Diaspora Excellence

Hope One is a Takatāpui Beatboxer and multi-disciplinary artist from Te Ātihaunui-a-Papārangi and Taranaki iwi of Aotearoa. Fusing together Human Beatboxing, Spoken Word, Storytelling, Drag and Movement to deliver captivating BeatRhyming experiences about identity, culture, queerness, motherhood and navigating trauma. Hope’s career started out winning an Australian Idol audition, landing a spot in the Beatbox Alliance - the very first Beatbox group in the Southern Hemisphere, touring nationally across Australia. Placing top four in the Women's division of the Beatboxing World Championships in Germany, warming up stages for major Hip Hop stars and touring the world with Internationally acclaimed theatre show Hot Brown Honey. Adding Poetry to her repertoire, she has been commissioned multiple times for Red Room Poetry, won Ruckus Slam heat in May and is making their published poet debut later this year in a lived-experience mental health poetry anthology curated by David Stavanger for MAD Poetry. Hope's writing their first theatre show in collaboration with Melanie Mununnggur called 'Do you thrust me?' set to debut later this year.

Brian Fuata works across the fields of improvisational visual and performance art. He employs the properties and concepts of post dramatic theatre for his live works, physical environments, objects, and visual ephemera.

Ofa Fanaika is mostly known as a songwriter and lead singer for bands Chocolate Strings + Captain Dreamboat having played throughout Oz and abroad for over 18 years. Ofa went onto running events in Meanjin in 2017 - 2020 with venue residencies at the Bearded Lady and Rumpus Room for improvisation collective C H U R C H. These events have been revisited in outdoor settings in innercity Brisbane bringing people together during a time of ongoing isolation. Ofa is also the Head of Flexible Learning Practice at Albert Park Flexible Learning Centre where she works with marginalised youth, using an arts-based curriculum for engagement. She has been a fierce advocate in Education and in Youth Justice over the past 10 years. Ofa believes diversifying is key to maintaining work in Arts and is a clear example of this. She happens to also be an accomplished potter and a writer for local rag Nothing Ever Happens in Brisbane. Queer Pasifika represent.

Samoan Australian Lisa Fa’alafi is a director, performance maker, choreographer and designer. Known for pushing cultural and gender boundaries, her work is visually stunning, highly entertaining, conceptual, political and satirical at heart. She earned her artistic stripes as Co-Director of artist collective Polytoxic touring and creating landmark works that continue to inspire Pacific artists to this day.

As an independent maker, Lisa’s work combines her ethos with a unique style of cultural analysis, experimentation with form and eye for design. From theatre direction and choreography, costume and set design, immersive interactive design and performance while also working as a speaker on diversity and intersectional feminism, mentoring artists and consultation. Lisa has worked with numerous renowned artists and companies, including Rosanna Raymond’s SaVAge K’lub (APT GOMA), ATUA (National Gallery of Australia), Nick Cave: The Heard (GOMA), The Guilty Feminist, Babushka, Circa, The Art Engineers, Don’t Speak UK, The Treasury London, Bechdel, The Arts Hour BBC and Phluxus2 Dance Collective. Her work has been seen at Sydney Festival, festivals in Noumea and Vanuatu, Darwin Festival, Brisbane Festival, Las Vegas Burlesque Hall of Fame, Dublin Fringe, Planet IndigenUs Canada and PS122’s COIL Festival NYC, Make Mentorship programme Ireland, Tranform Festival Vancouver Canada.

Lisa is the Co-creator, Writer, Director, Designer, Choreographer and Performer for the international smash hit Hot Brown Honey, touring constantly for 5 years, performing across six countries and has received numerous national awards including a Helpmann, Sydney Theatre Award, Green Room Award, Adelaide and Perth Fringe Awards, international nominations and awards in the UK and Canada. Lisa is also the Co-Creator and Director of the Hive City Legacy Project with a team of Femmes of Colour in partnership with London’s Roundhouse. This acclaimed work has gone on to a 2019 return season followed by a UK Tour. The Hive City Legacy Project has become a template to create a global Hive, Lisa has begun talks on 3 new Hives in Vancouver, Edinburgh and Ireland.

Winnie Dunn is the General Manager of Sweatshop Literacy Movement and the editor of several critically acclaimed anthologies, including Another Australia (Affirm Press, 2022). She is a writer of Tongan descent from Mount Druitt and holds a Bachelor of Arts degree from Western Sydney University. Her work has been published in The Guardian, HuffPost Australia, Griffith Review, Meanjin and SBS Voices. In 2022, she was a finalist for Western Sydney University's Breakthrough Alumni Award. Winnie is currently completing her debut novel, Dirt Poor Islanders (Hachette, 2024), which has been assisted by the Australia Council for the Arts.