hillsceneLIVE is an arts program supporting emerging and experimental artists. We aim to create new modes of thought, practice, engagement and participation through the support of bold, brave artists.

As a festival, we are dedicated to supporting artists who take juicy risks, ask big questions, and make bold statements with their work.  We traditionally support live art and performance, which covers Theatre, Dance, Sound Art, Comedy, Cabaret, Spoken Word, Live Art and especially those works that don't fit easily into these categories!

hillsceneLIVE is the only program of its kind in the Dandenong Ranges, which fringes onto regional Victoria.  It is the only program that brings together artist of diverse practices, in a supportive and developmental capacity.  Through the program dozens of artists have been supported to create new work, ask new questions (of themselves and the world), and forge partnerships with other artists, makers and the community.

Where we have come from...

​2015.  You might call this our teenage years.  The 2015 festival was ambitious, bold, and bigger than we could have imagined.  It involved a four-month professional development series, bringing together thinkers, makers and do-ers from the Arts and Cultural Sector, it involved a series of networking events and shared studio practice, and we had a very juicy, ambitious one-day festival in Monbulk.

Not one to stagnate, hillsceneLIVE aimed its sights even higher in 2016.  We felt born.  We felt it time to really solidify what we learnt through infancy and the rite-of-passage teenage years, and emerge as an adult with the conviction, intention and tenacity to make a difference! We exploded onto the scene in Mt Evelyn, transforming an unused office space into an extraordinary venue, housing vulnerability, dreaming, disruption and reflection.

2016's festival comprised a full series of Artist professional development, workshops and forums throughout the year, and the beautiful three day festival in October 2016.  We pushed ourselves, we grew and changed... learnt to become more vulnerable, more resourceful... 

in 2017 we continued to shift and develop under the new leadership of Festival co-directors Justine Walsh and Toni Main. Refining, crystallising, and becoming more comfortable than ever with the unknown, the theme because we don't know what it is yet... was selected. The festival continued to expand, with a new partnership with Birdsland reserve, the building of a pizza oven that fed a free community dinner, and a very full weekend of events.
2018 sees a partnership with Creative Victoria, and new relationships with Deakin University and Fragment 31.

Thank you to our partners...
We acknowledge the Traditional Custodians of the land we live, work and play, the Wurundjeri and Boon Wurrung peoples of the Kulin Nations. We pay our respects to Elders past, present and emerging, and acknowledge that sovereignty was never ceded.