“The other-worldy…”

WE CHAT TO BEETLE MIYELA, REPRESENTING COLLABORATORS AMY VOWLES AND PIPER MAE, ABOUT THEIR 2025 Hub Resident PROJECT BIOS ANTE!

Beetle, we are so excited to welcome you to Backbone this year. Can you give our readers a little intro to who you are and what you do?

I’m Beetle Miyela, a Magandjin-based experimental sound and performance artist working with performance artist Piper Mae and visual artist Amy Vowles for the 2025 Hub Residency Program.

We are fascinated by your work ‘Bios Ante’, it is so mesmerising and vibrant! How do you describe it to people who have never seen your work before?

Our project combines visual, floor-based projections with live sound and movement activation to inspire a sense of stillness, wonder, and well-being for viewers.

At this stage, your work will be taking place in our beautiful Amphitheatre and Courtyard, which has such a tranquil atmosphere in the evenings. It’s a ready canvas for ‘Bios Ante’, what do you think audiences will feel while watching you perform?

Audiences may feel that this is “an ‘other worldly’ experience.”

We are so excited to have you join our festival this year. What are you feeling jazzed about in your upcoming residency? 

Feeling huge amounts of gratitude to have access to free studio and rehearsal space. So that we may deepen, foster, and experiment with our collective, creative practice. (It’s so hard to find access to free spaces these days!!) And obviously stoooked to have an opportunity to share our creations in the Backbone Festival! 

Thank you so much for sharing with us Beetle!

Make sure to catch Bios Ante as it hits the Backbone Festival later this year. Stay tuned as we have more residents on the way!

BEETLE MIYELA, Performance Artist

PIPER MAE, Performance Artist

AMY VOWLES, Visual Artist