About APE

Australian Performance Exchange (APE) is an inter-cultural performance company based in Sydney, Australia, created by Artistic Director, Sally Sussman. Its work expresses the concept of total theatre inspired by Sally’s training in Chinese traditional performance and music forms in Beijing and Shanghai in the 1980s. APE engages with issues of cultural identity, post-colonialism, art and politics and social justice in the international arena.

APE projects explore the connections and clashes between traditional performance practices and contemporary sensibilities and embrace a variety of forms under the widest definition of performative culture. APE seeks to create exploratory processes for intercultural collaborations in the production of new Australian theatre work, which truly reflect the diversity and complexity of our culture.

APE places collaboration with artists from diverse cultures and disciplines at the heart of our practice. APE has developed ongoing relationships with artists in Australia and especially internationally.  To date, these artists include Auburn Poets and Writers’ Group, Valerie Berry, Chi Vu, Elena Kats-Chernin, Georgina Naidu, Julie Janson, Nigel Kellaway, Katia Molino, Djakapurra Munyarryan, Nöelle Janaczewska, Teater Kita Makassar: Ram Prapanca, Arifin Manggau and Is Hakim, Monica Wulff, Xu Fengshan and Zhang Zhijun

APE’s inaugural project with Teater Kita Makassar, The Eyes of Marege brought together artists from Sulawesi, Indonesia with Indigenous artists from Australia in a large-scale music-theatre work, which explored the historic relationship between people from Northeast Arnhem Land and Sulawesi fisherman.  It premiered at The OZAsia Festival in Adelaide in 2007 and had a further sold-out season at The Sydney Opera House that year.

Board of Directors: Dennis Watkins (Chair), Sally Sussman (Public Officer), Umporn Tantipech (Secretary), Patrick Chong (Treasurer), Hilary Armstrong, Robert Jones, Michael O’Brien.

APE is a not-for-profit association incorporated in 2007 on the Register of Cultural Organisations and has DGR status. The company creates work with support from grants, sponsorship and private donations. Please contact our treasurer on pchong36@bigpond.com if you would like to find out how to make a tax-deductable contribution.