Queensland Arts Showcase Program round 6 recipients

20 Dec 2024

For Round 6 of the Queensland Arts Showcase Program, 24 applications were approved to receive total project funding of $1,403,548.

Queensland Arts Showcase Program (QASP) round 6 successful recipients:

• Mr Clint Bolster - $69,833 plus $10,000 New Music Funding for The Lost Balloon – The Final Phase with funding for rehearsals and public performances featuring highly skilled artists in Full-Face and Non-Verbal Mask Theatre to engage young audiences and families.   
• Miss Nadia Milford - $21,688 for The Last Princess of Lebanon and its final creative development to premiere in 2025 at BEMAC and the Empire Theatre in Toowoomba.  
• Sunshine Coast Chamber Music - $65,127 for CELEBRATING KABI KABI COUNTRY, a First Nations-led event as part of the Sunshine Coast Chamber Music Festival’s 2025 program, directed by Aunty Helena Gulash.
• Ms Elise Greig - $49,689 for Florence – the Scenic Rim premiere of a new biographical musical based on trailblazing Queenslander Florence Broadhurst and employing regional Queensland artists, delivered in partnership with Playlab Theatre.  
• Playlab Theatre - $56,441 for Gather - A Regional Playwriting Intensive partnering with Toowoomba’s Empire Theatre to bring playwrights from across the state to receive career and creative development through workshops, masterclasses and showcases alongside local artists in a paid, professional environment.
• The Crackup Sisters Pty Ltd - $70,000 plus $9,098 New Music Funding for A New Show for a New Stage, a new comedy work that recounts and reinterprets Australian knockabout narratives, sharing stories by storytellers of outback Queensland created and performed by The Crackup Sisters in Winton.   
• Ms Edwina Shaw - $38,240 for Queersland - stories and artwork from Queer Queensland, a collection of short prose and artworks shining light on how despite oppression, Queers resisted, collaborated and created to thrive, shaping a uniquely Queensland perspective on contemporary Queer life in Australia.
• The Farm Gold Coast - $70,000 for Death Piece: for everyone who is going to die, a dance and live music production addressing a taboo subject - death, with audiences communally reimagining their connection to art, mortality and each other.
• Ms Taloi Havini - $70,000 plus $10,000 New Music Funding for Shared Aspirations, an exhibition of key artworks by Queensland-based artists Taloi and Marilyn Havini across two Cairns venues at the Cairns Festival and collaborating with local musicians Ben Hakalitz and Mario Celestino.
• I Heart Songwriting Club - $15,125 for Songs from the Reef - IHSC’s Community Songwriting and Showcase Program on the QMF Reef Trail 2025 with up to 200 songs from 20 emerging songwriters culminating in an original live music showcase. 
• Metro Arts - $70,000 for the MA Independent Program 2025, a practice-led professional development program designed to advance career progression of Queensland-based independent performance makers with a bespoke professional development program.  
• Museum of Brisbane - $70,000 plus $8,500 in New Music Funding for Magpie Goose: The Story, an exhibition and public program co-designed by Museum of Brisbane and Magpie Goose that celebrates the bold designs and empowering history of Brisbane-based First Nations owned social enterprise, Magpie Goose.
• Mr Tom Horn - $64,625 for PERMISSION GRANTED, a new work for school kids by Tom Thum and Tnee Dyer featuring beatbox, musical improv, songwriting, street art, audio and video production to explore music and how to make it. 
• Ensemble Q Australia Inc - $54,600 for The Ensemble Q 2025 Season which will include performances in new cultural spaces, a Composer-in-Residence program, two emerging composer commissions, a mentorship plan and employment for 33 emerging artists, a capital city tour and the Australian premiere of the German composer Jörg Widmann's Schumannliebe for Queensland.
• Everybody Now - $87,651 for Moving Communities, a two-year place-centred program of community-engaged art making across the Gold Coast, featuring 'Artist in Place’ - a process-driven, collaborative residency program - and ‘Creative and Connected’ - an arts-led wellbeing workshop series.
• Ms Shannon Michaels - $14,800 for CAN TOUCH THIS, an interactive multi-sensory artwork for vision-impaired spectators at Adelaide Contemporary Experimental's PUSH/PULL exhibition in May to July 2025. 
• JUTE Theatre Company - $70,000 for Genius, a new multi-artform creatively ambitious dark comedy with equity and inclusion themes and co-produced by a regional cohort of theatre-makers with demonstrated skills in innovation.
• Australian Vocal Ensemble – AVÉ - $60,000 for Vocal Spectrum: AVÉ Presents Queer Queensland in Song, a powerful celebration of Queensland's queer voices with ten newly commissioned vocal works.
• Counterpilot Arts Ltd - $70,000 for Counterpilot Incubator Program 2025: A Suite of Creative Development Activities and Workshops to leverage support from a range of partners to undertake first or second stage creative developments of five new contemporary Australian performance works.
• Australian Dance Council, Ausdance (QLD) Inc. - $70,000 for the Queensland Dance Education Conference 2025, a multi-day multi-location conference delivering in-person and digital professional development to Queensland dance educators and teachers.    
• Blue Roo Theatre Company Inc - $27,014 for the 2025 Theatre Production Season Funding - Blue Roo Theatre Company to present two impactful productions Laughing Out Loud, and Our Brisbane Story, showcasing the talents of performers with disabilities, fostering awareness, community engagement and positive change.  
• Tropical Arts Association Inc - $68,500 plus $5,000 New Music Funding for Richard the Third a flamboyant retelling of Shakespeare’s ‘Richard the Third’, by a diverse community of theatre makers.  
• Access Arts (CPL) Ltd - $70,000 for the Undercover Artist Festival 2025 Australia’s premier performing arts and disability festival, which will celebrate 10 years of boundary-pushing, disability-led and d/Deaf led performing arts in 2025. This unique festival continues to showcase excellence in artistry, provide economic participation opportunities and a platform for artists, while setting accessibility standards.
• Isaac Regional Council - $37,617 for The Sanctuary: A Community Art Installation Inspired by the St. Lawrence Wetlands ecosystem a community-driven art installation celebrating the unique wildlife of St. Lawrence and engaging nine local artists, three Isaac communities, 1,200+ visitors, and 375 participants.

Images

1. Access Arts - Undercover Artist Festival 2025. Inside Outside Dance performing Embrace. Photo by Jade Ellis Photography.
2. Isaac Regional Council - The Sanctuary - A Community Art Installation Inspired by the St. Lawrence Wetlands ecosystem. St Lawrence Wetlands weekend 2024. Photo by Wayne Quilliam.
3. Mr Clint Bolster - The Lost Balloon - The Final Phase. Photo by Justin Ma. Performer Allie Wilde.
4. Blue Roo Theatre Company Inc - Participants, staff and friends at the end of their dance to Monster Mash in Midnight at the Cemetery. Photo by Creative Futures Pho.