Undercover Artist Festival: quick links
Push It! is not just the Undercover Artist 2025 Festival theme: it’s a call to action, a challenge, and an encouragement to artists with disabilities.
Realising the need for a platform dedicated to the performing arts by artists with a disability/who are d/Deaf, Undercover Artist was founded by Access Arts in consultation with the Access Arts community.
In 2015, the inaugural festival kicked off with Founding Festival Director, Belinda Locke at the helm. Many significant milestones have been reached since its initial inauguration and now in 2025, its tenth year, Undercover Artist challenges artists with a disability yet again to explore and interpret this year’s theme Push It!
ArtsHub spoke with current Festival Director Madeleine Little and three of the creatives involved in this year’s festival about their very own interpretations and what they’ll be bringing to the program through their empowering art practices.
Undercover Artist Festival: Madeleine Little (Festival Director)
Madeleine Little says the idea for this year’s theme, Push It!, emerged from a deep desire to see edgier, more thought-provoking work.
Furthermore, Little wanted to expand on the 2023 theme Our Power to encourage artists to really embrace their power and to not be afraid to push buttons, push boundaries, push for change. ‘As disabled artists, we often have to push in and make our own room, and push ourselves to be bold and take up space in a world that wasn’t built for us. Push It! encompasses all these ideas and so much more – and each event in our program dares to Push It! in different ways,’ Little says.
When I asked Little to elaborate on the selection criteria, she said that since there are few opportunities for disability-led, professional performing arts projects to be supported, programming the Undercover Artist Festival was not an easy task.
‘The program is a carefully curated mix of shows submitted through our applications process – such as Daydreamer and Comedy on Cue – and the ongoing relationships we’ve built with key partners,’ she says.
In fact, some events in this year’s program have been in the works for years. ‘We first programmed Adelaide girl group The Sisters of Invention for our 2021 Festival before border closures forced us to cancel, so I’m absolutely thrilled to finally welcome them to Brisbane and have them present You Ready For This? this year.’
Essentially, the Undercover Artist Festival is more than an opportunity to share work. It’s also a respite. A homecoming. ‘A place for disabled and d/Deaf communities to make, present, consume art and to feel a sense of cultural safety that isn’t always present in the mainstream arts world,’ Little says.
Festival Director Madeleine (Maddie) Little (she/her) is a performer, theatre maker and access consultant for the performing arts based in Brisbane. She is a proud disabled artist who enjoys working in both disability-led and safe ally-led creative environments. Little believes that disabled and d/Deaf artists should be able to tell their stories on their terms, without shame, fear, or censorship.
Undercover Artist Festival: Lauren Watson (6 Degrees – world premiere)
Aerial is a physically demanding artform. So what motivated Lauren Watson, a woman who uses a wheelchair, to become a professional aerial performer?
Watson admits that she has always had a curious mind, wondering how things worked – the internal cogs that exist within parameters and how she could dismantle these to create something new.
‘At first it was the curiosity of can I do this, and if not, why and how can I make it work,’ she says.
‘My only thought was that if I can do this, I can do anything!‘
‘I just HAD TO KNOW, regardless of the cost! So looking back, it was very bold and brave of me to go against a system that was not designed to include me. I’m too inquisitive to allow myself to reconsider once I’ve made up my mind so nothing could have stopped me until I had found the right school.’
Watson believes it’s important to develop a supportive practice and an adaptive community that in turn can promote positive outcomes for individuals.
‘Every time I think about how important this would have been for me I get choked up, which is why Tara and I created Chimera Arts. We both felt it was time.’
The duo is also very mindful of the different needs at play so shorter rehearsal days, low lighting and even sensory needs like certain types of fabrics used in costumes are taken into account. ‘This means that we are all seen and heard, not dismissed or made to feel that we are being disruptive.’
The world premiere of 6 Degrees by Chimera Arts and supported by Flipside Circus will debut at the Brisbane Festival. Through breathtaking aerial acrobatics and 100 metres of chunky yarn, this new work weaves a bold, physical narrative of disconnection and discovery.
Undercover Artist Festival: Alisha McClellan Marler (White Noise – world premiere)
Alisha McClellan Marler has a respected and versatile career in the New Zealand dance scene and her contributions to dance have received several accolades.
According to Marler, motherhood is a dynamic balance of practical and emotional labour: teaching her child to be kind and resilient, soothing their fears, celebrating their triumphs, and advocating for their needs. ‘Plus, I get to park in the mobility car park at my daughter’s preschool!’ she adds, good-humouredly.
She approaches these responsibilities with creativity, care, determination and the same fierce commitment to her child’s wellbeing as any mother.
