Under My Tongue

Belinda Locke (VIC)

  • Auslan interpreting
  • 100% visual content
  • Audio description
  • Language no barrier
  • Tactile tours
  • Wheelchair access
  • Blaktix

The entire season is suitable for a Deaf audience with Auslan interpreters present after performances

Director Belinda Locke uses performance to unearth invisible challenges that people face in their lives every day. Drawing from anonymous submissions about real-life experiences, Under My Tongue delves into the politics of connection, the aesthetics of access, and the unseen aspects of people’s identities, histories, and emotional lives. Two performers make the invisible visible with radical empathy, exposing vulnerabilities and desires.

Collaborating with dramaturg Julian Dibley-Hall and dancers Amanda Lever and Joseph Stewart, personal and unseen moments are expressed through movement, vibrational sound design, and videography. Specifically designed to increase access for the artists and audiences, particularly those who are d/Deaf or hard of hearing, this work is brutally honest but fundamentally gentle, opening up conversation about fears, longing for connection and intimacy.

Under My Tongue is supported by Brunswick Mechanics Institute, Besen Family Foundation, Robert Salzer Foundation, Moreland City Council, Auspicious Arts Projects, Creative Partnerships Australia through the Australian Cultural Fund, Arts House and Malthouse Theatre.

Belinda Locke – Lead Artist and Director 
Julian Dibley-Hall – Dramaturg 
Amanda Lever – Performer
Joseph Stewart – Performer 
Emah Fox – Sound Designer  

Co-devised by Belinda Locke, Anna Seymour and Joseph Stewart 

Special thanks to Berlinklusion, Arts Access Australia, Incite Arts, Foundation for Young Australians and Charter Hall for their support during the project’s conception. 

Belinda Locke is an Australian theatre director, performer, and disability advocate based in Melbourne. She has been acknowledged for her work as a young artist and emerging leader by her award of the Rose Byrne Scholarship for an Emerging Female Leader in the Arts (2016), and her selection for Australia Council for the Arts’ Sync Leadership program (2014). Belinda’s artistic practice brings to light hidden stories and experiences through performance. She has worked on projects with Sydney Theatre Company, Berlinklusion (Berlin), Australian Theatre for Young People, Australian Theatre Company (Los Angeles), Adelaide Fringe Festival, Brisbane Powerhouse and the Judith Wright Centre of Contemporary Arts, amongst others. Belinda has curated and produced a number of national independent arts festivals in Australia, including as the Founding Director of Undercover Artist Festival (2015) hosted by Queensland Theatre, and as a co-founder of the Festival of Australian Student Theatre presented annually at La Boite Theatre Company since 2010.