Culturally Diverse Artist Residency | Meet the twelve participating artists

We are so incredibly excited to announce the participants of our Culturally Diverse Artist Residency, a 4 day intensive to upskill and support the next generation of culturally diverse artists based in Western Australia run by Performing Lines WA.

Over the course of the residency, 11 incredible artists (initially 12 but Tao’s flight from India got cancelled) will spend time exploring their own project ideas, unpacking big thoughts through small group discussions and building a community around their creative practice in a nurturing environment ably guided by Anna Reece, Matt Edgerton, Zainab Syed and Melanie Julien Martial.

Initially, we were only going to choose 6 artists but due to the overwhelming response to our application, we doubled the cohort and can’t wait to spend the rest of the weekend getting to know them, and their artistic practice.

The residency will run from Thursday 23rd July to Monday 27th July 2020 at the Subiaco Arts Centre and is made possible through the generous support of Lotterywest and Perth Theatre Trust. Each participant will receive a $1,000 stipend to attend the residency.

PAVAN KUMAR HARI
Indian – Australian

Pavan is a composer, performer, dancer and director who creates vibrant, dynamic, expressive and dramatic music for theatre, film, dance and the concert hall. Pavan has been performing since the age of three in dance and music productions, and has always loved the performing arts.

Pavan is interested in Navarasas in cultural music, and will be exploring the nine emotions that are present in different cultural musics.

ELHAM ESHRAGHIAN
Australian – Iranian

Elham is a Bahá’í multi-media and installation video artist. She addresses the emotional impact of displacement felt within her community and the need for empathy in response to the current global, social and political climate, through the affective poetic space of installation art and aesthetic devices of choreographed performance and archival documentation.

During the residency, Elham will work on her project “I’ll see you; face to face” which is about unpacking the emotional dialogue felt by the first and second-generation Iranian – Australian community within the Bahá’í context, through performative, archival and poetic forms found in video art.

LEON SALAM
Asian – Australian

Leon is an emerging artist driven to create work that enlightens individuals and challenges beliefs. He began his career in Advertising but found himself collaborating with emerging Perth theatremakers as part of the 2019 WAYTCO Devisers Club. He went on to perform in Body Rights (WAYTCO) at FRINGE WORLD 2020.

During the residency, Leon will be exploring what does the future of life and death look like, asking ‘if you could choose to vacate your vessel, would you do it?’

SIMONE DETOURBET
Muluk Muluk – French

Simone is an emerging actor, writer and director from Darwin. She moved to Perth to attend the Western Australian Academy of Performing Arts where she completed the Aboriginal Theatre Course in 2015 and the Screen Performance Course in 2016. Since then she has worked as an actor on a range of productions with Yirra Yaakin and The Blue Room Theatre.

Simone’s work explores moving room and being still. What does it feel like to be present with a moment? To experience stillness while moving? How do you know that a space in time is honest? Is it a feeling? Can you see it?

CAROLINA DUCA
Latinx – Australian

Carolina is a theatre-maker, producer and community arts worker. Their practice focuses on storytelling, interdisciplinary/intercultural performance making and interactive audience experiences. They have developed or supported a variety of community-based arts projects with culturally and linguistically diverse artists and communities. In 2019, they established Teatro Latinx, a storytelling project that engages Perth-based Latin Americans to uncover their collective stories and explore what it means to be an immigrant on Noongar land.

Carolina’s latest work-in-development, Man on! follows 22 players in the game of temporary visas in Australia, a game that changes rules every time you turn.

DALEY RANGI
Maori

Daley is an eclectic multidisciplinary artist generating unpredictable and uncomfortable works through an intersectional lens. Evading categorisation, and invading the status quo, their energies are focused on speaking truth to power and encouraging social change.

His most recent project, Takatāpui, is a participatory performance work unearthing the transgenerational and collective trauma of colonisation, and the relentless journey to reclaiming sovereignty of body, mind and soul.

