Special Interest Circles
Gathering practitioners around shared interests and common research topics, Special Interest Circles (SICs) are forums for you to exchange ideas, discuss issues and identify synergies with others.
Participants will choose one of three tracks to follow throughout the festival: engaging youths through transformative arts; producing for community; and aesthetics & dramaturgy in community arts.
Each SIC encourages open and active dialogue between members, facilitated by artists, producers and academics from Australia, the Philippines, Taiwan, Hong Kong, China and Singapore.
Amidst the buzz of the festival, the SIC provides dedicated time and space for you to tackle challenges together and formulate strategies for collaboration.
This programme is exclusively for participants on the Workshop/SIC Route.
Buy your Festival Pass (Workshop/SIC Route) here.
Producing for Community
13 & 14 June 2025
2.30 – 6.30pm
Helmed by producers from Footscray Community Arts (Melbourne, Australia) and Drama Box (Singapore), this special interest circle calls out to all producers invested or interested in community arts. The session will dive deep into the unique features, practices, methodologies, challenges, opportunities and contexts of producing community-based arts projects. Producers at different stages of their practice are welcome to join the circle with an open mind, to contribute and learn together. The session aims to build an international community of peer producers who will continue supporting each other and collaborating beyond The Gathering.
About the Facilitators
Asha Bee Abraham, Footscray Community Arts (Australia) — Asha Bee Abraham is the Artistic Program Manager at Footscray Community Arts, Australia’s leading community-engaged contemporary arts organisation. Footscray Community Arts is a multi-arts venue that supports artists in developing their practice and presenting exhibitions, music, public art, theatre and live performances.
Asha has worked as an independent artist, independent producer, as a venue producer at several venues in Melbourne, Australia. Asha moved to the arts after a decade researching and working in the sustainability community development sector, because of her strong belief in the power of arts and community in addressing critical social and ecological issues.
Footscray Community Arts’ involvement in ICAF has been made possible with the assistance of the Australian Government through Creative Australia, its principal arts investment and advisory body.
Jo Lim, Drama Box (Singapore) — Jo is a theatre producer and arts manager who has led theatre festivals, and produced works ranging from musicals to intimate experimental theatre pieces. She has worked collaboratively on platforms that facilitate creative processes and dialogues among artists across art forms, cultures and cities.
As an arts manager, she has managed arts organisations and worked with cultural institutions, corporations, and agencies to foster partnerships. She is keenly interested in how arts management practices support artmaking in small arts companies, as it is often these organisations that deliver the most interesting works, which give voice to the unique and unheard segments of society.
探索应用剧场的美学构作 (Exploring the Aesthetics & Dramaturgy of Applied Theatre)
13 & 14 June 2025
2.30 – 6.30pm
* Conducted in Mandarin. English translations will be available.
Join this special interest circle facilitated by Applied Theatre practitioners from Taiwan, Hong Kong and China, who will share case studies from their region of practice. Participants will work in small groups to discuss topics related to dramaturgy, exchange insights on their respective experiences with Applied Theatre and finally, use three classic texts to explore dramaturgical ideas and elements.
About the Facilitators
Lai Shu-ya (Taiwan) — Lai Shu-ya has been working as a trainer and practitioner of People’s Theatre, Applied Theatre and Theatre of the Oppressed for 30 years. With the aim of reflecting on democracy through theatre, she has led community theatre training programs, designed drama curricula and produced forum theatre and theatre-in-education performances. Her practice focuses mainly on teacher and NGO worker training, drama in schools, community empowerment and dialogical theatre performances. She has also translated and edited a number of books, including two by Augusto Boal. She founded Centre for Applied Theatre, Taiwan (CATT) in 2005 and has been director of the Centre since.
Au Yi-Man (Hong Kong) — Au Yi-Man has been a practitioner, trainer and researcher of Applied Theatre for 25 years. She holds a Ph.D. in Education from the University of Melbourne, Australia. Her work and research interests include Applied Theatre creation and aesthetics, drama curriculum design, adult education, training programmes, NGO capacity building, community theatre and educational theatre. She has translated various seminal works in applied drama and published Social Capacity Building through Applied Theatre in 2024. She is currently Executive Director of Hong Kong Drama/Theatre and Education Forum (TEFO), part-time lecturer at The Chinese University of Hong Kong and editorial committee member of The Journal of Drama and Education in Asia (DaTEAsia).
Zhao Zhiyong (China) — Professor Zhao Zhiyong is a practitioner of Applied Theatre and has been creating theatre projects with migrant women’s communities in Beijing since 2019. Together with his participants, he works through oral history, community research and documentary theatre, bringing the life stories of women from the migrant workers community to the stage. A theatre studies scholar, he has also taught courses on Western theatre, and Applied Theatre theory and practice at the Central Academy of Drama and Yunnan Arts University.
Disruption & Imagination: Engaging Youth through Transformative Arts
13 & 14 June 2025
2.30 – 6.30pm
Led by Drama Box and the Youth Advocates Through Theater Arts (YATTA), this special interest circle focuses on youths and those working with young artists. Both companies will share about their respective praxis and introduce an integrated arts approach inspired by Freirean pedagogy and Augusto Boal’s Theatre of the Oppressed. In this session, you will tackle questions together and explore disruption and reimagination, the challenges and opportunities in youth engagement through the arts, and how theatre can challenge socially imposed narratives to shape aspirations and futures.
About the Facilitators
Dessa Quesada Palm, Youth Advocates Through Theater Arts (the Philippines) — Dessa is the co-founder of the Youth Advocates Through Theater Arts, or YATTA. She has performed with PETA, the University of the Philippines Repertory, the Ma-Yi Theater in New York City, the Cultural Center of the Philippines and Silliman University, among others. Dessa served as Head of the National Commission for Culture and the Arts- Committee on Dramatic Arts (2017-2019). She is currently a faculty member at the Silliman University College of Performing and Visual Arts and board member of IMPACT.
Han Xuemei, Drama Box (Singapore) — Xuemei is a theatre director, facilitator, educator, designer and Co-Artistic Director of Drama Box. She creates works that inspire growth, deepen reflection and dialogue around pertinent issues, and engage people from all walks of life. Since 2012, she has conceptualised, directed, designed and facilitated projects on development and displacement, domestic violence, as well as violence in school. She has consistently created performances for youths and continues to study and explore different ways of engaging and co-creating with youths.