International Women’s Week 2023

As part of International Women’s Week, Belloo Creative returned to Metro Arts for a multidisciplinary arts event in one of Metro Art’s intimate galleries to present, The Woman Remembers. This micro-cinema digital experience explored belonging, loss as well as addressing our relationship to landscape and our experience of climate emergency.

The Woman Remembers

The Woman Remembers “provides audiences with an intimate experience of this poetic transcultural work about a woman searching for her lost home after a climate-induced disaster. The work traverses text and physical language across multiple art forms to produce an original, contemporary transcultural cinematic experience for audiences.”

The Woman Remembers was created in collaboration with Good Company Arts (NZ) and Phluxus2 Dance Collective (Brisbane) and played up till the 11th of March for International Women’s Week alongside our photographic exhibition, womAn Artist.

Credits

Writer Katherine Lyall-Watson | Creative Director Caroline Dunphy | Dramaturg Kathryn Kelly | Digital & Visual Designer Daniel Belton | Videographer Shaun Charles | Choreographer Nerida Matthaei | Associate Producer Kristen Maloney | Performers Hsin-Ju Ely, Chiu-Ju Wang, Jacob Watton, Charles Ball & Zachary Boulton | Original Music by Good Company Arts, featuring Jac Grenfell, Daniel Belton and Eliahpt

SUPPORTERS & ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

A big thank you to choreographer Nerida Matthaei and performer Hsin-Ju Ely from Phluxus2 Dance Collective for the opening event performance and thank you Metro Arts for having us on board once again.

Event images and video by Jade Ellis Photography.

INTERNATIONAL WOMEN’S DAY 2022

Metro Arts and Belloo Creative partnered to celebrate International Women’s Day on Sunday 13 March 2022 at Metro Arts with a performance of White Rabbit Red Rabbit , a portrait exhibition of womAn Artist and a post-show gathering.

WHITE RABBIT, RED RABBIT

“A stunning piece of theatre, thought-provoking and morally unsettling.” – Fringereview

No rehearsals, no director, a sealed script and a performer who has no idea what’s inside the envelope. White Rabbit, Red Rabbit, by Iranian author Nassim Soleimanpour, is a potent reminder of the transgressive and transformative power of theatre. For International Women’s Day, the play will be read and performed by Penny Everingham.

CREDITS

Awards

Best New Performance 2012 | Dublin Fringe Festival
Outstanding New Performance Text Award 2011 | Summerworks
The Arches Brick Award 2011 | Edinburgh Fringe Festival

WOMAN ARTIST EXHIBITION

Celebrating all women, but especially highlighting senior women artists, this event featured the first stage of Belloo Creative’s womAn Artist – a series of portraits by Ellamay Fitzgerald featuring female identifying artists who have contributed long-term to the performing arts in Brisbane.

CREDITS

SUPPORTERS & ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

White Rabbit, Red Rabbit was originally produced by Volcano Theatre in association with Necessary Angel and Wolfgang Hoffmann. Dramaturgy by Daniel Brooks and Ross Manson.

Thank you to Jo Thomas, Danielle Carney and all the team at Metro Arts for supporting this work.

Event images & video by Jade Ellis Photography

Me Too, Act Two: Share, Reflect, Prevent, 2019

It’s had been two years since the #metoo movement brought the universality of sexual harassment and sexual violence to the forefront of conversation. Courage and camaraderie from survivors began the discussion, now it will take the commitment of everyone to effect positive and lasting change within our communities.

As part of 'Sexual Violence Awareness Month', Belloo Creative hosted a forum to continue the conversation about sexual harassment and violence in the context of the entertainment and performing arts industries.

Read our reflections from the night.

SUPPORTERS & ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

This event has been made possible thanks to the support of the Queensland Government through the Department of Child Safety, Youth and Women, and to Queensland Theatre for providing the safe, accessible space

WOMEN IN PERFORMING ARTS, 2018

Belloo delivered a cross-generational forum on Friday 9 March 2018 at Queensland Theatre that asked the question: what does women’s wellbeing look like today? Women from Brisbane’s theatre sector were invited to attend a forum that included an except reading from Belloo's new work Rovers followed by a panel discussion and networking event.

The #metoo movement showed that it was timely for Belloo to facilitate a frank, safe and open forum about what it means to be a woman working in the theatre and screen industry. The panel included five women who shared their personal thoughts on how to maintain health & wellbeing; what economic security looks like for women working in the sector; what does healthy body image, body confidence and self-esteem mean to you; and power and harassment: the exposed underbelly of the media and entertainment industry.

The cross-cultural and intergenerational event brought together experienced actors and creatives, university students and recent graduates.

Panel Discussion Members

Chair of panel discussion | Dr Katherine Lyall-Watson, Chair of Playlab and Co-Artist Director of Belloo Creative
Panel member | Paige Rattray, Queensland Theatre Associate Artistic Director
Panel member | Hannah Belansky, emerging playwright & actor
Panel member | Nadine McDonald – Dowd, Creative and cultural producer
Panel member | Margi Brown-Ash, award-winning stage performer and director/playwright/coach
Panel member | Dr Catherine Cox, psychologist with Headspace and a lecturer at UCQ

SUPPORTERS & ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Belloo Creative thanks our valued partners whose support has made this event possible. We acknowledge the funding contribution from the Queensland Government through the Department of Queensland Women and the support of YWCA Queensland and sincerely thank our event partners Queensland Theatre; the Queensland branch of the national union Media, Entertainment & Arts Alliance (MEAA); and the Actors’ & Entertainers’ Benevolent Fund (Qld) Inc.

INTERNATIONAL WOMEN’S DAY 2017

The event was a partnership with Belloo Creative, BACKBONE and MDA on Friday 10 March 2017 at Backbone Youth Arts.

Backbone is the only metropolitan based multi-arts organisation with the specific mandate of working with young people in Queensland; and MDA is one of Queensland’s largest multicultural agencies that work with refugees, international students, people seeking asylum and migrants.

The event celebrated women, their achievements in the creative industries and shined light on a powerful new collaboration initiatives: B-Social; B- Connected; & B-Giving. This project sought to build girls’ and woman’s capacity to sustain their practice in the Creative Industries.

Panel Discussion Members

Panellists | Barbara Lowing, Merlynn Tong, Lia Stark, Madeleine Lewis, Kathryn Kelly and Danielle Shankey.

SUPPORTERS & ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Supported by YWCA Queensland and the Queensland Government.

Event images by Barbara Lowing.