Past Programs
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2025
2025 Programs
Image: Canberra Theatre Centre – About New Works Video
We’re thrilled to play a role in the creation of exciting new works in 2025.
New Works provides creative development residencies through application and curation, providing artist income and access to the Courtyard Studio and CTC team to develop work beyond the initial seed of an idea.
JAMES BATCHELOR
– SUPPORTED DEVELOPMENT –
Artists: James Batchelor
Work: Resonance
Dates: 6 – 12 January 2025
Venue: Courtyard Studio
James is a Choreographer from Ngunnawal Country, with an international dance practice that spans research, performance and teaching. After studying a Bachelor of Fine Arts (Dance) at the Victorian College of the Arts, James’ career has taken a unique path notably for his participation in an interdisciplinary expedition to the Antarctic. His body of work has toured widely and presented in Berlin, Paris and Vienna. He was part of the prestigious Aero waves program in 2019 with his solo ‘Hyperspace’ and has made commissioned work for companies such as Chunky Move and Norrdans.
Resonance by James Batchelor and Collaborators is a work that explores lineages of contemporary dance history and embodied memory through the lens of three different generations of Australian dancers. It grew out of an invitation by the Tanja Liedtke Foundation to respond to the archive of the late choreographer Tanja Liedtke, and traces how the legacy of her work impacted contemporary dance in Australia.
Resonance is supported by the Tanja Liedtke Foundation, Arts ACT, Creative Australia, The Keir Foundation, Michael Adena and Joanne Daly, Canberra Theatre Centre New Works Program, and QL2 Dance.
EMMA LAVERTY
– FIRST NATIONS ARTIST IN RESIDENCE –
Image credit: Andrew Sikorski
Artist: Emma Laverty with Project Dust
Work: COUNTRY
Dates: 26 & 27 April 2025
Time: 1.30pm
Venue: Courtyard Studio
Emma is a proud Boorooberongal Clanswoman of the Darug Tribe, now living on Ngunnawal country.
With a keen interest in engaging Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander youth and their carers in Aboriginal contemporary dance, language, and history, Emma delivers cultural engagement workshops and performances across ACT schools. As director of Project Dust, a First Nations contemporary dance and community group, Emma brings together people from many Tribes who live off country to dance, build skills, share stories, and perform, and to embed a strong sense of culture in the younger generations.
The First Nations Artist in Residence program is an artist -led opportunity for an Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander artist to work closely with the Canberra Theatre Centre over 10 months, engaging in fortnightly mentoring sessions, and developing a new work for presentation.
COUNTRY is a collaborative work by mentors and participants of Project Dust exploring what Country means to us in our everyday lives, how we grow together with Country, and our connection with Country wherever we tread. Although we come together on Ngunnawal Country, Project Dust’s community come from many different Tribes and this work has given voice and expression to our appreciation of where we live. Through dance, creativity, and connection we have created shared meaning and purpose.
Choreography is inspired by community mentors Emma Laverty (Darug) and Tammi Gissell (Muruwarri-Wiradjuri), with input from Project Dust participants.
COUNTRY is supported by ArtsACT Cultural Arts Fund and the Canberra Theatre Centre through the New Works Program. Project Dust’s rehearsal space is supported by Canberra Dance Collective, Dance Edge School of Performing Arts, West Belconnen Child and Family Centre, and Dark Carnival.
Project Dust also wishes to thank local Ngunnawal Elder, Dr Aunty Caroline Hughes OAM, for her continued support. Artwork “Connection” (2025) by Zoe Stevenson (Darug). Acrylic on Canvas Board. “No matter how far away you are from your roots, you are always connected to Country by the land, the water, the
sky, and the people.”
MICHELLE LEE
– SUPPORTED DEVELOPMENT –
Artist: Michele Lee with Claire Granata
Work: These Other Things
Dates: 3 – 7 February 2025
Venue: Playhouse Reception Room
These Other Things is a new memoir theatre show written and performed by Michele. In 2023 Michele learnt her Dad had cancer while she was premiering a show called ‘How do I let you die?’ about her parents dying one day. An actor played her. When she wrote it, her parents were healthy and she pondered their death speculatively. But in rehearsing and presenting ‘How do I let you die?’, she was suddenly watching her Dad decline.
Intended as a sequel work, These Other Things offers a deep and often humorous reflection into the way life becomes art and of the experiences of death and grief.
