YIRRAMBOI Festival

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YIRRAMBOI Festival YIRRAMBOI Festival
6—16 MAY 2027
narrm/Melbourne, Australia Ancestors to Ancestors,
bones of my bones
who are we if not her? tides, reflecting
our Futures, Past.

Returning from 1-11 May 2025, YIRRAMBOI is a convergence of 400+ First Nations creatives across 180 performances and activating over 40 venues across Narrm/Melbourne. 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'. YIRRAMBOI provides a stage for First Nations voices to be heard, for stories to reverberate through generations, to drive change and create a future where First Peoples are rightly celebrated. This year’s festival explores four powerful anchors—Legacy, Joy, Reclamation, and Akin—that form the foundation of its most ambitious program to date.

Alongside YIRRAMBOI’s 10th anniversary, we’re also celebrating 10 years of Sherene Stewart being a part of YIRRAMBOI.She...
09/10/2026

Alongside YIRRAMBOI’s 10th anniversary, we’re also celebrating 10 years of Sherene Stewart being a part of YIRRAMBOI.

Sherene was initially taken under the wing of founding Artistic Director of YIRRAMBOI, Jacob Boehme in 2017 as Front of House Manager, and what began as an opportunity grew into a decade of extraordinary leadership, vision, challenge, growth and love for artists and this festival.

As Artistic Lead, Sherene, alongside the incredible team and community, has steered YIRRAMBOI through a period of significant artistic, organisational and international growth, expanding networks, creating opportunities for First Nations artists to connect and collaborate across borders, and building meaningful pathways across the arts sector.

Ten years of showing up. Ten years of backing artists. Ten years of pushing, challenging, nurturing, believing and stubbornly never backing down if it means more opportunity for mob. And underneath that strength is the Sherene we know: soft and loving and completely committed to seeing First Nations creativity thrive.

Here’s to everything we’ve built and everything still yet to come.

Meet Matt. After growing up in narrm, Matt moved to Shanghai for what was meant to be a one-year stint and ended up stay...
08/10/2026

Meet Matt. After growing up in narrm, Matt moved to Shanghai for what was meant to be a one-year stint and ended up staying for eleven. There he became deeply involved in the city’s underground music and arts scenes, co-running the local outpost of London’s NTS Radio for six years and co-founding the alternative music platform BAIHUI. That work led him into youth culture marketing and partnerships, delivering events and activations for brands, galleries and festivals.

Now back in narrm/Melbourne, Matt has spent the last two years as YIRRAMBOI’s Marketing and Commercial Manager. Whatever the work, he’s helping build the platforms that support the freshest ideas and getting more people along to see them.

NJ Wijohn is a Māori producer, performer and creative practitioner who walks in the path of her tīpuna and the whakapapa...
08/10/2026

NJ Wijohn is a Māori producer, performer and creative practitioner who walks in the path of her tīpuna and the whakapapa she carries through Ngāi Tūhoe, Te Rarawa, Ngāti Tahu and Ngāti Whaoa. Her superpower is curiosity. Off the clock she’s walking her “dog babies,” hitting the sauna after the gym, or fixing something around the house.

Now based in narrm, in her resident role as Kaihautū Te Moana-nui-a-Kiwa. Her mahi (work and practice) engages Māori and Pasifika arts and cultural networks across Aotearoa and narrm. Her focus is on building strategic relationships and pathways between artists, organisations, funders and communities across Te Moana-nui-a-Kiwa, with an ambition to establish trusted partnerships that extend beyond her residency and contribute to longer-term exchange, opportunity and connection.

The role of Kaihautū Te Moana-nui-a-Kiwa is assisted by the Australian Government through Creative Australia, its principal arts investment and advisory body.

Kia orana! Meet Nathan, Ngāti Tamakeu of Rarotonga, from Aotearoa by way of Turtle Island, and now in narrm. Nathan star...
08/10/2026

Kia orana! Meet Nathan, Ngāti Tamakeu of Rarotonga, from Aotearoa by way of Turtle Island, and now in narrm.

Nathan started out as an actor and has since worked across theatre, screen and festivals as a writer, director and producer. He’s the company lead of Toi Factory and co-creator of the kids’ TV series Mr Hugo’s Little Library. As he puts it, “I make cool things with mates, and space for others to play.”

He’s bringing that spirit to YIRRAMBOI 2027 as a Senior Producer, looking after a slate of projects across the Festival, including the Festival Hub. He’s here to help artists get their work in front of audiences, and to make the getting there as good as the show.

Kia manuia!

pssssst… we’re heading to BIRMINGHAM, and we’re bringing the mob with us.A delegation from YIRRAMBOI will be heading to ...
06/10/2026

pssssst… we’re heading to BIRMINGHAM, and we’re bringing the mob with us.

A delegation from YIRRAMBOI will be heading to Fierce Festival, Birmingham to host one of the Fierce Feasts, showcase in Fierce Jams 03: Highbury Hall, and take over the infamous Club Fierce with visionary First Nations artists Caleb Thaiday, Stone Motherless Cold, Elijah Money, Kaiwarr Clancy, Gusta Mara and Jada Narkle.

