Previous Work

2011 A.R.A.B On Edge
Featuring in the Melbourne Fringe Festival, A.R.A.B On Edge was a non-stop, on-the-go rehearsal, show brainstorm and performance all in one! At BMW Edge Fed Square over 150 youth krumped, jerked and moved to dancehall and hip hop grooves. Also featuring traditional cultural dances and the debut of many Sound And Music musicians, A.R.A.B On Edge was an epic blast to Melbourne’s CBD.

2011 Tenderness
Ugly. A bare and ordinary world. Three young people who love each other. Gargantuan shadows, epic milestones, a chain of actions, horrific consequences.
Slut. They know her, they admire her, they envy her, they fear her, they condemn her, they bury her.

Platform Youth Theatre and Footscray Community Arts in association with A.R.A.B presented Tenderness, two plays of a teenage world. Ugly by Christos Tsiolkas and Slut by Patricia Cornelius, directed by Nadja Kostich.

2010 Northern Trax
There’s a wedding on tonight one stop down from Flinders Street station in Zone 1. Southside. It’s a disapproved of union. A cultural, religious, family clash. Too different. Too off-the-wall. Too difficult. Bigger than that, a Zone 2 is marrying a Zone 1. Despite the disapproval in the community our northsiders from Epping to Craigieburn to Upfield are riding the train lines into the wedding. They are voting with their feet and along the way challenge themselves on their futures inside and beyond Zone 2.

2009 Conjure
Featuring in the 2009 Melbourne Fringe Festival, Conjure told the story of a young girl who, despite the limitations and resistances of her past, her suburban geography, her peers and her family comfort zone, carves out a bold future for herself as a writer. Punctuated with the cultural, artistic and creative diversity of 200 young people from 50 cultural backgrounds, Conjure served an intoxicating mix of hip-hop, bellydance, hard rock, instrumental score, break dance, Bollywood, krump, magic and video.

2008 Tammarrud
Tammarrud followed the journey of two odd-looking identical twins who blow into town and shake the tree. A.R.A.B examined how extreme youth subcultures can either liberate or devour young people. It looked at relationships at home and school and within the family at a time when a young person’s image and identity can have an overwhelming significance. It unravelled a multitude of youth subcultures, identities, cliques and gangs, investigating on what solid – or shaky – ground these are formed.

2007 Ahlam
Ahlam was a show about a girl whose name means ‘dream’. She has an argument at home about wanting to be a dancer and takes off. The work employed dance, spoken word, music, a public billboard and sound-scape to convey Ahlam’s emotional and flight through the northern suburbs.

2006 Yallah Hayat!
A potent, electric, multimedia narrative exploring the myths, truths, idiosyncrasies, contradictions and hallmarks of culture, where 100 youth asked themselves, their families and their audience ‘what is race?’.

2005 Hurriya!
A two day hip hop, break, street funk and traditional dance event that was open to the whole community.

2004 Yallah Shabiba!
A story about race and the universality of friendship told through a hybrid of rap, beat box, instrumental music, spoken word, belly dance, hip hop, video and comic monologue.

2003 Yallah!
A workshop-based performance exploring identity and race that focused on reconnecting young Arabic men with Broadmeadows community post 9/11.