage River and Thank God You’re Here. She was Artistic Director of Adelaide Cabaret Festival 2024/25 and received a Logie nomination for most Outstanding Supporting Actor for After The Verdict. She won a Sydney Theatre Award for Best Actress for Calamity Jane, wrote and starred in Cyrano for MTC in 2022. Cyrano had a smash-hit new production for EdFringe 2024 (winning a Fringe First Award for Most Outstanding New Writing), followed by a London season (nominated for an Off West End Award for Best Lead Actor). In 2026 she will direct Yve Blake’s new show Mackenzie for Bell Shakespeare.

Xanthe Dobbie is an interdisciplinary artist and researcher based on the unceded lands of the Wurundjeri people of the Kulin Nation in Naarm, Melbourne. Working across on- and offline modes of making, their practice aims to capture the experience of contemporaneity as reflected through queer and feminist ideologies. Drawing on humour, pop, sex, history and iconography, they develop shrines to a post-truth era. They have exhibited extensively locally and internationally with recent works including live-streamed theatre, interactive media, AR, VR, collage, performance and installation. Significant exhibitions include Image, Interrupted at UTS Gallery (2024), Matrix Re-Loaded at RMIT First Site Gallery (2023), Cloud Copy at Lismore Regional Gallery (2023), The Long Now at ACMI (2022), and Don’t Be Evil at UQ Art Museum (2021). In 2023, Xanthe won the Incinerator Art Award for Social Change and was Guest Editor for Runway Journal Issue #46 Ghost. Xanthe is currently finishing a PhD focusing on digital and interactive art at RMIT University as part of the ARC Linkage Archiving Australian Media Art: Towards a Method and National Collection.

Despite Yasmina Sadiki’s humble discography, she is a veteran within Sydney’s live music scene. This independent artist who is returning from her sold out VIVID 2025 show at The Sydney Opera House, has been pioneering a genre that has no boundaries.

Yasmina shares truthful art that contemplates womanhood, love and philosophies that are drawn from her own life, she is a genuine visionary. Her captivating performances are never the same and all who witness the magic know it to be a seductively cinematic experience.

Yasmina supported disco & psych-jazz legend Asha Puthli at her headline show in Sydney in 2024, but she has connected with many producers, artists and musicians from Sydney and beyond. Early in her career, she was featured on a track with The Kid Laroi by diamond producer HAAN.

Yasmina is a respected and frequent performer, bringing her music around a multitude of Sydney venues. In 2023 she was nominated for an FBI SMAC Award, ‘Best Live Act’. Yasmina has also featured in TedXYouth, has been FBI’s Independent Artist of the week and has been a featured speaker in the Committee for Sydney’s panel discussions Gig Economy 2023 and Bankstown+10 2024. Yasmina was also a Converse All Star in 2025. 

Director, Co-Writer, Choreographer, Songwriting & Composition Yolande is a proud Bidjara woman and award-winning artist whose career spans dance, music, and theatre. A senior artist with Bangarra Dance Theatre (1999–2015), she co-choreographed Dark Emu and created Imprint. She received the Deadly Award for Best Dancer (2010) and led the creation of Bangarra’s Knowledge Ground. Recent choreographic works include The Sunshine Club (Queensland Theatre/HIT Productions) and Nhangam Ngali Nyin (Queensland Ballet’s 2025 Bespoke). Yolande is Co-CEO of AIME and a Legs on the Wall board member.