Six storytellers. Six generations.

Generation Women® creates space for intergenerational connection and community.

Winner Best Spoken Word at Sydney Fringe 2019 and featured in All About Women 2020 at the Sydney Opera House, Generation Women celebrates and amplifies female and non-binary voices. At our monthly live shows, six performers of note present an original piece on a theme. Of those, one is in their 20s, 30s, 40s, 50s, 60s, and 70s+. 

This February, we're dedicating our shows across the country to the voices and lived experiences of First Nation women and the diverse women of colour in our communities. 

For Black women, joy is a beautiful and radical act. For this very special show, we asked our superstar line-up to share an original, true story on joy; finding it, cultivating it, keeping it, reclaiming it. Maybe they found joy in the most unlikely place. Maybe they only realized they had joy when it was taken away; maybe it was a hard-won battle to get it back; maybe it was a thing they never believed they deserved. Maybe their story of joy happened when they were a kid, maybe it happened last week, maybe it’s happening right now.

Black joy is quite literally revolutionary and allows for a more complete and needed narrative about being a Black woman. This February, let’s celebrate Black joy!

Team 20s: Aurelia St Clair is a German-Cameroonian comedian, writer, podcaster and dog mother who now calls Melbourne home. She was a part of the Comedy Up Late series, recorded in 2021 for Audible and is one of six playwrights chosen for Malthouse Theatre’s Besen Writers group in 2021. Aurelia has performed at the Melbourne International Comedy Festival in 2018, 2019 and 2021, the Melbourne and Sydney Fringe Festivals in 2019 and the Brisbane Funny Fest.

Team 30s: He Huang grew up in a secluded town in the southwest region of China. She went to the U.S. for a master’s degree and returned to China six years later with a passion for stand-up comedy instead. Blessed by her traditional southern Chinese upbringing and endless existential crisis, she gets to explore different cultures and integrate them into her edgy, anecdotal, sometimes raunchy jokes.

Team 40s:  Devi (Dee) Palanisamy enjoys every opportunity to share a good story. With more than 13 years of experience teaching Speech and Drama to children and being involved in Curriculum Development for Arts education, Devi has always believed in the power and magic of storytelling.

Team 50s: Asha Rao. Indian-Australian Professor and Associate Dean, and former Interim Director of the Australian Mathematical Sciences Institute (AMSI), Prof. Asha Rao was inducted into the 2021 Victorian Honour Roll of Women in the Trailblazer category. She is passionate about mathematics and gender issues that stymie the progress of women and girls in STEM careers. As the founding chair of Women in Maths, Prof. Rao has put in place several initiatives to improve gender equity within the mathematical sciences in Australia.

Team 60s:  Kiran Shah lives in the Blue Mountains and has performed for Generation Women in Sydney and is delighted to be invited to do the same in Melbourne. As a professional storyteller, Kiran loves to share folktales that contain the wisdom of generations before us as well as personal stories.

Team 80s:  EV Ratnam. Born in Malaysia, EV Ratnam came to Australia in 1974. She is a practising artist in Australia with works in National and International collections. A writer of Memoir, Short Stories and Biography, she lives and works in Melbourne.

Hosted by guest host Devi (Dee) Palanisamy. Produced by Brooke Farmer & Donna Logue, Hopepunk Productions. Created by Georgia Clark.

Date: Wednesday 23 February, 7:00pm-9:00pm AEDT (Doors open 6:30pm)

Theme: "Finding My Joy" 

Pricing: Member $25 | Non-member $35 (plus booking fee, tax and card processing fee)

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