The First Nations arts festival is backing artists to build ambitious new work from scratch.
Four new works spanning sound, street theatre, film and circus will get their world premieres at YIRRAMBOI’s 2027 festival in narrm (Melbourne).
The commissions are the centrepiece of the YIRRAMBOI Commissions Program, now entering its sixth cycle. Each project is developed from initial concept through to full realisation, with the festival providing Victorian First Nations artists the resources and platform to bring large-scale, self-determined creative visions to life. YIRRAMBOI, whose name means “tomorrow” in the languages of the Boon Wurrung and Woi Wurrung peoples, has established itself as one of Australia’s leading platforms for First Nations evolutionary and experimental arts since launching in 2017.
The four commissioned works cover a huge span of creative territory. GANBINAN!, a collaboration between Allara and Dr Lou Bennett AM (both Yorta Yorta), is an album written entirely in Yorta Yorta language, created in partnership with Binung Boorigan. It positions songwriting as a vehicle for language reclamation and cultural activism, and will be performed as an immersive live music experience at the festival.
YIRRAMBOI 2027
- Where: narrm (Melbourne)
- When: 2027 (dates TBC)
- More info: here
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Somewhere Over the Blak Rainbow, led by Bryan Andy (Yorta Yorta/Yullaba Yullaba), is a roving street theatre piece tracing Blak and Queer histories through Fitzroy. Guided by two drag personas — Flora, a chocolate lily drag queen, and Fauna, a drag king wombat — audiences move through stories of survival, kinship and resistance on Wurundjeri Country. The work pays tribute to ancestors including Lisa Bellear, Uncle Jack Charles and Aunty Vicki Liddy.
Jedda Atkinson-Costa’s (Wemba Wemba/Yorta Yorta/Mutti Mutti/Barapa Barapa) Withewa (To Return Home) is a film installation honouring Aboriginal Elders whose stories risk being lost. Shot in significant locations and woven with voice, landscape and archival material, the project treats Elders as living archives — preserving humour, wisdom and memory as both cinematic works and personal family keepsakes.
Rounding out the four commissions is What Yet, a contemporary circus work from director Maggie Church-Kopp (Arrernte) and choreographer Johnny Brown (Anaiwan). Developed through research on Arrernte Country and created by an all-First Nations team, the piece explores how cultural knowledge is transferred and disrupted for young mob today, tackling incarceration, education and cultural survival through physical storytelling.
The YIRRAMBOI Commissions Program is supported by the City of Melbourne.
For more information, head here.