‘It’s about embodying the universal essence of motherhood,’ she says. ‘Nurturing, guiding and loving unconditionally while challenging societal assumptions that might question my capabilities because of my disability.
‘My performance in White Noise aims to echo this, inviting audiences to see beyond labels and recognise the universal capacity for care and connection.’
Being a mother with a disability also means constantly redefining what’s possible.
‘It’s about showing my child – and the world – that limitations are often external perceptions, not truths. Whether I’m adapting daily routines or choreographing a piece like White Noise, my disability doesn’t reduce my ability to nurture or excel.’
Marler says that presenting the world premiere of White Noise at the Undercover Artist Festival 2025 is an incredible honour and an exhilarating opportunity. ‘I’m truly grateful for the festival’s trust in my voice and vision, especially in a space that champions Push It! — a call to challenge norms and celebrate diverse stories.’
White Noise has emerged from New Zealand creator Alisha Mclennan Marler’s lived experience as a mother with disability. The work is both personal and utterly communal, drawing on the audience to consider their own place in the conversation.
Undercover Artist Festival: India Rose (Daydreamer)
Daydreamer is an ode to people with invisible/unseen disabilities. India Rose is the creative force exploring a variety of misconceptions in her autobiographical work. In line with this year’s theme, Daydreamer highlights the idea of pushing into the discourse surrounding both society and the theatre industry.
Growing up, Rose discovered that her invisible disability (epilepsy) was an incredibly isolating and lonely journey. She admits that she felt like a freak, like she was hiding something dirty. ‘I struggled for a long time to justify talking about my epilepsy. If I worked hard, made myself uncomfortable, I could hide it and force myself to pass as able-bodied.’
During the development of this project, Rose worked with actors who also have epilepsy and discovered that their stories and experiences aligned.
‘We have had to exist in a space where nearly every aspect is designed to trigger us,’ she says. ‘All the while we have remained silent or diminished ourselves for the sake of job security and the production team’s ease of mind.’
‘Misconceptions exist that uphold the idea that invisible disabilities will go away, get better or can be cured.’
However, the reality is that over time those with invisible disabilities, because of societal pressure, can and will learn to suppress the struggles of their daily life and internalise these struggles in order to lessen the external burden thrust upon those around them. ‘What this means is that whilst the rest of their community starts to view them as recovering, the reality is that the battleground has just moved into their mind which further isolates them.’
Rose admits that she was scared that people would see her as a burden or an annoyance, especially in her creative career where unforgiving tech days were filled with triggers. So for years she was an expert at forcing her epilepsy to be palatable.
‘Now through this play, alongside my creative team, we reclaim that right – to push in, to be unapologetic and candid about our needs instead of silencing ourselves for the sake of someone else’s convenience.’
Rose shares her insights into formalising inclusion and diversity in the performing arts. She says that people with disabilities are often overlooked and underrated but active and genuine diversity will allow disabled voices to be heard. ‘One of the most singular and important ways this can be achieved is to provide platforms for these marginalised voices. Also, communication between different people and different perspectives without judgement is crucial for a diverse society to flourish.’
She says that the approach should also be more tailored. ‘What I need will vastly differ to that of someone else with epilepsy or any other disability. So the most inclusive act a person can do is to ask, sincerely listen and actively implement.’
Undoubtedly, the journey of writing and creating Daydreamer has been the most cathartic process of Rose’s life.
‘Not only did I allow my inner child to be heard and to heal from the misconceptions that she was taught, I was also able to support the adult version of me by creating a community of like minded individuals. Daydreamer allowed me, epilepsy and all, to feel deserving of love again.’
Daydreamer, presented by The Travelling Rose Theatre, is an autobiographical theatrical work based in poetry and catharsis. It’s a love letter to those with unseen disabilities who feel unheard and isolated. It allows the voices behind this common medical condition (epilepsy) to speak for themselves and to rise above being statistics, misrepresented tropes, or five second viral internet videos.
Undercover Artist Festival: hopes and outcomes
When asked what the one thing that she’d like the audience to take away from this year’s tenth anniversary festival, Little says: ‘I can’t pick just one! But I do hope that audiences begin to see themselves in our artists, that we can expose more of the human spirit and the nuances that bind and separate us. I hope they see that disability-led performing arts is powerful, provocative, and personal.’
She says that when stages, schedules and events are made to be as accessible as possible, space is created for artists to present their very best work – and that work has the power to shift minds and change lives. ‘Our legacies lie in the brilliant work staged each festival and in the atmosphere in the foyer post-show, especially when non-disabled audiences start to relive and unpack the magic they witnessed just moments before.’
The Undercover Artist Festival runs from 22 to 27 September 2025 in Brisbane. Find out more.
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