Embellishment: Dubbo


Sunday 19 March @7pm Studio 138 Dubbo

On the lands of the Tubba-Gah people of the Wiradjuri nation in Dubbo, we present a unique immersive collage of projection, dance, live music and local storytelling artists as we celebrate voices of women in International Women’s Month. 

We invited all women across regional New South Wales, with a focus on young women and First Nations women, to join us in workshops that explored their own sense of identity and what was important to them. We are excited to present some of their stories in this program.

Watch the sun go down with Talbragar Wiradjuri Aboriginal dancers outdoors at Dubbo’s arts hub at Studio 138. Experience the power of Dubbo actors Kalina Davis and Milla Ross, and music performed in response to the stories by musician and composer Elizabeth Jigalin and Cobar saxophonist Laura Andrew.

Enjoy projections by Erifili Davis that celebrate women’s history, and finish with the launch of Crimson Stitches latest EP from  the multi genre group from Dubbo featuring Lana Mars, Georgie Saunders and Daniel Rutter!

From comedy to crisis and everything in between, the evening celebrates resilience and the many beautiful strengths of our shared humanity. 

Bring a picnic and something to sit on. This is an outdoor event. If weather is wet, we will be indoors at Studio 138. 

Book now online. Limited tickets on the door. $25.00

Date and time

Sun 19th Mar 2023, 7.00pm – 8.00 pm AEDT

Location

Studio 138 Dubbo located at the REAR of Shop 1. Enter through the Myer Carpark off Brisbane Street. Shop 1/138 Macquarie St, Dubbo NSW 2830, Australia

CAST

CHERYL PENRITH

Cheryl Penrith is a Wiradjuri Elder, mentor and performer with a passion for fashion. Her focus is community development and capacity building, business and strategic planning, cultural empowerment, community health and wellbeing, involvement in decision making and the revival and reinvigoration of cultural practices such as language, possum skin cloak making workshops, women’s cultural business. Cheryl appeared in the Voices of Women feature film ‘Entanglement’ and wrote and performed at Voices of Women Amplify in Wagga Wagga in 2022.

Haya Arzidin

Haya Arzidin is a writer and performer, her most recent endeavours have been her roles in TOME, a fully improvised show with four other actors. This show was taken to the stage in Brisbane in 2021. She has also been working closely with the refugee community in Wagga Wagga, developed a show with six refugee teenagers called Sharing Stories Sharing Place, which took to the stage at the Wagga Civic Theatre in December 2021. These days Haya has been mostly family orientated but quietly writing and developing future works behind the scenes. She is excited to take to the stage again for the Voices of Women project.

Laura Andrew

Laura studied saxophone at the Sydney Conservatorium of Music where she met long lasting musical friends. She loves playing in chamber music groups and has premiered new Australian works as a member of Petrichor Saxophone Quartet. Laura performed with Voices of Women in the “Entanglement” live show at Dubbo Fringe in 2021. Laura currently teaches music at Cobar High School where she has been improving her skills on rock band instruments.

Kalina Davis

Kalina is an emerging actor, singer and writer, who particularly enjoys writing short form works. Kalina’s interest in acting began at a young age, participating in school plays and musicals. A highlight was playing Little Inez in a high school production of “Hairspray” in the Orange Civic Theatre. She has performed in an episode of a web series, Mancala, for a Canadian producer and the short film 5 Days. She is also a featured vocalist on Whisperhead’s Paranoia and appears in the music video, as well as the short film 5 Days. She performs and records with her band Crimson Stitches. 

Kalina has always enjoyed story telling, and has recently started publishing some of her work on Vocal. She hopes to develop her practices as a writer and performer as part of collaborative creative projects.  She wrote and performed two pieces in the Voices of Women Amplify tour in 2022 and was Artist in Residence in the Voices of Women Storytelling Workshops series in 2023. 

Elizabeth Jigalin

Elizabeth Jigalin has created music for a variety of contexts in collaboration with festivals, ensembles, technologists, artists across disciplines and community groups.

She has held several composer in residence positions for programs including Sydney Youth Orchestras (2014), Bundanon Trust (2019), Campbelltown Arts Centre (2020) and Voices of Women (2020-). Select commissioners of her work include Lost in Books, Gaudeamus Muziekweek, Moorambilla Voices, Kaldor Public Arts Projects and Ensemble Offspring. She has also composed and performed on the piano new soundtracks for over 20 silent films/shorts as part of Australia’s Silent Film Festival. Her music has been premiered at festivals including VIVID, Extended Play Festival, Fishers Kid’s Festival, Darmstädter Ferienkurse and Pacific Alliance of Music Schools. She has also devised several interactive foyer installations and music experiences for the Sydney Symphony Orchestra, City Recital Hall, Australian Museum and Casula Arts Powerhouse.

Awards include Ars Musica Australis Scholarship, First Prize Canberra Composition Competition, First Prize Unbound Flute Festival Competition and while a student at the Sydney Conservatorium of Music she was awarded the Ignaz Friedman Memorial Prize and Ted & Susan Meller Scholarship. Additionally she has been a selected participant of several composer development programs including Australian Art Orchestras Mentorship program, Soundstreams Emerging Composers Forum, nonclassical academy (UK), Internationales Musikinstitut Darmstadt.

As an extension of her creative and collaborative drive, she is the founder and director of creative music collective The Music Box Project. In 2020, TMBP was awarded the APRA AMCOS Art Music Award for Excellence in Experimental Music for Shallow Listening – a project that premiered at the Bendigo International Festival of Exploratory Music and featured her music theatre work ‘prelude & pickle’ (2019). In 2021, TMBP presented two sold out performances of this project as recipients of the Create NSW’s Play the City fund.

Saasha McMillan

Saasha McMillan grew up in Southern NSW, and has spent the last decade calling Wagga Wagga home. Opening Oddball Theatre in 2018, she has worked regularly with young people to foster a love of theatre and a passion for storytelling. She can be seen running classes and events in Wagga Wagga & the surrounding villages, as connecting with regional kids reflects the opportunities she had growing up in Deniliquin with Outback Theatre. She runs and hosts regular Open Mic and Improvised Theatre nights at The Curious Rabbit, has volunteered with, SoACT, Bidgee Productions,SMRF Productions and recently starred in,”The Final Sin” as part of Persona Collectives 2022 season. She is also regularly involved with the regional drag and burlesque scene and is excited to tour with Cabaret Schmabaret for it’s 2023/2024 season. She is honoured to be both playwright and performer in ‘Embellishment’.

Milla Ross

Milla has been performing since childhood. Her interest piqued in high school drama classes, leading her to enrolling in the Drama Club Dubbo. Milla extended her experience to screen, debuting in the short film “Seeing”, produced by Erifili. She played Izzy, and won Best Actress at the Prague International Monthly Film Festival for her performance. She continued her career, acting in the local web series “To the Ends of the Earth”, US-produced short film “Together Apart”, and in the music video for Indistinct Chatter’s “Rising Sun”, for which she won an award for Best Actress. 

She has since appeared in award winning short films “5 Days’ and “Fell Purpose” and appeared in the 2022 Drama Club Dubbo production of “Charlie and the Chocolate Factory” in the role of Mrs Teevee and was one of three featured vocalist on the nu-metal track “Paranoia” by Whisperhead.

Visit our YouTube channel for more Workshop Videos.

Workshop supported by NSW Office for Regional Youth in partnership with Create NSW and performance supported by the Australian Government RISE Program.