2020/21 Artists - Queer Development Program
Daley Rangi-Lipstuck-image by Daniel James Grant
PRESENTED BY PERFORMANCE SPACE, SYDNEY GAY AND LESBIAN MARDI GRAS, MOOGAHLIN PERFORMING ARTS AND PACT CENTRE FOR EMERGING ARTISTS
Now in its ninth year, Performance Space’s Queer Development Program builds and strengthens queer creativity and performance in Australia.
Unique in Australia, the Queer Development Program provides opportunities for emerging queer artists to develop their creative skills, performance ideas and industry connections. Through this program, queer artists can build more sustainable practices and explore new ways of making work. Intergenerational and community exchange is at the heart of the Queer Development Program.
PSpace, along with our partners Sydney Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras, PACT and Moogahlin Performing Arts, are overjoyed to be announcing the phenomenal line-up of artists who will be taking part in the Queer Development Program for 2020/2021.
We've all missed Queer Nu Werk this year, but never fear! We've moved the dates of the Queer Development Program and Queer Nu Werk to Feb/March 2021. More info coming later this year.
THE 2020/21 QUEER DEVELOPMENT PROGRAM ARTISTS
Stephen Cummins Residency awarded to:
DALEY RANGI
Instagram: @daleyrangi
Website: www.daleyrangi.com
Queer Workshop Intensive participating artists:
Moogahlin Performing Arts First Nations Scholarship.
CHERYN FROST
Cheryn Frost is a performance and theatre maker with interest in making work that focuses on the current political, social and environmental climate of our country. Cheryn weaves her personal experience as a queer woman and the experiences of her family & culture through interdisciplinary frameworks.
BEAR BAXTER
A queer-non-binary-femme-tomboy-dreamboat who was sent to earth to make it gayer and more romantic. Originally from the Sunshine State™, they are a playwright, performer, poet, muso, composer, and cowboy - now living and creating on the land of the Wurundjeri and Boon Wurrung peoples (Melbourne).
Bear made their theatre debut for Melbourne Fringe Festival (2017) with their one-babe-cabaret SHARE MY BLANKETS, which they toured to MELT FEST at the Brisbane Powerhouse (2018). Their latest project, UR STRONG FRIENDS is an exploration of transness though the eyes of a fledgling trans lad struggling with being the ‘strong friend’ in a community fraught with mental illness and trauma. Bear is committed to creating space for trans and gender-diverse people in music and theatre worlds. Their work is about vulnerability and human connection. At their own risk, Bear has used their life experiences to challenge ideas around identity and coming out. These works of self-discovery invariably lead to the next project of exploration.
Instagram: @itsbearlikecher
Website: www.tiltedprojects.com
DEMON DERRIERE
Demon Derriere is a queer POC who is Hard of Hearing (HoH). Through dance and music her practice explores vibration, ‘otherness’ and identity through a fusion of twerk, strip-tease and neo-burlesque. She explores body positivity and inclusivity to challenge stereotypes associated with dance, breaking free from the marginalisation, oppression and discrimination many ethnic women face.
DYAN TAI
Dyan Tai is a music producer, singer, songwriter and live performance artist interested in creating space for conversations about diversity, culture and QTPOC visibility. Dyan is currently a resident performer and DJ at The Imperial Hotel, Poof Doof and Oxford St and also performs regularly in cabaret shows, queer parties and venues (Tropical Fruits, Bearded Tit, Oyster Club, Heaps Gay). Dyan created and produced WORSHIP, a performance and dance party celebrating diverse identity, cultural and spiritual practices. He was also part of the curating team for the successful Queer Lunar New Year Party and Queer Asian Stories. He is currently a guest presenter on 2SER’s So Hot Right Now and used to host and produce a radio show on Melbourne’s JOYFM.
Instagram: @dyan_tai
Website: www.dyantai.com
JUSTINE YOUSSEF
Justine Youssef is an artist working across multiple disciplines including performance, video, scent and collaboration. The work is site-specific, rooted in research into moments and places that make visible social and cultural structures and attentive to her origins in South-West Asia. Youssef presented her first solo exhibition ‘All Blessings, All Curses’ at 4A Centre for Contemporary Asian Art in 2018, and was the recipient of the 2019 John Fries Award. This year she is participating in the Parramatta Artist Studios studio program while working at Pari, a grassroots art space on Darug Land.