Michele is a recipient of a Victorian Premier’s Literary Award, Australian Writers’ Guild Award (Stage and Radio), Malcolm Robertson Prize, Betty Burstall Commission, and was a 2022-23 Sidney Myer Creative Fellow. She has been nominated for the Victorian Premier’s Literary Award, Nick Enright Prize, Griffin Award and Patrick White Award.
YOLANDA LOWATTA
– CREATIVE DEVELOPMENT –
Image credit: Gupi de Zavalia
Artists: Yolanda Lowatta with Aba Bero and Harlisha Newie Joe
Work: Karbai
Dates: 4 – 8 March 2025
Venue: Courtyard Studio
Yolanda is a Geidei woman from Lama, ZENADTH KES (Torres Strait Islands) and is also of Papua New Guinea & Fijian heritage. She graduated from the Aboriginal Centre for the Performing Arts in 2013. As a dancer she has performed with Ochre Contemporary Dance Company, Bangarra Dance Theatre, YT Dingo, Jannawi Dance Clan, Australian Dance Party, and Melanie Lane. In 2016, Yolanda was awarded a Helpmann Award for Best Female Dancer in a Dance or Physical Theatre performance. During her four years with Bangarra Dance Theatre, Yolanda danced nationally & internationally. Yolanda has taught in various schools across Sydney & Canberra and is now venturing into choreography.
During this development Yolanda is choreographing a new work for three ZENADTH KES performers called Karbai, as a celebration of her totem, her culture, and her people. With a multidisciplinary approach drawing from physical theatre, ZENADTH KES, drama, comedy, dance and soul, Karbai is a collection of stories from her childhood experiences of culture, as well as an exploration of the experience of being a mainland ZENADTH KES (Torres Strait Islander).
This creative development is presented in partnership with Ausdance ACT.
MARY RACHEL BROWN
– CREATIVE DEVELOPMENT –
Artist: Mary Rachel Brown
Dates: 26 – 30 May
Venue: Playhouse Reception Room
Now retired from a life of mime, Canberra’s most prominent self-described ‘child mime’ recounts a storied career: from falling out of a tree at age seven, to miming through an electrical storm, to unnerving the late great Marcel Marceau… and the day the wheels came off and it all went to sh*t.
Mary will be spending the week at CTC, writing and researching, and engaging with mentor collaborators Queenie van de Zandt and Phil Spencer.
Mary is the recipient of the The Lysicrates Prize, The Rodney Seaborn Award, The Max Affords Award, The Griffin Award, The Suzie Miller Fellowship and an Australian Writers Guild Award. Her most recent works include Rosieville for (Canberra Youth Theatre), Betty Blokk Buster Reimagined (Redline/Sydney Festival), Dead Cat Bounce (Griffin Theatre). Her play The Dapto Chaser has toured nationally, has had a cinematic release with Dendy, and was broadcast on ABC TV.
LUCIANA HARRISON
– CREATIVE DEVELOPMENT –
Image credit: Adam Thomas
Artist: Luciana Harrison with Emma Mc Manus, Sia Ahmad, Tara Bromham, and Nic Menser Hearn
Work: Silver Spinning (working title)
Dates: 7 – 11 July 2025
Venue: Courtyard Studio
Luciana Harrison is a Canberra-based singer-songwriter and performer. After many years fronting bands (Pocket Fox, Oranges) and performing across a variety of genres, this new work is an adaptation of an original song-cycle exploring her recent journey into queer parenthood. The challenges faced during the journey – loss, health issues, homophobia, cycle-breaking, othering and erasure – transform over the song cycle into newfound hope, self-knowledge and pride.
Silver Spinning is a stage adaptation of this song cycle of the same name to include visual and theatrical elements, integrating both hi-fi and lo-fi sounds and images. The creative development brings together a diverse team of all-queer artists including Luciana as performer, theatre maker and director Emma McManus, music producer and mentor Sia Ahmad, film maker and visual artist Nic Menser Hearn, and textiles artist Tara Bromham.
GABRIEL SINCLAIR
– SUPPORTED DEVELOPMENT –
Image credit: Jeff Busby
Artist: Gabriel Sinclair with Jazmyn Carter
Work: Superposition
Dates: 14 – 18 July 2025
Venue: Courtyard Studio
Superposition is a new contemporary dance work with a cybernetic-led soundscape. In between a choreographic duel and a pas de deux, the work locks the performers in a state of simultaneous attraction and repulsion. Revealing the possibilities for sensitivity between human nature and technology, the work invites the audience to engage with this intricate relationship in a thought-provoking performance that bridges the gap between science and art.
