Black Caribbean Performance in Australia: Then and Now

Featuring Sienna Brown, Zahra Newman, Alana Valentine

Did you know that the most famous Australian person in the world circa 1890 was born in St Croix in the Caribbean? That the great grandmother of one of the Richmond Football Club’s nine “immortals” was born into slavery in Jamaica? That one of Australia’s most celebrated contemporary Indigenous novelists is also descended from a slave-turned-convict from Barbados?

Caribbean Echoes is a four-part series that recovers the stories and experiences of Black Caribbean people in Australia. It’s produced by award-winning Jamaican novelist Sienna Brown and Caribbean literature scholar Ben Etherington with UTS Impact Studios’ History Lab. Blending archival research, interviews, and fictional recreation, Brown enters into the lives of the great heavyweight boxer Peter Jackson, the cabaret star and national darling Nellie Small, and formerly enslaved woman Susannah Andrews.

At this launch party, Brown and Etherington are in conversation with Jamaican-Australian actor Zahra Newman, star of the recent Sydney Theatre Company production of Dracula, and playwright Alana Valentine, author of the 2024 cabaret show Send for Nellie!, which reignited interest in Nellie Small. The discussion will range over boxer Peter Jackson’s turn to theatre, Small’s remarkable life career, and singer Elsie Williams, Small's contemporary who was also born of West Indian parents. We'll also consider how the performance scene looks today for Caribbean Australians.

Either side of the panel, DJ Amma Owusu will play sets of rocksteady, ska and reggae.

The event is free, and food and drinks are catered.

To listen to Caribbean Echoes, follow History Lab on your preferred podcast app, or tune in on Spotify here, Apple Podcasts here, or YouTube here.