DURESHAWAR KHAN
Esapzai Pashtun woman from Khyber Pukhtunkhwa

Dureshawar is a writer, performer and interdisciplinary creative based in Boorloo. Her works explore concepts of identity, culture and belonging from the perspective of a migrant feminist.

Her current project, Bad Muslim Social Club, is a play about being Young, Muslim and Punk. Crescent-shaped pegs in southern cross-shaped holes.

LINNEA TENGROTH
Swedish

Linnea is an emerging theatre-maker and performer from Stockholm, Sweden who recently graduated from WAAPA. Linnea brings a big passion for intercultural theatre, puppetry, physical theatre, female-driven narratives and climate change. Her work is driven by the desire to give a voice to those who aren’t given the space or freedom to speak.

Her latest work, Black Girl Rising, is a dark comedy piece interrogating black lives and mental health as a result of systemic racism. In this quirky, one-woman show she is the norm and everyone else is the other.

TINASHE JAKWA
Zimbabwean – Australian

Tinashe is an emerging writer and playwright whose short stories have appeared in the anthologies, Ways of Being Here (Margaret River Press), and In This Desert, There Were Seeds (Margaret River Press and Ethos Books Singapore). She is also a PhD Candidate in Political Science and International Relations at the University of Western Australia, and as a political analyst has written extensively on political developments on the African continent.

Her work, The Line, is a thrilling new play about a mysterious line that appears in the fictional country of Tana. The government has grown legs and is hiding in the line, which people are scurrying to join as stories abound about the line’s origins, which anyone can join, but no one can leave.

RICHARD MAGANGA
Malawian – Australian

Richard has long cultivated a passion for storytelling. Following three years of training at The Actors’ Hub in Perth, in 2019, he debuted at the Black Swan State Theatre Company, in the play Water, earning a PAWA nomination, and performed at Feast of the Deceiver at the Fremantle Arts Festival. Richard looks forward to carrying on to work in film and theatre, as an actor, writer and director.

In his recent work, The Appointment, the main character, Mark, is a down-on-his-luck adoption lawyer working in 2004 Perth. When a newly naturalised Australian citizen from Africa wanders into a law firm to enquire about adopting a child from Poland the conversation turns from adoption to what it really means to be Australian.

GRACE CHOW
Singaporean/Taiwanese – Australian

Grace is an emerging theatre-maker, playwright and actor currently training in the Bachelor of Performing Arts at WAAPA. She has worked with various Australian theatre companies such as Black Swan State Theatre Company, WA Youth Theatre Company, Australian Theatre for Young People, Barking Gecko Theatre Company, and Public Service Announcement.

Grace is currently developing her new play Woks N Talks, a palette-tingling site-specific immersive theatre experience which seeks to challenge Perth’s, and the world-at-large’s consumption of South-East and East Asian culture. To be fortified with real and gripping stories, Woks N Talks goes straight to the heart of White Australian racism via the stomach.

TAO ISSARO
Indian – Australian

Tao is a percussionist, composer and music producer based in Western Australia and Kerala, South India. Born into the artistic tribe of the “Daksha Sheth Dance Company”, Tao has performed over 3000 performances in 30 countries, in over 25 international arts festivals since the age of 9. Over the years Tao has developed a unique and dynamic performance language combining percussion, movement, physical theatre and storytelling.

His newest work, The Khan Express, follows the journey of a young Indian boy who goes on a soul searching journey into the Australian wilderness, where quickly things go very wrong. However with the help of talking animals, powerful hallucinations and some amazing human beings he finds his way back home.

This one-of-kind residency will be punctuated with sessions, workshops and conversations led by industry leaders and mentors Sisonke Msimang, Shona Erskine, Zoe Atkinson, Anna Reece, Matt Edgerton, S.Shakthidharan and Zainab Syed involving big questions about Values, Integrity & Intention, Parallel Solidarities & Cultural Safety as well as the practical aspects of the creative and collaborative process.