Gabriel is a Canberra based dance artist, working both in live and mediated forms. Superposition has been in development throughout 2024, with its most recent iteration being a performance season at Dancehouse as part of the 2024 Melbourne Fringe Festival, where it received award nominations for Best Dance and Physical Theatre and Best Emerging Artist.
This development is supported by artsACT project funding and the ANU School of Cybernetics. Project funding is auspiced by Ausdance ACT.
PETROV!
– CREATIVE DEVELOPMENT –
Artists: Lindy Hume, Sheridan Harbridge, Mikelangelo and the Black Sea Gentlemen
Work: PETROV!
Dates: 12 -16 August 2025
Venue: Courtyard Studio
Commissioned by Canberra Theatre Centre in association with Crimson Rosella
Creative Development supported by The Keir Foundation
PETROV! animates for a new generation the iconic characters and drama of the notorious Petrov Affair, a scandal that momentarily focused the world’s gaze on Australia and almost brought down the ALP. Starring the shambolic Third Secretary of the Soviet Embassy Vladimir Petrov and his seducer, a concert-violinist-turned-double-agent codenamed ‘Diabolo’, the Petrov Affair entangled titanic politicians, diplomats, spies, protesters and journalists. Caught in the middle was Petrov’s glamorous wife, Evdokia, herself a high-ranking KGB agent, blindsided by her husband’s defection. Forced aboard a flight to Moscow at gunpoint, her life-or-death decision altered the course of Australian politics.
Our unreliable eyewitnesses to the events recounted in PETROV! are Mikelangelo and the Black Sea Gentlemen, with Blazey Best as Evdokia. Iconic images from the National Film and Sound Archive, National Library and the Museum of Democracy are brought to life through a digital design that injects colour into the monochrome world of 1950s Australia. An intended public presentation of the final production is slated for mid-2026.
At last Australia’s own 1950s Soviet spy defection scandal gets the retrospective it deserves!
NEW IDEAS LAB
Dates: 19 – 23 May 2025
Venue: Courtyard Studio and Playhouse Reception Room
ARTISTS
Left to right: Jade Breen, Quinn Goodwin, Nieshanka Nanthakrishnakumar, Eli Narev
Jade Breen
Jade is a proud nonbinary emerging creative practicing on Ngunnawal country. Through their work in theatre and film they aim to interrogate the role of queer storytelling within a contemporary landscape. Jade’s work has an urgent focus on social justice and they dream of a future where young people can see themselves represented in every facet of the arts community. Their new work “The S Word” will explore intimacy through the lived experience of trans youth, and the reality of existing in a skin that will never truly feel like your own.
Quinn Goodwin
Quinn is an emerging playwright and actor who has grown up in Canberra, featuring in shows produced by Budding Theatre and Canberra Youth Theatre from 2016, including Honor Webster-Mannison’s Work, But This Time Like You Mean It and Lucid Theatre Co’s People You May Know, born from Canberra Youth Theatre’s Emerge Company in 2022, which she co-wrote. She is excited to develop her first solo work exploring the breaking apart of relationships as one moves from adolescence into adulthood.
Nieshanka Nanthakrishnakumar
Nieshanka is an Australian – Sri Lankan Tamil writer, dancer and performance poet, currently based in Ngunnawal country. She has performed at the Sydney Writers Festival and the Melbourne Spoken Word Festival, and has been published in the NSW Young Writers Showcase and the Australian Poetry Journal. She is also trained in Bharatanatyam and hip-hop. Nieshanka is working on developing a multi-disciplinary performance that blends poetry and dance to explore the complexities of femininity and queerness in South Asian and Western cultures conveyed through the navarasas—the nine emotions central to performance, founded in Indian aestheticism.
Eli Narev
Eli is an emerging writer and artist with a background in poetry, short fiction and theatre. His work navigates questions of identity, queerness, and the law. His recent play with co-writer Adam Gottschalk, Third Storey, had its first run in May 2024 a ANU. His new work is a two-act play which follows an aged care nurse, her cruel teenage son and an elderly ex-politician intent on ending his own life prematurely. As the audience is invited to collude in the characters’ private plots, the play will explore notions of accountability, justice and the anxieties of a new generation entering the political playing field.
MENTORS
Left to right: Rae Perks, Mary Rachel Brown, Lewis Treston, Christopher Gurusamy
Rae Perks
Rae is a playwright and screenwriter who has won the Malthouse Theatre’s Playwriting Innovation award, the Melbourne Festival Discovery Award and the Dame Joan Sutherland Award, and was shortlisted for the Queensland Premier’s Drama Award. They have a long-standing theatre-making partnership with Bridget Balodis under the moniker ‘Double Water Sign’. Together, they have made Moral Panic (Darebin Arts, 2018), Ground Control (Next Wave Festival 2016), and Angry Sexx (Melbourne Fringe 2014). Between them, these works have been nominated for 9 Green Room Awards.
Mary Rachel Brown
Mary is the recipient of the The Lysicrates Prize, The Rodney Seaborn Award, The Max Affords Award, and The Griffin Award. Her most recent works include Rosieville for (Canberra Youth Theatre), contributing writer for Betty Blokk Buster Reimagined (Redline/Sydney Festival), and Dead Cat Bounce (Griffin Theatre). Her play The Dapto Chaser has toured nationally, has had a cinematic release with Dendy and was broadcast on ABC TV. In 2024, Mary won The Suzie Miller Fellowship and an Australian Writers Guild Award. As part of her fellowship, Mary is currently in residence at Griffin Theatre and under commission with the company.
Lewis Treston
Lewis is an award-winning Australian playwright whose work has been produced by leading companies including Sydney Theatre Company, Queensland Theatre, La Boite, Belvoir 25A, and ATYP. His plays include Hubris & Humiliation, Hot Tub, IRL, An Ideal Husband, Meat Eaters, Reagan Kelly, and Follow Me Home. His work has been described as “riotously funny” (TimeOut), “deliciously camp” (The Queer Review), and “like Oscar Wilde in a hyperpop blender” (ArtsHub). Lewis has received multiple awards, including the Patrick White Playwrights Award and Best New Australian Work at the Sydney Theatre Awards.
Christopher Gurusamy
Christopher is a professional Bharatanatyam artiste, based between Sydney and Chennai, India, He is regarded as one of the frontrunners of his generation having performed extensively within India and internationally. He has received the Narasimhachari Dance Award (Narada Gana Sabha, 2022), being named Best Dance of 2017 (New York Times), and was conferred the Kalavahini Fellowship for Choreography by leading dancer Malavika Sarukkai in 2018. His latest work Ananda – Dance of Joy was staged in Sydney and Melbourne for which he was nominated for a Green Room Award – Outstanding Performer.
Skills Development
IMMERSE LAB
Presented by Australian Dance Party
Gabriel Sinclair and Jazmyn Carter led a two-hour Lab delving into the choreographic systems, languages, and methodologies behind their award-nominated dance work Superposition.
The session welcomed two participatory roles – dancers and algorithm artists – who collaborated to uncover the intricate processes that informed the work. Dancers learned an excerpt from Superposition, co-created rulesets and patterns, and explored evolving soundscapes shaped by movement.
Participants brought notebooks, open minds, and curious bodies, engaging in a dynamic exchange of ideas that blurred the lines between dance and technology.
The Independents – Festival of New Works
12 – 21 September 2025
Presented in the intimate Courtyard Studio, this curated festival featured four powerful new works — two from acclaimed Sydney-based artists, and two homegrown from Canberra’s own creative scene. The festival offered audiences a choose-your-own-adventure format: see one show, a dynamic double bill, or experience all four as part of a full-access pass.
All four works are also heading to Sydney Fringe Festival 2025, with Canberra Theatre Centre supporting the Canberra artists through its New Works Program.
Fresh voices. Fierce ideas. The new wave is here.
2024
2024 Programs
Image: Canberra Theatre Centre – About New Works Video
We continue supporting Canberra artists to create exciting new works in 2024
Creative Developments
New Works provides creative development residencies through application and curation, providing artist income and access to the Courtyard Studio and CTC team to develop work beyond the initial seed of an idea.
Liz Lea
Artist: Liz Lea, with Tammi Gissell
Work: Diamond
Dates: 15–19 January 2024
Liz spent a week in The Playhouse researching her new one woman show Diamond. The process supports continued immersive collaborative process with artists and scientists in Australia and Asia, informing the next iteration of her development as a performer, creator, and access provider – a reconnect with her past to move into the future. Diamond springs from the expansive analogy of the creation of rare and precious jewels over millions of years. Founded in a personal journey with Chronic Illness, Diamond becomes a reflection on resilience, longevity, and potential for brilliance that comes with age.
“It was such a thrill and honour to open the year in a venue like The Playhouse, begin research and cast the net wide with ideas with my collaborator Tammi Gissell. We connected online with Dramaturg Brian Lucas and musicians Toby Cole and Alexander Hunter. A myriad of new ideas and previously unseen connections, now settle into space for the next steps. Deeply grateful for the support from Canberra Theatre Centre and artsACT.” – Liz Lea
This creative development was supported by CTC’s New Works program and arts ACT project funding.
Nick Delatovic and Charley Allanah
Artists: Nick Delatovic and Charley Allanah, with Maeve Marsden, Adam Noviello, and Sara Zwangobani
Work: Must Go On
Dates: 8–13 April 2024
Venue: Courtyard Studio
Nick is a writer, theatre maker, songwriter, lead singer, performance artist, filmmaker, and arts producer working in cross-discipline, multi-arts-informed contexts. Charley is a director, theatre-maker, writer, and performer, and is Co-Artistic Director of House of Sand.
Must Go On is a queer indie-rock musical that began life in CTC’s inaugural New Ideas Lab in 2022. Nick has been developing the work with New Ideas Lab mentor and now collaborator Charley Allanah, with a development as part of Performance Space’s Live Dreams program in 2023. For this week of development they are working with director/ mentor Maeve Marsden (Queerstories) and performers Adam Noviello and Sara Zwangobani as part of the development team.
The work is set 30 years from now at the This-Is-Your-Life style celebration of a pop star, who is about to be destroyed and used as raw material for her fanbase to create a new, more acceptable version. The work aims to explore “the systems and cages we build when trying to love each other, the human drive toward deviance and the hope baked into our lack of control”.
Image: Buda
Charlie Wan
Artists: Charlie Wan with Emma Maye Gibson
Work: Shame
Dates: 8-9 May, 16 – 18 May 2024
Venue: Courtyard Studio
Drag King. Vaudeville Performer. Clown. Stripper. Producer. Choreographer. Activist. Wizard. Charlie Wan is a multi-faceted, genre bending performance artist who has been dancing and performing across the globe since the age of 15. The Chameleon Clown King of Character, Charlie embodies the art of authenticity. The director of a dance school built around empowering humans to see themselves through eyes of love, Charlie seeks to disempower the darkness through humour, levity and laughter, believing the best art should feel safe to lap up but never entirely comfortable. Now based in Canberra, Charlie is proudly working class British-Chinese, genderfluid, and an all-round silly goose.
During their time at CTC, Charlie will be working with the phenomenal Emma Maye Gibson (AKA Betty Grumble) as mentor to develop existing characters Daddy Charles and Distracto, as well as workshopping a new theatre show examining the intersection of arts, expression, and sex work with the working title “Shame”.
Sugar Kaye Sañejo Grefaldeo
Artist: Sugar Kaye Sañejo Grefaldeo, with Erika Jane Goldsmith and Richu John Kung
Work: Fortuna
Dates: 3 – 7 June 2024
Venue: Courtyard Studio
Sugar is originally from Manila, Philippines. She is a dance studio manager, performing artist, school dance teacher, and choreographer. Sugar is passionate about cultivating and promoting the indigenous and cultural dances of the Philippines and is actively involved in the Filipino-Australian Community. Since arriving in Australia she has trained in contemporary dance, afro, dancehall, and street latin styles.
Mentors Erika Jane Goldsmith – a Meanjin-based performing artist, producer, and cultural community development practitioner, and dancer Richu Jong Kung will join Sugar in Canberra for the development period. Development of this work also involves local community dance organisation Kulture Break to explore creative exchange and ways to navigate cultural protocols in contemporary dance storytelling contexts.
Fortuna is a one-woman dance theatre work about Sugar’s journey as a Filipino migrant to so-called Australia. Further, the work seeks to question the idea of ‘fortune’ (fortuna in Spanish). In the Philippines, people often say that ‘kung ano ang itinanim, siya’ng aanihin’ – what you reap is what you sow. But is it ‘chance’? What brings good fortune? What IS good fortune? Sugar’s dance journey began after a teacher from her school, Raffy Fortuna, saw her playing sports and invited her to join the school’s dance troupe. Raffy changed the course of her life and became a key mentor as her passion for dance grew. The work explores this relationship between student and mentor, the passing on of knowledge, and the cycle of giving back to mentors and community.
This development is presented in collaboration with Ausdance ACT.
Thea Jade
Artists: Thea Jade with Will Tran and Jessie Gooding
Work: How These Things Go
Dates: 21 June 2024
Venue: Courtyard Studio
Thea Jade is a writer and arts worker hailing from Ngunnawal land. Her work strives to champion the voices of young people, explore social change through storytelling and strengthen community through collaboration.
