YIRRAMBOI 4–14 May 2023
4–14 May 2023
300+ First Nations creatives
170 events and performances
40 venues across Melbourne/narrm
5 world premieres
YIRRAMBOI 2023 marked a powerful return following the disruptions of the pandemic years. With more than 300 creatives across 170 shows, the festival asserted its place as one of the world’s leading First Nations contemporary arts festivals.
The introduction of the Uncle Jack Charles Festival Hub at Meat Market became a focal point for community, music, fashion, drag, cabaret and storytelling. Across ten days, YIRRAMBOI presented world premieres, international collaborations and groundbreaking commissions that showcased the breadth and innovation of First Nations creatives.
Image Gallery
Program Highlights
The Beginning
Led through sovereignty, held by the strength of our ancestors and pulled forward by the love of our future generations. The Beginning honoured the endurance of First Nations people and voyaged into what is a Blak led future. Curated in celebration of Blak love, joy and excellence with a stellar line up of First Nations creatives who set the tone of the 10 days to come.
Alluvium
A biopunk drag cabaret show by Stone Motherless Cold set in the Bioship, a craft of phyto-technology, taking audiences through Alluvium. Alluvium, a retro-futuristic glance at the healing processes of 'the era AD' (After Decolonisation). As Western sci-fi and speculative fiction continually displaces and/or erases First Nations people, Alluvium disrupted this utopian/dystopian colonial dream. Reiterating the transcendent scifi/fantasy narratives within Blackfulla history to reclaim the genre's tropes.
The Uncle Archie Roach Block Party
The Uncle Archie Roach Block Party at Section 8 was a space for Mob and allies to gather and experience the diversity and ever-growing evolution of what First Nations music sounds like.
BLAKOUT
As the lights went down, BLAKOUT transformed the floor into an immersive club night, bringing together some of our favourite DJs on deck for a night centred around cultural queer liberation. Curated by Ella Ganza in association with Joshua Taliani, BLAKOUT was an illustrious celebration of queer Indigenous and Pasifika communities living in so-called Australia. Featuring the children of Meanjin's House of Alexander, BLAKOUT redefined our communities' shared queer and cultural experiences through the fusion of different contemporary art practices.
The DJ PGZ Live Experience
For another year, YIRRAMBOI presented the Grand Organ at Melbourne Town Hall, this time partnering with Yorta Yorta and Gunaikurnai DJ and producer, DJ PGZ. The DJ PGZ Live Experience offered a night to see the Grand Organ in action, featuring original works created with this colossal instrument alongside a support act of ground-breaking First Nations DJs, fusing hard techno with dark, sparse and bass heavy drum syncopations.
blood of my blood
blood of my blood by Jada Narkle was an inquiry into the body's morphing shapeshifting adaption within this post-colonial dystopia, a breath into new worlds — to sever the many forms called across nyitting but to carry all facets of self to return home. This work was a look into intergenerational trauma, intersectionality and the many faces First Nations people wear to navigate a reality which seeks to erase them. A litany for survival of futures past.
Barring Yanabul
As sun fell on 6 May 2023, First Nations creatives moved through the city, breaking away from colonial constructs of performing in 'designated spaces' to give the stories of now back to Country, to the lands that have held them for over 80,000 years. The 2023 iteration cracked open the heart of Melbourne, setting streets and laneways alight with installations, visual arts, music, drag and dance.
TOMORROW: The Experience
Exploring the concept of a post-apocalyptic world through the lens of First Peoples, TOMORROW: The Experience delivered a diverse display of bold designs and a celebration of resistance and survival, redefining what First Nations fashion looks like.
Kisiskâciwan
A creative return to the fast-flowing landscape of Saskatchewan, the robust and undulating land of her great-grandmothers and great-great-grandfathers, Kisiskâciwan by Jeanette Kotowich was a journey to one's self. It spoke through dance to a Métis cultural narrative of identity and home.