YIRRAMBOI x FIERCE FESTIVAL 2026
YIRRAMBOI is heading to Birmingham, UK, as Festival-in-Residence at Fierce Festival 2026, bringing a bold and expansive program of First Nations performance to one of the UK's most adventurous and internationally renowned festivals.
YIRRAMBOI will take space across Birmingham – from the club floor to the dinner table to the strange rooms of a legendary Birmingham house - presenting the work of some of Australia’s most exciting First Nations artists alongside artists and collaborators from the UK and beyond.
At the heart of the residency is a shared question:
What’s possible when two festivals committed to radically expanding the boundaries of performance come together?
Two festivals. One shared appetite for possibility.
Fierce is a youthful, joy-filled festival of international theatre, performance and experiences that takes place across Birmingham every two years. For more than 20 years, Fierce has championed Birmingham and the region as a vibrant and diverse place where the incredible happens in unusual places, the outlandish is embraced and celebrated, and the new is welcomed with curiosity and kindness.
The YIRRAMBOI × Fierce relationship has been building over time, beginning with an exchange supported by the British Council’s Connections Through Culture program.
What has emerged is a commitment to long-term relationship building between two platforms that believe experimental practice can transform the way artists, audiences and communities come together.
“By moving away from the transactional towards long-term, sustainable relationship building, we radically expand the possibilities of connection between YIRRAMBOI, Fierce, the UK’s wider live art sector, and the communities of artists and audiences within.”
— Clayton Lee, Artistic Director, Fierce Festival
For YIRRAMBOI and Fierce, the alignment is clear: a shared commitment to evolutionary artistic practices, particularly those led by staunch LGBTQ2S+ artists, and to creating spaces where experimentation, celebration and refusal can exist side by side.
Across Fierce Festival, YIRRAMBOI will present the work of Stone Motherless Cold, Cerulean, Elijah Money, Gusta Mara, Kaiwarr Clancy and Jada Narkle alongside special guests and collaborators from the UK and internationally.
“This partnership with Fierce marks a significant moment for YIRRAMBOI, not simply as an international presentation, but as the beginning of a First Nations platform within a festival that is genuinely willing to make space for our artists, our communities and our visions.
We’re incredibly proud to see the practices of these incredible artists recognised on an international stage. We’re deeply grateful to Creative Australia, Clayton and the Fierce team for backing the vision and understanding that this is about more than just a presentation. It is about legacy and responsibility.
YIRRAMBOI stands on the shoulders of the Elders, seniors and artists who have carried First Nations practice across borders and forged international pathways long before us. We honour that legacy by strengthening those connections and creating new ones for the generations coming through.
And now, we’re bringing the best of our queer scene to the UK… with one clear message: we’re still here, b**.”**
— Sherene Stewart
CLUB FIERCE × BLAX: ACT III
Refusal. Pleasure. Possibility.
An iconic First Nations cross-genre club activation touring festivals internationally, BLAX: ACT III brings together some of Australia’s most visionary First Nations performers for a night of music, performance and radical celebration.
Curated by YIRRAMBOI, BLAX dissolves the familiar and transforms Club Fierce into a site of refusal, pleasure and possibility.
Featuring DJ sets by Stone Motherless Cold and Cerulean, with performances by Elijah Money, Kaiwarr Clancy, Gusta Mara and Jada Narkle, BLAX brings the energy directly into the heart of Birmingham.
FIERCE FEASTS × YIRRAMBOI
Curated by YIRRAMBOI
With a nod to the late BE Festival’s history of festival dinners, a deep love for Birmingham’s incredible culinary scene, and in recognition of the lineages of food and hospitality within contemporary and live art practice, Fierce Feasts is a series of nightly artist-hosted meals featuring some of our favourite restaurants from across the city. Each evening will feature a different cuisine and a different proposal (or series of proposals) from festival artists, including a night curated by YIRRAMBOI.
FIERCE JAMS
Featuring Stone Motherless Cold and Gusta Mara
Highbury Hall is one of Birmingham’s architectural treasures, a Venetian Gothic mansion completed in 1880. It was home to Joseph Chamberlain, who, in his role as Secretary of State for the Colonies between 1895 and 1903, oversaw much of Britain’s empire during a period of rapid expansion, particularly in Africa.
Highbury Hall also served as the inspiration behind the iconic board game Cluedo, transposing much of its layout.
At this year’s festival, Highbury Hall and its complicated histories will play host to an expanded version of Fierce Jams, our new, ongoing, year-round and nomadic performances series that indulges in small-scale experiments in contemporary performance and live art. Over the course of six hours, 15+ artists will activate and respond to the spaces and histories of Highbury Hall.
Audiences can come and go for the duration of the 6 hours.
In partnership with Fabric’s International Support programme, this event takes the place of a “traditional” industry event, with the intention of flattening the relationship between professional, artist, and audience.
A residency built for what comes next
YIRRAMBOI’s Festival in Residence at Fierce is the culmination of a relationship built over time and the beginning of something much bigger.
From the club to the dinner table this residency creates new pathways for artists, audiences and festivals to meet, exchange and plan together.
And this is just the beginning.
YIRRAMBOI × Fierce Festival Birmingham, UK | October 2026
This project has been assisted by the Australian Government through Creative Australia, its principal arts investment and advisory body.