**SPECIAL ANNOUNCEMENT** Thanks to Creative Partnerships Australia’s MATCH program, every dollar you give to this campaign will be matched dollar for dollar, provided we reach our campaign target of $2000

**REWARDS** Don't live in Sydney or Melbourne? Write to us at [email protected] and we will sort out alternative tokens of gratitude!

Hello fronds
Amrita, Jahra and our producer Vanessa here. We're dancers with backgrounds ranging from grounded-feminist-spoken word-poet-dancer to boss-women-of-colour-hip-hop-steeze and we're honoured to say that our latest work PASSING has been selected to be part of Next Wave Festival 2016! 

Oh but wait, there's that awkward thing of needing money to make it come to life and let our artists eat dinner every night. Sigh.

WHAT IS PASSING?
Using the notion of racial passing as a catalyst for a series of movement monologues, spoken word passages and physical conversations, PASSING maps two bodies under pressure from the responsibility that comes from being of mixed cultural background.

A trans-pacific partnership of physical force, PASSING combines Amrita Hepi’s hip hop prowess and background in contemporary dance with Jahra Wasasala’s grounded and ritualistic choreographic style to create a provocative, complex and deeply magnetic work – a physical dialogue that exists between two daughters of diaspora.

Bringing together some of Australia’s most talented creatives including an original score by Lavern Lee (Guerre, Cassius Select, Black Vanilla) and styling by installation artist Honey Long, PASSING is an evocative portrait of the ‘exotic’, and the exhausting effects the title can bear.

**REWARDS** Don't live in Sydney or Melbourne? Write to us at [email protected] and we will sort out alternative tokens of gratitude!

Ok ready?

$15: Gets you mad props, like for real, the fact that you've taken the time to support us means so much. 

$25: Both Amrita and Vanessa teach some of Sydney's most popular hip hop/pop/everything in between dance classes for beginner adults. Donated $25? Swing past either of our classes and cash in your donation for a boogie. **Don't live in Sydney? No stress homeslice, tell us where you're at because it's likely that we will tour to your city and teach a class there**

$50: Want more than just a dance class pass? Now you can go to either a Hollaback or Groove Therapy class AND you can download some sweet tunes through a secret link leading you to Guerre's bomb tracks that make up the music score (aka from Cassius Select, Black Vanilla)

$100: Apart from getting a ticket to PASSING, what this whole crowdfunding this is all about, you also get a private class with either Amrita Hepi or Vanessa Marian. This is actually below cost price for a private class so umm, holla! Amrita Hepi and Vanessa Marian are renowned for their sell out hip hop/pop/everything in between dance classes across Sydney and this is your chance to cash in on some private tutoring. Feelin' shy? Bring a friend along, we'll allow it ;)

$200: Yep, this earns you a free private class plus a VIP ticket to our show. I mean this is what it's all about right, so you deserve to see what all the fuss is about.
Woo!

$500: This gets you 2 class passes to either a Hollaback or Groove Therapy session, a Private lesson with Amrita or Vanessa, the downloadable link to Guerre's original score for PASSING and 2 x VIP ticket to the show at Next Wave.

PASSING has already come this far through the generous support of Next Wave and Darebin Speakeasy who have provided us in-kind with Northcote Town Hall as our incredible venue, tech support and box office support. They also patiently listen to us lament the life of being a struggling artist without judgement. Critical Path have supplied us with a studio during our development and showing, thereby also supplying us with mad street cred purely through association with such awesome people. 
**SPECIAL ANNOUNCEMENT** Thanks to Creative Partnerships Australia’s MATCH program, every dollar you give to this campaign will be matched dollar for dollar, provided we reach our campaign target of $2000


Aside from that we've somehow managed to pull in a team of the most talented young artists across the fields of sound, lighting and costume design and have consequently watched this piece turn into an awesome interdisciplinary work that champions the next wave of artists to come out of Australia. 
The issue with employing emerging artists is that people often neglect the importance of paying for their hard work and this is something that we'd like to address. The funds that we hope to raise will go towards paying for our creators/performers, producer, sound designer, lighting designer and costume designer. It may not be pinching ourselves kind of payment but it's payment, it's a token of gratitude and it's important practise in the arts industry.

More than anything though, this money goes towards paying for us to meet in the same city. Jahra is from NZ, Amrita and Vanessa live in Sydney and Next Wave will be in Melbourne, most of the funds we raise will be spent on travel and accommodation alone.

This is a piece about being mixed culturally, about being able to pass as white, black and any miscellaneous country of origin in between and racial messages like this carry a heavy burden of responsibility and tend to draw criticism from all sides. Luckily our entire piece is about exploring this process and the rollercoaster of baggage that it comes with, and we hope that any negativity that we receive for our work can be responded to from a place of understanding, soul searching and our own informed, respectful opinions. 


Match funded thanks to: