After hitting the streets of Kings Cross and Wolloomooloo, join us for the Art at Night: East Sydney Precinct Party, curated by Katie Winten and presented in partnership with Art Month Sydney. We’ll be partying into the night with DJ Mirasia, performances from Bana Hankin, Samia Sayed and Anastasia Zavarinos; installations by Amrita Hepi and Archie Barry; and delicious Indigenous-inspired food and flavours catered by the National Centre of Indigenous Excellence (NCIE).
About the artists
Amrita Hepi is an award-winning choreographer and dancer from Bundjulung (AUS) and Ngapuhi (NZ) territories. Her work is characterised by hybridity and engages in extending choreographic practices by combining dance and movement with other domains such as visual art, language and participatory research.
An artist with a broad scope, she has toured work in the form of performance and video nationally and internationally through theatres and galleries in Australia, Europe and the USA. Amrita trained at NAISDA and Alvin Ailey Dance theatre New York. In 2019 she was a commissioned artist for The National: New Australian Art 2019 and the recipient of the dance web scholarship to be mentored by Anne Juren, Mette Ingvarsten and Annie Dorsen. In 2018 she was the recipient of the people's choice award for the Keir Choreographic award and was also named one of Forbes Asia 30 under 30. An artist with a broad reach, Amrita combines her interest in materials/objects and choreography in the search for allegory & advocacy for first nations sovereignty.
Archie Barry was born in 1990 in Sydney and is currently working in Melbourne, Australia. Their multi-disciplinary practice spans performance, video, music composition and writing modalities. Their work takes form as autobiographical, somatic and process-led, exploring themes of personhood, embodiment and mortality. Moments of intense affective connection with audiences are created through disquieting and uncanny bodily gestures, doubled voices, de-formed and re-formed language. The production of multiple digital personas through a genealogy of video works that chronicle and mythologise personal histories conveys personhood as an unstable and complex sociological phenomenon.
Bana Hankin is a Sydney based Moa and Yam Island artist from the Torres Strait. He has performed at Black Pearlz, Klub Koori, Koori Gras, Queer Nu Werk, Performance Space, Queerbourhood, The Bearded Tit, Heaps Gay, The Spellbound Show, Naughty Noodle Fun Haus, First Nations Rainbow, and The Oyster Club. His performances inspire, astound and allure you with a mystique presence. Bana is a graduate of the Eora Center for Visual and Performing Arts theatre performance program. Since 2011 Bana has been doing cabaret style performance focusing on stage and movement through space. Bana has been introducing writing and spoken word elements to enhance his stage performance.
MIRASIA (fka Kween Kwong) is a multidisciplinary artist exploring the depths of music, dance and community. Her work spans performance, music production, event curation, DJing, and is well-known for her work amongst Sydney’s ballroom scene. Aka Mother MIRA of Kiki House of Silky, Mira holds down a house of 7 other ‘sisters’ predominantly made up of queer/trans youth of colour based in Eora (Sydney). Silky presents a diverse blend of cultures performing and paying homage to both their ancestors and to the past and present icons and legends of ballroom. Their focus is on nurturing talent, supporting the ‘girls’, empowering the feminine, intersecting cultures, cultivating joy, evolving and creating fearless safe spaces for marginalised peoples. When you hear Mama Mira cooking up a storm on the decks, expect a spicy pallette of genre-defying sexy song selects, and her very own cheeky edits/pussy-poppin remixes. This disco qween is here to remind you to leave your sh*t at the door, and let it all out on the floor! Cos life’s a ball and then you die… so stfu, listen to the music and feel the beat.
NCIE is a not-for-profit social enterprise supporting employment, health and wellbeing of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people.
Anastasia Zaravinos AKA ‘Adonis’ proudly stems from Western Sydney. Adonis was born in the filth of the underground queer scene. She rose up as a provocative performance, makeup, video and photo artist, working with themes such as cultural identity, gender, sex and sexuality. She is interested in the abject and pushing the voyeurs’ boundaries. Adonis uses her body as her main source of inspiration and medium. Obsessed with the complexities of religion and discipline, she continues to develop a ritualistic practice.
Samia Sayed is a contemporary artist and writer, currently living and working on Darrug and Gadigal land. She works with text, sound and performance and through this explores what she has lived through and witnessed to be forms of resistance within domestic, religious and cultural spheres.