In 2024, Jade’s script How These Things Go (seeded as part of the New Ideas Lab 2023) spent a day in development in the courtyard studio working with 2 actors and a director for a closed reading and dramaturgical discussion. The work delves into the silent corners of the justice system, where in a remote witness room a young witness and her Court Bailiff wait to be live-streamed into the courtroom.
How These Things Go has been acknowledged nationally in 2024 as a Runner Up for the Rodney Seabourn Playwriting Award, shortlisted for the Katie Lees Fellowship and shortlisted for the Griffin Award.
Image: Ant Hellier
Michael Simic
Artists: Michael Simic with Tracy Bourne
Work: In the Belly of a Whale by Mikelangelo
Dates: 9 – 14 September 2024
Venue: Courtyard Studio
Mikelangelo is celebrated nationally and internationally as a solo artist, and with his long term group The Black Sea Gentlemen. A charming and compelling performer, known for his rich baritone voice and powerful and playful stage presence, he has played to packed houses and critical acclaim from the Sydney Opera House to London’s West End.
Mikelangelo is the alter ego of Canberra-born Michael Simic, who grew up in a household where creativity was instilled as fundamental by his parents and siblings. This joyful creative journey was shadowed by his Croatian father’s childhood trauma, which deeply impacted the family.
Becoming a husband and father himself has led Simic to radically alter his approach to making work, and the genesis of a new solo show, In The Belly Of A Whale. At CTC, he will collaborate with director Tracy Bourne on scenes and songs to build a draft script for the show. Thematically, it is part parable of parenthood, part psychic journey, and part investigation of the nature of on and off-stage personas. This poetic and absurdist piece moves between the personal and the mythical, delving into the construction of self image, and what happens when the stories we tell ourselves unravel.
New Ideas Lab
Four artists took part in the New Ideas Lab, allowing each artist to explore their idea in a collaborative context, working to develop the artistic concept and the creative planning for the work. Practice building sessions were led by a diverse group of professional mentors and Canberra Theatre Centre (CTC) staff, and each artists spent dedicated one-on-one time with their respective mentors to develop their ideas. To conclude the Lab, the artists re-pitched their ideas and presented their plan for the next stage of development, as well as sharing any script excerpts or storyboarding they had generated during the week.
Dates: 20 – 24 May 2024
Venues: Courtyard Studio and Playhouse Reception room
Artists and projects:
Artist: Linda Chen (She/Them)
Project Name: t(here)
Mentor: Yasemin Sabuncu
Artist: Gemma Hudson (She/Her)
Project Name: Creatures
Mentor: Andi Snelling
Artist: Fi Peel (They/Them)
Project Name: Glimmer of Hope
Mentor: Danielle O’Keefe
Artist: Isha Menon (They/Them)
Project Name: The Coming of Babaur
Mentor: Tasnim Hossain
Skills Development
Circa Workshop for Young Circus Artists
CTC is constantly looking for ways to engage meaningfully with our incredible local artists and organisation. To accompany the tour of Humans 2.0 at the Canberra Theatre Centre 2 – 4 May, Circa will present a workshop for selected participants with Warehouse Circus. Working closely with both Circa and Warehouse Circus, CTC is excited to be presenting this workshop opportunity to emerging artists in our region to develop their circus skills and gain insight from leading national circus artists.
Akram Khan Repertory Workshop
Sunday 4 February 2024, 2 – 4pm
Akram Khan Company dancer, Elpida Skourou, delivered a two-hour workshop to 30 emerging and professional dance artists from the ACT, NSW, Victoria and Queensland in February. This exclusive 2-hour workshop took participants through excerpts from AKC company class and taught repertoire excerpts from Jungle Book Reimagined. This was the only workshop held during the Akram Khan Company’s Australia tour, and a very special experience for our local artists.
Presented in collaboration with QL2 Dance and Ainslie and Gorman Arts Centres.
Mentor Chats
As part of New Works commitment to sector development, CTC connects local artists to world class professional artists to learn from connection and conversation.
Local musician Lisa Richards writes and performs music that delves deep into the tapestry of human experience, connection, and emotion. Her guitar-based songs are steeped in folk, roots, and jazz music. Lisa had the opportunity to attend Deborah Conway & Willy Zygier’s Songs from the Book of Life performance in February 2024, followed by a 2 hour mentoring session with Deborah Conway. She reflects on her experience here.
You can find out more about Lisa and her work here: https://www.lisarichardsmusic.com/
Sarah Stewart with Georgie Carroll.
