hillsceneLIVE updates

hillsceneLIVE 2026 ~ call out for Artists

Announcing this 2026 Festival Provocation for artists...AT A STRETCH

 For hsL 2026, we’re diving into the tension point; the snap, the wobble, the risky stretch where new performance visions take shape. If your work sweats, glitches, hums, unravels or rebuilds itself in real time…we want to see it.

Read more about the theme on our Artist Information page...

A New Chapter for hillsceneLIVE: ​

Honouring Seven Years of Vision, Welcoming a New Wave of Creative Leadership

In 2025, hillsceneLIVE bids a heartfelt farewell to our wonderful Festival Director, Toni Main, who is stepping down after seven years of visionary leadership. Toni has nurtured emerging artists across disciplines, drawing on her deep experience in performance-making, physical theatre, and cross-collaborative work. 
We are thrilled to welcome ​Roderick Price - a respected hsL artist alumnus - as our new Festival Director. Roderick brings a wealth of expertise in immersive sound design and experimental audio practice. As AMNION, his work spans industrial, ambient, and electroacoustic music, and his approach is rooted in surround-sound, abstraction, and sonic immersion. 
In 2025, our focus is on professional development, building team capacity, and laying the groundwork for another extraordinary cohort of artists. We are committed to preparing a creative, supportive, and ambitious development process in 2026 — one that continues to centre daring ideas, the artist’s journey, and bold experimentation.

Do you want to be part of our Creative Team?

Do you....
Have an unacceptably large love for the arts?
Want to gain hands on experience in the design, planning and delivery of an exciting arts program, including a weekend festival?
Feel fuelled by supporting brave artists and creative minds?
Want to connect with other incredible people?

Do you want to volunteer for hillsceneLIVE?


As a volunteer you’ll get a chance to head behind the scenes and discover all of the moving parts behind this leading experimental live arts festival and help create memorable experiences for our audiences.
You will receive a full weekend pass to the festival in recognition of your incredible investment and get a chance to rub elbows with some of Australia's leading live art performers...

Click here to fill in an expression of interest form
Thank you to our partners...

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hillsceneLIVE acknowledges the Traditional Owners of Country throughout Australia, on which we live, create, and play. We acknowledge the long history of performance and art making that is embedded in the Dandenong Ranges and the in history of the Wurundjeri and Bunurong people of the Kulin Nation. We pay our respects to Elders past, present and emerging. Sovereignty was never ceded. Always was. Always will be. Aboriginal land.