First Nations Programming and Performances at 2025's Brisbane Festival

TINA - A Tropical Love Story.png

Written, performed and directed by Ben Graetz is Tina – A Tropical Love Story with special performances from guest artists from the drag, First Nations and queer performance scene.

"It's part storytelling, it's part performance, it's part drag and part drag"


NITV Radio's Veronica Lenard speaks with multiple First Nations talents involved in the Brisbane Festival 2025, including writer, performer and director Miss Ellaneous (AKA Ben Graetz), Director and Co-writer Stephen Page and Artistic Director Louise Bezzina.

Louise Bezzina is now entering her sixth and final Brisbane Festival, championing a program that is full of Firs Nations Talent. Sharing with us that having such big public projects if part of the strategy, saying "is an opportunity to conversations that we are not having and to do it in a way that is respectful".

Stephen Page is the Director and Co-writer of Baleen Moodjan in an epic collaboration with dancers Kiarn Doyle, Rika Hamaguchi, Gusta Mara, Beau Dean, Riley Smith, and Glory Tuohy-Daniel as well as musicians Jorjabelle Munday and Taj Pigram and more. Stephen shares about his connection to the storytelling shared by his late mother, saying " this is a gift for our people and our storytelling and also a black perspective.. under water in the mainstream that is celebratory".

Ben Graetz is the writer and director of Tina - A Tropical Love Story, but is also known as performer Miss Ellaneous. Ben shares what audiences may expect from this show as he invites other performers to do a Tina Number as well, as an enable of high energy performances saying "it is really my love letter and tribute to the only and only Tina Turner"

Share