Image by Joshua Scott

YIRRAMBOI announces 2027 return with major new commissions

The four works come at a pivotal time for the festival under their new artistic direction.

YIRRAMBOI has announced four major new commissions, ushering in the next chapter for a festival that has firmly established itself as a leading platform for First Nations experimental and evolutionary arts.

Traversing experimental sound, street theatre, movement, language rematriation, film and installation, each commission is nurtured from initial concept to full realisation, culminating in world premieres across narrm (Melbourne) during the 2027 festival.

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Now in its sixth year, the YIRRAMBOI Commissions Program remains central to the festival, shaping its broader vision while offering a first glimpse of the bold new works ahead.

The program foregrounds Victorian First Nations artists, equipping them with the resources to bring ambitious, community-rooted creations to life, grounded in cultural sovereignty and artistic innovation.

The four commissions are:

 

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GANBINAN!
MUSIC / ALBUM
Allara, Yorta Yorta
Dr Lou Bennett AM, Yorta Yorta / Dja Dja Wurrung

GANBINAN! is a new album written entirely in Yorta Yorta, celebrating language reclamation, cultural resilience, and renewal. Co-written by Allara and Dr Lou Bennett AM in partnership with Binung Boorigan, the project fuses contemporary music with deep cultural practice, positioning song as both pedagogy and activism.

For YIRRAMBOI 2027, GANBINAN! transforms into an immersive live performance, bringing Yorta Yorta language, music, and community together on stage. Drawing on Allara’s expertise as a bassist and sound designer and Bennett’s leadership in language rematriation through song pedagogy, the work affirms the living, evolving presence of Yorta Yorta culture, standing as an act of community empowerment and language activism.

 

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Somewhere Over the Blak Rainbow
STREET THEATRE / ROVING PERFORMANCE
Bryan Andy, Yorta Yorta / Yullaba Yullaba

Somewhere Over the Blak Rainbow traces a theatrical songline through Fitzroy, weaving Blak and Queer histories into a vivid street performance. Combining memory, drag, music, and monologue, the work honours generations of Aboriginal LGBTQIA+ lives on Wurundjeri Country.

Guided by two drag personas—Flora, a chocolate lily drag queen, and Fauna, a drag king wombat—audiences journey through stories of survival, kinship, and resistance. The performance honours ancestors including Lisa Bellear, Uncle Jack Charles, and Aunty Vicki Liddy, while reimagining John Harding’s The Dirty Mile through a contemporary Blak and Queer lens. Led by Bryan Andy and co-produced by Sarah-Jane Bond, the work is guided by Wurundjeri Elder and Queer cultural advisor Annette Xiberras.

 

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Withewa (To Return Home)
INSTALLATION / FILM
Jedda Atkinson-Costa, Wemba Wemba / Yorta Yorta / Mutti Mutti / Barapa Barapa

Withewa is a poetic film installation that honours unsung Aboriginal Elders, whose life stories risk fading if not preserved. Filmed across landscapes steeped in memory, the work weaves voice, light, and archival material to create intimate portraits of cultural leadership, care, and quiet strength.

The first in a proposed series, Withewa positions Elders as living archives, preserving humour, wisdom, and story as both cinematic works and deeply personal family keepsakes. Guided by cultural mentorship and community consultation, the project acts as a living eulogy, ensuring these stories continue to resonate long after Elders return to the Dreaming.

 

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What Yet
CIRCUS / MOVEMENT
Maggie Church-Kopp, Arrernte
Johnny Brown, Anaiwan

What Yet is a contemporary circus work exploring how cultural knowledge is passed on—and disrupted—for young First Nations people today. Developed through extensive research on Arrernte Country, the work transforms lived experience into striking physical storytelling, tackling themes of incarceration, education, childhood, and cultural survival.

Led by Director Maggie Church-Kopp and Choreographer Johnny Brown, and realised by an all–First Nations team, What Yet delivers a visceral call for listening, accountability, and the continuity of culture.

Of the proud new program additions, Co-Lead/Executive Lead of YIRRAMBOI Festival Emily Wells says, “At a time of uncertainty across the arts sector, YIRRAMBOI doubles down on ambitious, self-determined commissioning. As a First Nations festival, resilience is not new to us. We have always created within constraint. We will continue to push, to carve out opportunity, and to honour our responsibility as a vital and enduring platform for First Nations practice.”

The commissions continue YIRRAMBOI Festival’s position in uplifting First Nations voices in the creative arts through interconnectedness and diversity. Deeply rooted locally, traversing nationally and internationally, YIRRAMBOI creates space for expressions of culture, identity, unity and truth through evolutionary and experimental practices.

To find out more about the new commissions, and YIRRAMBOI Festival’s mission, head here.