Queer Powerpoint

Presented in Partnership with the Princess Theatre and part of Open Season, this marks the project’s first ever Brisbane outing – so strap yourself in for a hilarious night of Microsoft PPT.

Queer artists from across Brisbane are invited to explore and share an idea, current obsession, or ongoing fascination using that most staid and ubiquitous of programming tools.

It’s a bunch of queers deep diving into highly niche content in a very gay way, reclaiming and queering the corporate presentation mode created by our straight capitalist overlords.

Creators Xanthe Dobbie and Harriet Gillies play host to a night of surprising stories, secret passions and starwipes; commissioning artists to create a new 10-minute performance lecture about absolutely anything – the only rules are they have to be queer af, and they have to use Microsoft PowerPoint.

Come together and revel in this new strangeness with a digital tool from a simpler time.

Line up: Julian Palacios, Elizabeth, Cheryl Leavey, Rae White, and Harriet & Xanthe

Event Details

Venue: The Princess Theatre, 8 Annerley Road, Woolloongabba 4102
Date: Door 7:00 June 26

This event requires delegates to purchase a ticket: https://theprincesstheatre.com.au/events/queer-powerpoint

‘

About the Queer Powerpoint team
Queer PowerPoint is a collaboration between an all-queer team of creatives based
across Melbourne and Sydney: interdisciplinary artist Xanthe Dobbie, performance
artist Harriet Gillies, creative producer Thom Smyth and AV Manager Charlie Kember.
Together they curate, develop, mentor and produce the works of the programmed
artists, ensuring support throughout the creation and delivery of their
presentations.

Xanthe Dobbie (they/them)
Xanthe Dobbie is an artist, filmmaker and academic based in Melbourne. Working across
on- and offline modes of making, Dobbie’s practice aims to capture the experience of
contemporaneity as reflected through queer and feminist ideologies. Drawing on
humour, pop, sex, history and iconography, they develop shrines to a post-truth era.
Xanthe holds a BFA(Honours) from RMIT and an MA(Film Editing) from AFTRS. Xanthe is
currently undertaking a PhD (Design) at RMIT as part of the ARC Linkage ‘Archiving
Australian Media Art’. Their thesis ‘Future Artefact’ focuses on queer approaches to
historical media archives. Recent commissions include new work for Sydney Opera
House, Munch Museum, ACMI, UQ Art Museum, Lismore Regional Gallery, Sydney Festival,
and Splendour in the Grass.

Harriet Gillies (she/her)
HHarriet Gillies is an award-winning performance artist whose work spans digital,
durational, participatory, visual, immersive, new writing and hybrid text forms of
contemporary performance. She has presented across Australia, New Zealand and North
America. Recent sold-out projects include; 8 / 8 / 8: WORK created with Marcus
McKenzie for RISING Festival 2022. An eight-hour theatre piece lampooning work life
in a post-capitalist world and won a Green Room award (Outstanding Work: Contemporary
& Experimental Performance). This is the first in a triptych of large-scale
performances commissioned by RISING that will include REST & PLAY.Her solo
performances include, The Power of the Holy Spirit, won the Best Experimental Show
Award at the Melbourne Fringe Festival and had a sell out season at the Flying Nun in
Sydney. Her digital performance with collaborator Xanthe Dobbie, Pleasuredome
premiered as part of 2020 Griffin Lock-In, and was presented by Griffin Theatre
Company at the 2021 Sydney Festival. She currently tours Queer Powerpoint with Xanthe
Dobbie and Unfunded Empathy as an ongoing series of niche deep-dives, presenting at
the Sydney Opera House, Western Australian Museum, the Museum of Contemporary Art;
Sydney Biennale, Pleasures Playhouse and 107 Projects.

Unfunded Empathy (Thom Smyth) (he/him)
Unfunded Empathy was founded in 2019 as the sidehustle of creative producer Thom
Smyth (Performing Lines), and has evolved to specifically support Sydney’s queer and
experimental arts community. Their programming playfully dances across performance,
event and party producing to create moments of possibility and abandon as
counterpoints to mainstream political and social discourse. Current artists and
projects include: Queer PowerPoint, an experimental performance platform; Happenings
(a hybrid performance party partnership between composer/musician Nick Wales, Bad
Dog DJs and Coda Collective); surreal showgirl Betty Grumble; famed inner city queer
venue The Bearded Tit; Aria-winner Paul Mac & stereogamous, experimental
theatremakers Harriet Gillies & Marcus McKenzie; and DJ, podcaster & producer
Ayebatonye Abrakasa.

Charlie Kember (he/him)
Charlie Kmber provides high-end A/V services for a wide range of contemporary,
theatrical and corporate events. These include opera, live music, drama, talks and
conferences. Charlie manages a team that delivers high quality A/V suitable for both
in-house audiences and live and recorded broadcast. To achieve this requires detailed
understanding of the technical capabilities and constraints of diverse venues, the
technical demands of each client, and the combination of equipment, technology and
process that will best meet their demands. Key external clients are Resident
Companies such as Sydney Theatre Company and the Australian Ballet; key suppliers are
Technical Direction Company, Big Picture and Videocraft. Charlie has AV managed all
Queer PowerPoint events to date.

URL: https://unfundedempathy.com/portfolio/queer-powerpoint/