Interview: The Motherless Collective

The Motherless Collective are the crew behind Three Blak Ravers — their YIRRAMBOI 2025 production was a blistering collision of horror and rave culture. Set against a shadowy cityscape, three friends stepped into a night that spiralled into the unimaginable. What began as a high turned into a descent, where petrifying demons and bone-shaking visions blurred the line between reality and nightmare. Drawing from decades of iconic horror cinema, the work delivered an uncanny, hallucinatory trip that left no one unchanged.

With YIRRAMBOI’s 2027 Commissions EOI open, we sent some questions over to the 2025 Commissions artists.


Did the commission give you freedom? Or pressure?
Honestly, it did both. It gave us a lot of freedom — financially, to have space and develop the work — with additional support from Arts House and Creative Australia.

There was also pressure to perform well, because we wanted to show our funders and supporters how much work, care, and love we put into the show. As three creatives who hadn’t had much experience in scriptwriting, acting, or the broader world of theatre, the commission gave us the motivation to create and perform our best show yet.

What were you trying to break?
We were trying to break the misconception that as queer Blakfellas we have to exclusively produce trauma-infused artwork. Instead, we wanted to create interesting, complex stories and characters where our intersecting identities aren’t the sole focus. Our whole ethos is to always prioritise Blak queer joy, freedom, and expression.

What’s the most mundane part of making something? The best part?
The boring part is always the admin — producing the logistics and making everything fit together feels like putting together a puzzle when you don’t know what the final image is meant to be.

The highlight is a combination of things: working with a team of dedicated creatives who believe in the project; the dreaming phase — doing research and playing with ideas; and, best of all, presenting the work and having it so warmly received.

What did this opportunity unlock for you — artistically, emotionally, or even practically?
This was an opportunity to consolidate a variety of ideas we had each been sitting on individually — ideas we weren’t sure would ever see the light of day. Drawing from our collective experiences as multi-disciplinary creatives and focusing them into an unpredictable and deeply considered performance has deepened our passion to perform. It also opened doors: Elijah was invited to be part of this season of Cybec Theatre as the lead role in Poems of a Transexual Nature by Cynda Beare.

For more information and to apply, visit the 2027 Commissions EOI page.
Closing Sunday 19 October, midnight AEST.