From 1-11 May, YIRRAMBOI Festival cracks open the heart of narrm

Words by Billy August

400+ First Nations creatives, 180 performances, activating over 40 venues, YIRRAMBOI cracks open the heart of narrm, revealing the hum of Country beneath.

Ancestors to Ancestors,
bones of my bones
who are we if not her?
tides, reflecting
our Futures, Past.

A 10-day feast of mediums spanning the breadth of artistic expression, YIRRAMBOI returns for its fifth iteration, breaking new ground as it takes centre stage in narrm’s arts precinct. This year’s festival explores four powerful anchors—Legacy, Joy, Reclamation, and Akin—that form the foundation of its most ambitious program to date.

Deeply rooted in purpose, YIRRAMBOI platforms expressions of culture, identity, unity, and truth through evolutionary and experimental practices, breaking away from preconceived ideas of First Nations ‘art’.

In 2025, YIRRAMBOI hosts a convergence of 400+ First Nations creatives across 180 performances and activating over 40 venues, cracking open the heart of narrm and revealing the hum of Country beneath.

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.

HOLDING S P A C E

Thursday 1 – Sunday 11 May
Queen Victoria Women’s Centre
Free

The film, photography, and visual art exhibition HOLDING S P A C E features the visual storytelling of Apryl Day and Jirra Lulla. The two artists acknowledge how their elders have passed down knowledge and maintained family connections, while also exploring the emotions evoked by Country.

banj ba walert : water and possum

Friday 2 – Sunday 11 May
The Edge, Fed Square
Free

Artist Stacie Nicholson-Piper is behind banj ba walert : water and possum, an installation that pays tribute to Wurundjeri elder Aunty Vicki Nicholson-Brown. The work explores the Wurundjeri tradition of possum skin drumming, the “heartbeat of Country.”

There’s Something I’ve Been Meaning To Tell You…

Saturday 3 and Sunday May 4
The Show Room, Arts Centre Melbourne
Tickets here

Cree-Saulteaux Métis performing artist Margo Kane is a legend of Indigenous Canadian theatre. Kane launches her newest work, There’s Something I’ve Been Meaning To Tell You…, at YIRRAMBOI, posing questions such as “What paths have brought us here?” and “What do we stand for?”

Tina – A Tropical Love Story

Wednesday 7 May
Elisabeth Murdoch Hall Melbourne Recital Centre
Tickets here

A tribute to the late Tina Turner set in 1990s Darwin – need we say more? Written, performed and directed by Miss Ellaneous (AKA Ben Graetz), Tina combines storytelling, cabaret and drag. It’s based on Graetz’s own experiences growing up in Darwin in the 90s and idolising Tina.

Monster in the Cyborg Body

Saturday 3 May
The Channel, Arts Centre Melbourne
Free

Kalkadoon man and experimental performance artist Joshua Pether presented his work Monster at the inaugural YIRRAMBOI festival in 2017. Pether returns in 2025 with a work that fuses and updtes Monster and his earlier work Cyborg Body. It’ll be on from sunrise to sunset at Arts Centre Melbourne, with guest artists joining Pether throughout the day.

Dabana

Friday 2 – Saturday 10 May
SIGNAL
Free

The interactive art exhibition Dabana features the work of multidisciplinary artist Iluka Sax-Williams. The exhibition title means to “fill up” or “pour in” in the language of the Taungurung people of the Kulin Nation. The work in Dabana explores how Sax-Williams’s identity has been influenced by growing up in a modern city like narrm while staying connected to his ancestral roots.

ENOKi’s Wonderland

Thursday 1 – Sunday 11 May
ArtPlay, Birrarung Marr
Free

ENOKI’s Wonderland is for children aged 2 to 8. Happening at ArtPlay on the Birrarung, the exhibition is centred on the work of Dja Dja Wurrung/Yorta Yorta multimedia artist Darcy McConnell aka ENOKi. Along with ENOKi’s artworks of Indigenous plants and animals, there will be plenty of interactive components, including the opportunity to create your own artworks or build a play space.

BLAKOUT 2.0

Friday 2 & Saturday 3 May
The Uncle Jack Charles, Malthouse
Tickets here

After winning the Green Room Award for Best Outstanding Ensemble at YIRRAMBOI 2023, queer cabaret BLAKOUT is back for 2025. Meanjin ballroom house House of Alexander are behind BLAKOUT. Mother of the house Ella Ganza is the show’s director, bringing together First Nations ancestral knowledge and storytelling with movement, ballroom and music, all in the name of cultural queer liberation.

Three Blak Ravers

Thursday 1 – Saturday 3 May
The Uncle Jack Charles, Malthouse
Tickets here

First Nations drag ensemble The Motherless Collective will present the queer horror Three Blak Ravers, a work of experimental theatre that’s as supernatural as it is raw and human. Expect to be unsettled as the work’s creators – Caleb Thaiday (Cerulean, Meriam, they/them), Stone Turner (Stone Motherless Cold, Arrernte, she/they/re) and Elijah Money (Mora Money, Wiradjuri, he/him – explores ideas of identity, fear, and survival.

House Arrest

Thursday 8 – Saturday 10 May
The Uncle Jack Charles, Malthouse
Tickets here

House Arrest is a play from writer, director and multimedia artist Alexis West, a Birra Gubba, Wakka Wakka, South Sea Islander, and Anglo-Australian woman. Along with expeditions into a gaming world where nuclear waste has created megafauna and flora, House Arrest centres on a family of five who are chained together, in the colony, trying to escape.

Lazarus

Thursday 1 – Saturday 3 May
The Uncle Jack Charles, Malthouse
Tickets here

Taungurung Elder and activist Larry Walsh sat down for a series of interviews, which formed the basis of Lazarus. Walsh is a Stolen Generations survivor, and this play, written and directed by John Harding, follows his journey from a Salvation Army babies’ home in 1955 through to 2018, when he took the Victorian Government to court to clear the criminal records of all Victorian children forcibly removed from their carers.

Sorry For Your Loss

Friday 9 – Saturday 10 May
The Channel, Arts Centre Melbourne
Tickets here

Starring Cian Parker (Ngāpuhi), Sorry For Your Loss is a play about its star’s experience of growing up in Aotearoa and meeting a father and a family she didn’t know existed, leading her to reclaim her heritage. While her father is mostly absent, the play underscores the power of wāhine (women).

See the full program here.

This article was made in partnership with YIRRAMBOI.

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