VICTORIAN INDEPENDENT PRODUCERS INITIATIVE (VIPI) PRODUCERS

The Victorian Independent Producers Initiative's (VIPI) Unlocking Capacity grants and Producers Mentorship Program support Victorian-based independent producers, and through them, independent artists and companies in the performing arts in Victoria, nationally and internationally. TNA manages both programs, with the Unlocking Capacity grants administered by Creative Victoria.

UNLOCKING CAPACITY

RECIPIENTS ROUND 1 (2020-2023)

Erin Milne

Bureau of Works

Erin is an accomplished independent producer whose company, Bureau of Works, is committed to fostering distinctive voices and ambitious ideas.

Heidi Everett

Heidi is an artist and experienced producer who draws on her own lived experience to support and promote artists with experience of diverse mental health and disability.

Quiet Riot

Led by producer Linda Catalano

Quiet Riot describes itself as an activist production house committed to change.

UNLOCKING CAPACITY

RECIPIENTS ROUND 2 (2021-2024)

Sonya Suares

Sonya is an independent producer, director and theatre-maker with more than two decades of experience working in film, television and theatre.

Malia Walsh

Malia produces under the banner of Circus Trick Tease (CTT) and is based in the Macedon Ranges.

Kath Papas Productions

Kath is a creative producer and arts consultant. With special passions for dance and for fostering diversity, she thrives on working collaboratively with artists and organisations to realise exciing projects which push boundaries and break new ground.

Freya Waterson

Freya is an Independent Producer who supports numerous contemporary independent performance makers to build and maintain sustainable practices.

UNLOCKING CAPACITY

RECIPIENTS ROUND 3 (2022-2025)

Alison Halit

Alison is a producer, who specialises in building Regional, National and International commissioning and touring partnerships for artists from the contemporary and experimental performance sector.

Dylan Singh

Dylan Singh is a second-generation circus performer, having trained with and under the watchful eyes of his mother. He has strong ties with many indigenous arts programs and was a cast member of the Green Room award-winning BLAKflip production, Chasing Smoke. Dylan paves the way for First Nations youth in the performing arts with a focus on showing young adults that honouring their connection to culture and heritage can be a powerful tool. He has his own style of movement and finds inspiration through working with people and creating new and exciting games, activities and performances.

Efren Pamilacan

Efren is a dance maker and emerging independent producer of Filipino heritage living on the unceded land of the Kulin nation.

Eliki (Alec) Reade

Eliki is a person of kailoma-Fijian heritage and a settler, who seeks to interrogate their positionality on this vast and complex continent. Eliki is an emerging producer, artist, and community arts facilitator, who is invested in representations of autonomy within the Oceanic community.

Lana Nguyen

Lana Nguyen is a producer, curator and community arts worker interested in site-specific, experimental, context-driven work. Interested in the space where community and contemporary practice align, she looks to create work that drives conversation, complex thought and connection. She works by listening, asking questions and through collaboration with others.

Laura Milke Garner

Laura is an award winning producer, mentor and active advocate for producing in the arts. Her company MILKE is artist led, collaborating with ambitious and passionate artists. She creates sustainability and longevity for their work through developing quality new work and finding new opportunities for existing work.

Producers Mentorship

PROGRAM COHORT 1 (2019-2022)

Kin Francis

Kin is a producer and writer who moves across art forms to create new work for social change; their practice is informed by experimentation, immediacy and collaboration.

Nilgün Güven

Nilgün is a Turkish-Australian based artist/producer and culture agent whose experimental and enquiry-based practice is concerned with the intersectionality of human rights, inclusion & access, aesthetic innovation and creative production.

Efren Pamilacan

Efren is a dance maker and emerging independent producer of Filipino heritage living on the unceded land of the Kulin nation.

Freya Waterson

Freya is an Independent Producer who supports numerous contemporary independent performance makers to build and maintain sustainable practices.

Marcia Ferguson

Marcia’s broad experience as a producer features artistically producing programs for Back to Back Theatre and Big West Festival, cultural producer for the City of Kingston, creative producer for Born in a Taxi (ongoing) and freelance producer of multidisciplinary artworks.

Naomi Velaphi

Naomi’s independent producing practice is driven by cultivating unique artistic relationships across disciplines with an interest in experimental performance practice and a focus on building the capacity of artists of colour working independently.

Natasha Phillips

Natasha works across multiple forms of contemporary, experimental theatre and dance with a growing engagement with the Chinese speaking region which is driven by her desire to strengthen cultural literacy within artistic practices and creative exchanges.

Erin Milne

Erin is an accomplished independent producer whose company, Bureau of Works, is committed to fostering distinctive voices and ambitious ideas. Her practice is deeply driven by a passion for contemporary and experimental art that speaks to the here and now.

Producers Mentorship

PROGRAM COHORT 2 (2020-2021)

Kuichiang “Kush” Tut Kuiy

Kush is a second generation Australian of South-Sudanese heritage. She brings her lived experience of suburban life to her producing practice, as a lifetime resident of the South-East of Melbourne- one of Australia’s most diverse, and fastest growing regions.

Eliki (Alec) Reade

Eliki is a person of kailoma-Fijian heritage and a settler, who seeks to interrogate their positionality on this vast and complex continent. Eliki is an emerging producer, artist, and community arts facilitator, who is invested in representations of autonomy within the Oceanic community.

Takashi Takiguchi

Takashi Takiguchi is an independent Creative Producer and an artist of Japanese heritage based in Naarm (Melbourne). Following a career as a social worker, he founded ImPermanence Productions in 2014.

