New Annual: SURGE - Tantrum Youth Arts
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Electric and unexpected, SURGE is a high-voltage extravaganza of art and performance from Newcastle’s most exciting early-career artists. Curated by Tantrum Youth Arts and transforming Newcastle Museum for one night only, SURGE is a punk explosion of new performance, music, and interactive, visual and installation art.
Audiences are invited to curiously curate their own evening from offerings of both scheduled performances and walk-in experiences: Relive your teenage PDHPE class with the most unhinged teachers imaginable; be rocketed into space for a shimmering alien encounter; join the factory line of a pick/pack to explore workplace tensions; meet outrageous music-creating monsters and make some noise. With more genre-bending surprises to come!
Stay for one performance or go all-in. Come for the thing you know you’re gonna love; stay for the unexpected. We double dare you. Full program and timings available in September.
The SURGE line up:
- Alana McGaughey: Theatre maker who creates work on the politics of living, on being an engaged participant in the ethics surrounding your own existence within the social order of now.
- BRuSH: Dynamic, musical interplay and conversations between sax and drums, utilising electronic elements triggered in real time.
- Jada Laurie: Warrimay, Birrbay woman, performer and multidisciplinary artist who is loudly passionate about creating joyful art.
- Joshua Ingle: VJ and installation artist who creates responsive pieces using light, sound, and code to explore habits and ritual.
- Bethany O’Sullivan: Multi-instrumentalist muso, lover of noise, creator of playful, energetic sound.
- Phoebe Turnbull: Feral theatre maker and hopeful performer who explores ideas of care and attention.
- Sanziana Timis: Multidisciplinary artist who captures a restlessness in people and nature, exploring feminist themes and the invisible.
- Shaana-Anne: Multidisciplinary visual artist with an alienatic style visible to the empathetic viewer.
- SURGE Ensemble: Newcastle’s newest training ground for early-career artists, exploring experimental immersive theatre experiences.
- Tara Barrington: Queer movement artist whose practice seeks to unpack feminist ideology by exploring the interplay of softness and strength through shape and texture.
Duration: 4.5 hours in total, drop-in for as little, or as long, as you like!
Sensory and content warning: SURGE is suitable for ages 16+. Individual works will have content warnings at the event.
Accessibility: Newcastle Museum is a fully accessible venue. Social stories will be available in September, which will outline what you can expect at the event.
About the Artists: Tantrum Youth Arts has been making explosive new work for almost 50 years. As a hub for early career artist development, Tantrum has curated the most exciting collection of early-career artists from the Hunter and supported them in developing new work for SURGE. This marks a dynamic and boundary pushing moment in Tantrum’s history, as it returns to New Annual for their fourth year.
Artists and collaborators:
Creative Director: Nel Kentish.
Co-Producers: Alana McGaughey and Phoebe Turnbull.
SURGE Artists: Alana McGaughey, Bethany O'Sullivan, BRuSH, Jada Laurie, Joshua Ingle, Phoebe Turnbull, Sanziana Timis, Shaana-Anne, SURGE Ensemble, Tara Barrington.
Acknowledgements: Tantrum Youth Arts is supported by the NSW Government through Create NSW. SURGE is presented in partnership with Newcastle Museum.