Dissolving the familiar. Turning Fierce into a site of refusal, pleasure and possibility.

+ + +

FESTIVAL DATES
14–18 October 2026

FIERCE FEASTS
Friday 16 October, 9pm

BLAX: ACT III
Sat 17 Oct, 10:30pm

LOCATION
Birmingham, UK

+ + +

Read more: https://yirramboi.com.au/news/yirramboi-x-fierce-festival-2026

We’re incredibly proud to announce our first drop for YIRRAMBOI 2027 with SWIM — a poetic, magical and deeply evocative ...
01/10/2026

We’re incredibly proud to announce our first drop for YIRRAMBOI 2027 with SWIM — a poetic, magical and deeply evocative work by acclaimed Mununjali writer and poet Ellen van Neerven.

A Griffin Theatre Company production, SWIM comes to narrm for the first time in a landmark partnership between YIRRAMBOI, ILBIJERRI Theatre Company and Malthouse Theatre.

Directed by the extraordinary Andrea James, Artistic Director of ILBIJERRI Theatre Company, SWIM invites us beneath the surface, into worlds where reality bends, memory moves through water and imagination becomes its own kind of Country.

+ + +

/dates:
12–22 May

/venue:
Beckett Theatre
Malthouse Theatre
113 Stuart St, Southbank

/image:


+ + +

Tickets on sale now: https://www.malthousetheatre.com.au/whats-on/season-2027/swim

Emily Wells is a proud Kamilaroi producer, playwright and self-confessed theatre nerd, and Executive Lead (Co-Lead) of Y...
01/10/2026

Emily Wells is a proud Kamilaroi producer, playwright and self-confessed theatre nerd, and Executive Lead (Co-Lead) of YIRRAMBOI Festival.

Her job is a lot of spreadsheets, strategy and admin that nobody else wants to do, and she loves it. Emily holds all the things so artists can get on with being artists. If it's something mob shouldn't have to carry, she's probably already got it on a list somewhere.

She loves being part of making something work and happen. Emily is across everything from funding and partnerships to access and the producing team. Before stepping into her current role she was YIRRAMBOI's Executive Producer, where she helped build our Access and Inclusion Program and the inaugural Access and Inclusion Advisory Group. She now co-leads the festival with our Artistic Lead, Sherene Stewart.

Emily never takes herself too seriously and will always make time for a laugh. She also writes plays, and her debut, Face to Face, came from the people she loves and the things that drive her up the wall.

If you can't find her, she's probably seeing a show or winding up Sherene.

He's baaack! MAINEY is a proud Blak creative and proud Guncle, part-time chaos coordinator who firmly believes every pro...
30/09/2026

He's baaack! MAINEY is a proud Blak creative and proud Guncle, part-time chaos coordinator who firmly believes every problem can be solved with a good yarn, a laugh and maybe an iced almond chai latte.

Known for serving culture, community and just a little bit of drama (the fun kind), Mainey loves creating spaces where mob can shine, artists can thrive and everyone feels like they've been invited to the family gathering. Equal parts organiser and instigator, he’s usually somewhere between making impossible things happen and asking, "Who's bringing the feed?"

Mainey’s been with YIRRAMBOI for almost a decade and is one of our Senior Producers, supporting the team to deliver yet another extraordinary Festival 2027.

GAMMIN/DEADLY! FAB! Community comes first!!! That's Mainey biish....

Next up from the YIRRAMBOI 2027 team: Sofii Belling Harding, who belongs to the Yorta Yorta, Wiradjuri, KuKu, Erubam, Ni...
29/09/2026

Next up from the YIRRAMBOI 2027 team: Sofii Belling Harding, who belongs to the Yorta Yorta, Wiradjuri, KuKu, Erubam, Ni-Vanuatu and Kanak peoples and has lived on Kulin Country her whole life. Ceramic artist, writer, producer and community arts worker.

Sofii is curator of the Uncle Jack Charles Festival Hub, creating and curating the sanctuary that will hold the festival community.

As YIRRAMBOI 2027 approaches, meet our team chipping away behind the scenes.Rosie Kalina is a proud Wemba Wemba and Gund...
29/09/2026

As YIRRAMBOI 2027 approaches, meet our team chipping away behind the scenes.

Rosie Kalina is a proud Wemba Wemba and Gunditjmara Q***r woman, and Access Advisor for YIRRAMBOI Festival. Rosie’s background is in visual arts and curating, community arts work and producing.

Horror movies, "chaotically eclectic playlists" and making space for mob: that's Rosie girl. A proud Wemba Wemba and Gunditjmara woman, Loud Le***an and Access Advocate, she's also a weaver and curator.

As part of her role as YIRRAMBOI’s Access Advisor, Rosie engages closely with d/Deaf and Disabled First Nations Artists and Community; she is determined to create more accessible experiences for Festival audiences and artists. Rosie aims to ensure First Nations autonomy and truth telling be at the forefront of every project she is part of, with the guidance of her Elders and community.

“Working with mob means everything to me."

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271 Collins Street
Melbourne, VIC

Telephone

+61396589658

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