Eva Sifis

Eva’s practice explores how circumstances affect other artists with Acquired Brain Injury. Eva also has a training business, By Accident, which brings together peers with Acquired Brain Injury through facilitated discussions and sharing “how to build A New You after injury”.

Steve Mayhew

Steve is passionate about supporting artists, venues and festivals who have diverse and contemporary approaches to making, curating and programming in regional contexts. Steve is investigating this approach with artists in regional Victoria, regional Australia, now-during-and-post COVID19.

Ade Djajamihardja

Diversity and inclusion are at the core of Ade’s purpose, identity and activity. Ade strives for both integrity of product and integrity of process. As a survivor of a near fatal stroke, Ade’s goal is to progressively evolve the attitudes of the mainstream with Disabled and non-disabled performers working alongside each other.

Tegan Nash

Tegan’s producing practice traverses both dance and the visual arts across regional and metropolitan communities. Currently situated in regional Victoria, Tegan is striving to develop a practice that is responsive to the particular needs of artists working in these areas and which acts to both serve and challenge the interests of audiences living in these communities.

Lana Nguyen

Lana Nguyen is a producer, curator and community arts worker interested in site-specific, experimental, context-driven work. Interested in the space where community and contemporary practice align, she looks to create work that drives conversation, complex thought and connection. She works by listening, asking questions and through collaboration with others.

Producers Mentorship

PROGRAM COHORT 3 (2021-2022)

Aïsha Trambas

Aïsha is an Afro-Greek artist and arts worker who lives on Wurundjeri and Boonwurrung land. She enjoys making zines, writing poems, painting, sometimes performing, and trying to figure out what she's meant to be doing here. From 2018-2019 Aïsha was the Program Coordinator of the Emerging Writers’ Festival. Aïsha has performed at Yirramboi Festival, Melbourne Writers’ Festival, Arts House, Testing Grounds, Melbourne Fringe Festival and elsewhere. 

Charice Rust

Charice is Co-Artistic Director of contemporary circus company One Fell Swoop Circus through which she combines her passion for innovative expression and considered ideas to create powerful physical performances. She is passionate about growing the practice of circus producing in order to support the careers of circus artists and companies. 

Ching Ching Ho

Ching Ching is an independent director and producer, born and raised in Hong Kong, living and working on the unceded lands of Kulin Nation in Naarm (Melbourne). Her practice has a focus on intercultural dialogue and collaboration, cultural translation, multilingual writing and framework in theatre and contemporary performance. 

Jenny Gay

Jenny has over 2 decades of experience managing not-for-profit arts organisations and local government venues, events and arts teams. She launched her own company - Packed House Productions - in 2018, and is currently working with Trash Puppets, Fusion Theatre and a variety of cabaret and comedy performers.

Luke Morris

After decades of writing and preforming comedy in Australia and overseas, Luke is now the lead producer for the Bendigo Comedy Festival, Movember Comedy Fundraiser and Women of Wit series of stand-up comedy nights, and works to foster comedy and social wellbeing throughout regional Victoria.

Melody Shotade

Inclusive Creative Independent Producer of The Demographic Dance OFF Collective. Melody's focus is contemporary experimental performance art and dance. She consults with artists on embedding physical stories with “creative access” to inform new, interactive and inclusive performances. 

Monique Grbec

Monique (she/they) is a child of the Stolen Generations living on Bunurong Wurundjeri Country. A multidisciplinary artist with a film production background she is interested in identity, the generational effects of institutionalisation and the White Australia Policy. She is currently an Emerging Producer at Blak & Bright, and is working on The Wall Remix, a First Nations reinterpretation of Pink Floyd’s 1979 rock opera The Wall.

Ripley Kavara

Ripley (he/them) is a transdisciplinary practitioner with a deep grounding in music forms destined to be liberatory. Born in Papua New Guinea and living in so-called Melbourne, they embody an artistic practice that is generative, community based and attuned to a sense of place where they create and commune on Wurundjeri Country. They have 7 years of practice drawing on their expertise as a musician, producer, DJ, educator, event organiser, youth worker, mentor and project lead. They are currently developing a presentation of new works with their music collective 'FAMILI' at Arts House in 2022.

James Emmanuel Mckinnon

James Emmanuel Mckinnon is a Filipino Australian producer who grew up on Wathuarong country, and now lives and works in Naarm/Melbourne. They are curious about intersectional identity, interdisciplinary community practice, and education as empowerment and their practice centres cultural safety, decolonisation, and social justice. James produces for the stage and has designed for independent and community theatre and live performance. He is a musician, photographer and podcaster keen on telling stories of people, wildlife, and land. They graduated with honours in Ethnomusicology and a Masters in Arts and Cultural Management.

Matisse Laida

Matisse Laida (They/She) is an actor, writer and producer based in Wurundgeri country. Matisse founded We Eatin Good (WEG), a platform for queer First Nations, Black, and poc to showcase food and identity. Through WEG, Matisse has had the opportunity to meet and work with community, to hear and share their stories. Matisse has also hosted and produced a web-series with In(V)isible the Drum, curated Next Wave’s Radical Hospitality event, and co-directed and produced a documentary commissioned by Multi-Cultural Arts Victoria. Matisse’s practice centres the community they are a part of, as queer, Black/Latinx person. They have shared their experience through their podcast Braided, the documentary film Purrr, panels with Solidarity Film Festival and Minus 18, and through CLUB NITE, a play they co-wrote, produced and performed in, that recently completed its sold out run at Miscellania.