Local storyteller and comedian Sarah Stewart writes and performs comedy that it drawn straight from the heart of her life experiences. Sarah had the opportunity to attend a performance of Adelaide based comedian Nurse Georgie Carroll in November 2024, followed by a 2-hour in person mentor chat with Georgie.
Industry Networking
CHIPS DIPS AND SIPS – INDUSTRY GATHERING
Wednesday 9 October, 4pm – 6pm
Courtyard Studio, Canberra Theatre Centre
Joshua Lowe, Co-CEO of Theatre Network Australia (TNA), a leading body for advocacy and research for live performance, provided an update on the state of national live performance landscape as well as facilitating some provocative conversations. He was joined by local artists, producers, and arts sector advocates providing local updates by representatives from The Minister’s Creative Council, The Childers Group, You Are Here Canberra, The Mill Theatre, Music in Exile, and CTC’s New Works Program.
Supported Works
New Works is supporting a number of independent Canberra artists and organisations in 2024 to develop and present work at Canberra Theatre Centre, including:
- Canberra Youth Theatre
– Work, But This Time Like You Mean it - QL2 Dance
–Subject to Change - Australian Dance Party
– Co_Lab: 24 - Show within a Show
– Only Everything
2023
2023 Programs
Image: Canberra Theatre Centre – About New Works Video
We supported many Canberra artists to create exciting new works in 2023.
Creative Developments
New Works provides creative development residencies through application and curation, providing artist income and access to the Courtyard Studio and CTC team to develop work beyond the initial seed of an idea.
Jake Silvestro
Artists: Jake Silvestro, with Romain Hassanin, Steve Gow, Lilah Gow, Darcy Wiseman
Work: Alienation
Dates: 3 – 7 June 2023
Alienation is a new physical theatre work that explores the parallels between animal and human behaviour and invites us to reconsider our relationship to the natural world. Relying heavily on contemporary dance and circus, the work will incorporate visual art, live music, and absurdism.
Alienation will be further developed through support from Legs on the Wall in Sydney and will premiere as part of the Melbourne Fringe Festival in October 2023.
This development is presented in collaboration with Ausdance ACT.
Emerging circus artist Darcy Wiseman was supported by Ausdance ACT to observe this creative development for the week.
Mark Salvestro
Artists:Mark Salvestro, with Nick Atkins, Christopher Carroll, Kate Smith, Thomas Campbell
Work: The Queen’s City of the South
Dates: 19 – 23 June 2023
Mark is developing a theatre work, The Queen’s City of the South, which is inspired by the history of Cooma Gaol and its use as a homosexual prison in the 1950-60s. The work was seeded as part of CTC’s inaugural New Ideas Lab in 2022, with the first creative development supported by a grant from Create NSW in April 2023.
Mark says, “I’m interested in this work as a means to examine the intersection of queerness and regional living, the importance of home, and how we use the past to make sense of the present.”
Paul McDermott and Glenn Moorhouse
Artists: Paul McDermott and Glenn Moorehouse
Work: Scomonohomo and No Singing, No Dancing
Dates:16–20 October 2023
Paul McDermott and Glenn Moorhouse, in a creative partnership and musical odyssey, are fleshing out the bones of two different works that in turn respond to the lack of political accountability and the absurdity of the Covid pandemic experience with trademark humour, savage satire, and catchy tunes.
“I’m returning to my hometown of Canberra, a city I’ve never really left, for a week of experimentation, exploration, frustration, and madness. Glenn and I have been performing as Paul + 1 for three years. We are both looking forward to this week and working with The Canberra Theatre to bring something new into the world.” – Paul McDermott
Supported Creative Development
Artist: Little Dove Theatre Art
Work: Francesca Giselle
Dates: January 2023
Director – Chenoeh Miller
Choreography – Alicia Melonie Jones and Noa Rotem
Performers – Natsuko Yonezawa, Ketura Budd, Alicia Melonie Jones, Noa Rotem, and Ali McGregor
“She is God, the Universe, the sisterhood, the everywoman; she is the speaker of truth, the gift of sight, the light in the darkness. Actually, is doesn’t matter who she is. What matters is that she took your hand and guided you out of these deep, murky waters that had threatened to drown you.” A powerful and transcendent dance theatre work, Francesca Giselle is about resilience, strength and about the female bonds that hold us and lead us forwards, onwards, upwards, continuing Little Dove’s exploration of love and connection as the root system of our being.
This creative development was supported by CTC’s New Works program and arts ACT project funding.
