OBSERVER: MPAC recipients
Monash University Performing Arts Centres (MPAC) has announced the recipients of its Progress Links Commissions.
MPAC has provided two successful applicants with $5000 plus a 5 to 10-day residency in 2025-26 in one of its venue spaces to develop a ‘proof of concept’ proposal for further commissioning and development within the MPAC program to create and present new works.
The Progress Links Commission is driven by the conviction that creativity is a force that animates and inspires everyone – artists and scientists alike.
This year MPAC received a high number of quality applicants and looked at bringing artists together with Monash researchers in fields that help respond to the world around us.
One of the recipients is Emele Ugavule, a Tokelauan, Uvean, and Fijian storyteller, working as a performer, writer, director, producer and educator.
Emele will be developing Drau ni Uto Hotel, a new experimental one-women cabaret piece which explores the intersecting realities of Indigenous temporal sovereignty, memory erasure, and environmental destruction through the lived experience of Kali, a laundry attendant working in a luxury resort built on her grandfather’s land.
The other project recipient is Lyall Brooks, an award-winning theatre maker, teaching artist, and founding Artistic Director of Lab Kelpie, an independent theatre company dedicated to new Australian writing. Lyall will develop SELF/LESS, which asks ethical questions about the future of reproductive technology, identity and emotional responsibility.
Cheryl Threadgold