YIRRAMBOI Festival returns this May with a powerful showcase of First Nations talent from across the globe under the theme Akin.
The 2025 program explores interconnectedness among Global First Nations communities, with performances spanning theatre, dance, and immersive installations.
Building on historical conversations around the Tri-Nations relationship and broader Global First Nations creative networks, the Akin strand celebrates collective strength and solidarity through self-determined creative and cultural exchange.
YIRRAMBOI Festival 2025
- Thursday 1 May to Sunday 11 May 2025
- Various venues across Melbourne
Check out our gig guide, our arts guide, our festival guide, our live music venue guide and our nightclub guide. Follow us on Instagram here.
The festival has curated an impressive lineup of international and local works, with several world premieres. Audiences can score a 20% discount by purchasing tickets to multiple Akin events – Mythosoma, Sorry for Your Loss, and There’s Something I’ve Been Meaning to Tell You…
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Legendary Cree-Saulteaux Métis artist Margo Kane takes over The Show Room at Arts Centre Melbourne from May 3-4 with the world premiere of There’s Something I’ve Been Meaning to Tell You… Commissioned specifically for YIRRAMBOI 2025, the work showcases Kane’s groundbreaking approach to Indigenous performance.
Body Island’s Mythosoma, another world premiere, transforms Chunky Move into what’s described as a living, symbiotic ritual from May 8-10. The performance blends Indigenous mythologies with street dance and contemporary somatic practices, creating a shifting ecosystem of memory. This ambitious work is co-commissioned by YIRRAMBOI 2025 and Aotearoa New Zealand Festival of the Arts, supported by Creative New Zealand.
Canadian artist Lisa Cooke Ravensbergen brings The Seventh Fire to The Uncle Jack Charles at Malthouse Theatre from May 8-10. This Australian premiere interweaves traditional, oral Anishinaabe stories and societal roles while invoking ceremony in the everyday. The performance is presented in partnership with Native Earth Performing Arts (Canada).
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From Aotearoa comes Cian Parker’s Sorry For Your Loss, playing at The Channel, Arts Centre Melbourne on May 9-10. The Australian premiere offers a heartfelt and hilarious story about growing up with a sometimes-there-mostly-not Dad, celebrating the power of wāhine (women) and the gift of strength passed between them.
For the full festival duration, Immigration Museum hosts We are the land we walk upon, a visionary installation by Adrian Stimson, Frances Belle Parker and Tess Allas. This world premiere intertwines timeless stories of protocol and profound connection to Country from First Nations artists at opposite corners of the earth.
YIRRAMBOI, which means “tomorrow” in the local languages of the Boon Wurrung and Woi Wurrung peoples, continues its tradition of pushing boundaries in First Nations art while respecting cultural protocols and traditions. The festival’s four powerful anchors – Legacy, Joy, Reclamation, and Akin – guide the 2025 programming.
The festival acknowledges the Boon Wurrung and Woi Wurrung peoples as the Custodians of the lands in which the events take place, paying respects to ancestors and elders who have held their Songlines through these lands for over 80,000 years.
For more information, head here.