New Ideas Lab
Five Canberra based or connected artists took part in the New Ideas Lab 2023. The Lab allowed each artist to explore their idea in a collaborative context, working to develop the artistic concept and the creative planning for the work. With sessions led by professional mentors and Canberra Theatre Centre (CTC) staff, the New Ideas Lab provided the artists with an opportunity to dig deep into a new idea in multiple ways, preparing to pitch the idea and take it to next stage of development with curated mentorship with nationally recognised artists.
Artist: Emma Batchelor
Work: Now That I See You
Mentor: Danielle Micich – Artistic Director, Force Majure
Artist: Monica Carroll (Mink)
Work: Body-Word-Light
Mentor: Becky Russell – Lighting and Production Designer
Artist: Rebecca Duke
Work: Wunderkinds
Mentor: Dylan Van Den Berg – Writer and Literary Manager, Griffin Theatre
Artist: Thea Jade
Work: How These Things Go
Mentor: Michele Lee – Writer
Artist: Diana Nixon
Work: Flood
Mentor: Jenny Bell – Visual artist.
Presented Works
THE HELLO GIRLS
7–9 September 2023
The Playhouse
Canberra Theatre Centre proudly co-presented The Hello Girls in The Playhouse with Heart Strings Theatre Co, producers of 2022’s sold out hit Urinetown the Musical. A contemporary musical brimming with folk and pop earworms, The Hello Girls charts the journey of a feisty bunch of trail-blazing women who turned the US Army on its head and made history.
Founded in 2021, Heart Strings Theatre Co is a Canberra based production company committed to presenting exciting contemporary works and investing in the creative capital of the region, particularly professional artists that are based in or connected to Canberra.
BATCHELOR + LEA: A DANCE WEEK DOUBLE BILL
29 April 2023
The Playhouse
A dance double bill presented in The Playhouse in celebration of International Dance Day, and presented as part of Ausdance ACT’s Australian Dance Week, the event featured solo works by two outstanding Canberra based dance artists – James Batchelor’s Shortcuts to Familiar Places and Liz Lea’s RED.
IN CONVERSATION: EMBODIED HISTORIES
29 April 2023
Convened by Michelle Potter AM and joined by special guests Elizabeth Cameron Dalman OAM and Ruth Osborne, this conversation explored notions of dance legacies, intergenerational learning and sharing through choreographic exchange, and how histories written on and in the body are expressed through dance.
Supported Works
New Works supported a number of other independent Canberra artists and organisations to develop and present work at Canberra Theatre Centre, including:
- Canberra Youth Theatre
– The Trials
– You Can’t Tell Anyone
– Rosieville - QL2 Dance
– Communicate
– Gather – Meet Up Performance - You Are Here’s Cahoots Lab 2023
– Implications by Ashlee Bye and Beth Lane
– Colony in the Spirit by Lynden Bassett
2022
2022 Programs
Image: Canberra Theatre Centre – About New Works Video
Canberra Theatre Centre celebrates its largest ever cohort of NEW WORKS residencies in 2022!
In 2022, we’ve been able to work with seven local artists across various residencies.
The New Ideas Lab successfully saw four artists participate in one week of conceptual development to evolve their new ideas and performances. Consisting of talks, workshops, and support from industry mentors and Canberra Theatre Centre staff, the Lab provides different perspectives that help to drive thinking, planning and dreaming about creative ideas.
New Ideas Lab – Artists & Projects:
- Nick Delatovic – Body of Work
- Carolyn Eccles – Glen Meringuey
- Claire Holland – Girlboss, Gatekeep, Gaslight
- Mark Salvestro – The Queen’s City of the South
New Works also offered professional Canberra artists a one-week residency for the creative development of a new performance. The week includes access to the Courtyard Studio, with venue and associated costs covered, including technical support. Canberra Theatre Centre facilitates an industry-only showing at the end of the week to support the future of the work.
Creative Development – Artists & Projects:
- Liz Lea – Diamond
- Christopher Samuel Carroll – Commitment to the Cause
We also supported a number of other independent Canberra Artists and Organisations to develop and present work at Canberra Theatre Centre, including:
- Melanie Lane – Mountain Creative Development
- QL2 Dance Exchange – Terra Firma
- Canberra Youth Theatre – 50th Anniversary 2022 Performance Season
- Heartstrings Theatre – Urinetown
- Bold Festival – Shakedown Cabaret + Trivia
In the first 12 months of the program New Works has employed 42 artists, created 50 full time paid weeks work for artists, and supported the development or presentation of 9 original performance works created by ACT artists.
Find out more about New Works.
See what local artists had to say about New Works at Canberra Theatre Centre.