Prima Donna Podcast

Wilma Tabacco was born in Italy, and lives in Australia Wilma uses abstract iconography to refer to aspects of Italian cultural history, archaeological artefacts found in ancient ruins and she ‘maps’ ground plans of architectural spaces. She has presented 45 solo exhibitions since 1988, in Australia, Italy and Korea and participated in over 250 group exhibitions, including in New York, Dubai, London, Seoul, Paris, Edinburgh. http://wilmatabacco.com

​Jazz drummer and bandleader Alma Quon was born in 1911 and died in 2007. Her ensemble The Joybelles comprising women from a range of cultural backgrounds was active from the 1940s until the 1990s.

Julie Peters grew up in the 1950s, way before trans was generally heard of, let alone understood. As a child she had difficulty working out why people insisted she was a boy when she knew she was a girl. She affirmed her gender in 1990. Julie has been activist off and on since the early 1980s. Her activism has involved being out in the workplace, slide shows, performance, readings, running for Parliament, engaging with health workers, lawyers, police, academic lecturing and research.

Jane Murphy considers herself to be an “Accidental Property Master”. She stumbled across a role in a film art department in the mid 1980’s in Sydney. Her love of stories & people, combined with a fascination of things, has proved the perfect marriage for her role of Props Master for film, TV and theatre.

Elizabeth Russell-Arnot is an inquisitive adventurer with academic credentials across multiple arts disciplines. Her Churchill Fellowship and 2 Masters Degrees in the Arts have led to a focus on our endangered environment expressed through creativity in writing, illustrating, painting and sculpture. Liz has always been aware of the world in which she lives and her artistic work became the voice which she used to express her love for the environment and everything in it: birds, animals, insects, plants and yes, even mankind.

Peta Murray is a recovering playwright, best known for her plays Wallflowering and Salt. A late-blooming academic, she is also a Lecturer in the School of Media & Communication at RMIT University where she writes extravaganzas with preposterous titles, performs essays, coins neologisms, collaborates on loopy approaches to memoir, queers the q(a)antata, and makes mischief with The Symphony of Awkward as they stake claim to world domination in the emergent discourse of diarology.

An activist in the women's liberation movement since joining the Brunswick Consciousness-Raising Group in 1972, feminist writer Jean Taylor has been involved in the Women's Liberation Centre, Women's Liberation Halfway House, Women's Liberation Switchboard, Women's Building Council, Aboriginal Rights Solidarity Group, Amazon Theatre, Women's Circus, Matrix Guild, Lesbian Cancer Support Group, and Purple Parrots. She has been the instigator and coordinator of the Victorian Women's Liberation and Lesbian Feminist Archives.

Lella Cariddi OAM is a writer/researcher of community history, curator of contemporary art, documentary producer, installation artist, adult educator and Community Cultural Development Practitioner. She is committed to the advancement of literatures and the Arts as a vehicle for intergenerational social inclusion between mainstream Australian Society and immigrants & refugees.

Animator and educator Cath Murphy has a rich history in animation spanning more than 20 years and has won numerous awards in film for: Animation; Writing; Directing; Producing and Visual Effects. A registered nurse with extensive experience in mental health, Cath’s approach to animation is about social inclusion and the impact it can have on working and emotional life. http://pollyannafilms.com/

Aunty Madeline McGrady is a proud Gomeroi elder. She made the first film on black deaths in custody, and was the first Indigenous person on the Australian Film Council. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NqjE3M4tdWw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9_ILzy8ELBI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A0UX--K7IHE

A performer at the very first National Folk Festival (and many more since then), Margret has sung blues, jazz, gospel, folk, comedy, and social commentary songs in concert halls and cathedrals, clubs and campuses, from Broome to Hobart, Beijing to Memphis, Paris to Auckland, Edinburgh to Tel Aviv, New York to Seoul, Amsterdam to Dublin, New Orleans to London, Vancouver to Nuku'alofa. http://members.iinet.net.au/~margretr/

First female lighting designer in Australia. Stage Manager. Actor. Operations Manager at the Victorian Arts Centre. Artistic Director Melbourne and Adelaide Arts Festivals.

Writer, actor, comedian, architect, and celebrant Suzanne Ingleton comes from a tradition of theatre, sacred ritual and spiritual shamanism. She has created solo and collaborative performance works in Australia and overseas for more than 40 years and is particularly vocal about the constant erasure of women's stories and the work they are required to do consistently to overcome adversity. *language warning on this episode*

Percussionist, social worker, and Board Member of the Victorian Women's Trust, Duré Dara OAM is Indian by race, Malaysian by birth, and Australian by choice. A proponent of spontaneous and improvised music for more than 40 years, she is well known for her work as a percussionist with the late David Tolley and in the Brian Brown Quintet. She worked alongside Stephanie Alexander in the 1990s and was the first woman president of the Victorian Restaurant and Caterers Association. She's passionate about women and girls having access to education and opportunities in the arts. *language warning on this episode*

Actor and teacher Dr Elizabeth Jones has been the Artistic Director of La Mama Theatre since 1976. For 20 year prior she was a teacher of English, History, Drama, and Politics in Australia and Indonesia. She has worked over many years as an advocate for refugees and First Nation's peoples, and is invested in La Mama being a place of support for minority and independent artists.

Classical pianist and composer Elizabeth Drake creates original music for theatre, film, dance, and radio. She was the first woman to win an AFI award for screen composotion, for her score from the 2003 film 'Japanese Story'.

Shirley McKechnie is a dancer, choreographer, and educator. She founded the first tertiary dance course in Australia at Rusden College (Deakin University) in 1975 and has written extensively on dance and dance education. She was a co-founder of the Australian Association for Dance Education (AADE), now Ausdance, has been a professorial fellow at the Victorian College of the Arts, and in 1987 was awarded an Order of Australia.

Born in New Zealand, Jo Jo Smith is a soul singer, songwriter, guitarist, and drummer. She was the first woman to perform at the Byron Bay Blues and Roots Festival in the 1980s. In 2017 she performed 50 shows around Australia with fellow songwriter Lucy Thorne, celebrating 50 years as a professional performing artist.

Joyce McGrath is a 92 year old portrait painter. She was the first arts librarian at the State Library of Victoria, and received a Churchilll Fellowship to travel to arts libraries around the world and investigate their collections. Joyce spent years in hospital as a child with tuberculosis - she emerged with a lifelong love of colour, an incredible sense of humour, and enormous passion and drive for the arts.

Performance artist Robin Laurie was heavily involved in the infamous Melbourne Pram Factory in the 1960s and 70s, was a founding member of the first Women's Circus in Victoria, as well as Circus Oz. She's a trombone playing, Feldenkrais practicing legend who believes comedy is vital for survival.