NAJÉE TANNOUS
Najée Tannous is an interdisciplinary artist, theatre practitioner and arts educator based in Sydney, Australia. His work spans across installation, immersive performance and technology, dance and physical theatre. He studied a Bachelor of Performance, specialising in Acting and Directing at the Australian Academy of Dramatic Arts. Following this, he graduated from the Australian Catholic University (ACU) with a Bachelor of Arts specialising in Fine Arts and Theatrical Studies, and a Bachelor of Teaching in Secondary Education.
RACHEL PERKS
Rachel Perks is a queer non-binary performance maker and writer based in Naarm. Their work primarily investigates queer feminist futures through the lens of speculative fiction. They have a long-standing creative partnership with Bridget Balodis under the newly coined moniker ‘Double Water Sign’. Some of their works include MORAL PANIC (Darebin Speakeasy 2018), GROUND CONTROL (Next Wave Festival 2016) and ANGRY SEXX (Melbourne Fringe 2014). Rachel’s work has been nominated for nine Green Room Awards and Rachel has been the recipient of the Melbourne Festival Discovery Award, Art Start, & the Dame Joan Sutherland Award. Rachel’s script ‘End of Life’ was selected for the MTC Cybec readings and shortlisted for The Queensland Premier’s drama award in 2019. They write and think obsessively about queered, digitised, cyborgian climate futures; the end of the world as we know it and the beginning of the next.
Instagram: @doublewatersign
Website: www.rachelperks.com
ROWAN SAVAGE
Rowan Savage (salllvage, Guy Ruin) is a Kombumerri (saltwater) man who identifies as bisexual/pansexual, working at the intersection of queer club culture and connection with Country. Rowan uses field recordings from his Country to make experimental electronic music performed with wearable motion-operated music devices, with movement influenced by vogue/ballroom dance traditions.
Instagram: @salllvage
Website: soundcloud.com/salllvage
SAM HUXTABLE
Sam Huxtable is a non-binary/trans, queer artist working on Whadjuk Noongar land. Their work explores the queer body and psyche, navigating the unresolved, expansive notion of existence from a queer perspective- an existence that resides in constant flux- alongside the experience of others in their communities. Sam’s performance practice incorporates sculptural, digital and installation elements to reflect form and experience so precious, and so complex. Trans experiences often revolve around altering our bodies to reflect our identities- for expression, alignment, and often for safety. Using found and alternative objects to represent and build alternative bodies, Sam is interested in jewellery and other adornments as tools for body alternative- building a protective layer of metal around their body daily- they aim to explore this further in their practice.
Instagram: @scaryegg
Website: www.samhuxtable.com
SOLOMON FRANK
Solomon Frank is a queer improviser and composer whose practice includes cross-species musical collaboration and time travel. Solomon receives emails from the future including music and musical instructions written by future humans and entities to perform and carry out in the present. Some of these works have been performed by Ensemble Offspring, Sydney Symphony Orchestra Fellows, Kirkos Ensemble (Ireland), double bassist, Will Hansen, Willoughby Symphony Orchestra, E-Mex Ensemble (Germany) and his own group, Ensemble Onsombl. These fictional conceits provide a frame for listening, a way of situating art music and making audiences aware of their own cultured ears. His improvisational practice expands upon the clarinet, replacing parts of the clarinet with other objects, homemade aluminium and plastic reeds, hoses, vacuum cleaners, watering cans and water. He performs regularly with the Splinter Orchestra, percussionist, Niki Johnson as Throat Pleats, a gendered musical power play performance that draws upon animal impulses and BDSM, and his aquatic duo with saxophonist, Charlie Sundborn, Baptism, who perform musical rituals at waterways around Sydney to mark the seasons.
Instagram @sollyfrank
Website: soundcloud.com/solomonfrank
