SPILL (your guts) RESIDENCY
SPILL is a residency program for practicing performance based artists at any stage of their career to access time and space to explore, experiment, create and research new or existing ideas, processes and projects.
Applications for 2025 SPILL Residencies are now closed. Scroll down for this years residency projects!
Following the success of the inaugural SPILL platform delivered from 2020 - 2023, SPILL (your GUTS) residencies are back! In 2025, GUTS will offer 3 x 2 week residency opportunities from our studio at the Araluen Arts Centre, based in the Central Desert region of Mparntwe (Alice Springs). GUTS believe fiercely in the development of artistic practice and providing space to experiment, fail, imagine and redefine ideas in a supportive environment.
SPILL residencies are not outcome based, however we expect artists to be engaged in their practice or project for a minimum of 20 hours per week. Whilst the organisation works primarily in contemporary dance, applications can be from any artist working in the realm of physical performance including performance art and experimental theatrical forms. We encourage applications from artists who have practices or projects that align with our core values - bravery, risk, community and collaboration.
Applications from artists who identify as Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander, other First Nations communities, and those based in Regional and Remote locations will be preferenced, so if this is YOU, we strongly encourage you to apply. The residencies will be selected by GUTS’ Artistic Team alongside guest curators belonging to these communities.
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GUTS will provide resident artists with:
Use of the GUTS Studio for the duration of your residency
Solo Residencies:
Accommodation
Return flights between Mparntwe/Alice Springs and artists home residence
$1400/week fee + 11.5% superannuation + work cover
$450/week per diem
A $500 materials allocation
Groups of 2 or more:
A flat fee of $8500. Artists will be responsible for organising their own travel, accommodation, etc. If you are applying as a group we ask that you submit a simple budget to show how you are planning to divide the funds.
Support from GUTS for the duration of your residency. This can include mentorship and advice on producing, funding and presenting independent work (among other things!), or the potential to be bodies in space, thrash out creative ideas or provide feedback during research and experimentation.
The potential to engage with local communities, including the possibility to teach classes and hold open studios for sharing and exchange of ideas.
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GUTS offer 3 residencies of 2 weeks, for individuals or groups, hosted in our studio at the Araluen Arts Centre in Mparntwe/Alice Springs.
Residency dates will be negotiated with successful applicants.
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Residencies will take place in Mparntwe/Alice Springs, in Central Australia. The Central Desert is a unique, diverse and complex place, and one of the most isolated geographies in the world, and it’s important to think about WHY being HERE is going to be interesting, inspiring and important to your work. Mparntwe/Alice Springs is a place with a strong sense of community, so we encourage our visitors to offer some sort of public engagement while you are in residence. This could take the form of a showing of your work, a Q&A for interested locals or teaching a workshop either for adults or young people - we are open to ideas and the shape of this can be formulated during your stay.
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Applications for the 2025 SPILL (your GUTS) program are now closed. Thank you to everyone who applied!
Due to the large volume of applicants, we may delay notification slightly. GUTS will be in touch with all applicants.
CECILIA MARTIN| STEAM
‘STEAM’ by Cecilia Martin is a new work in collaboration with Jenni Large and Bridie Hooper. “Steaming” is a word we have used to describe when feelings of shame, rage and humiliation are felt simultaneously; resulting in a strive for confidence, control and power. As women, we have felt this often, towards certain people, institutions and as an empathetic response to the unjust and harrowing effects of patriarchal structures.
In her residency at GUTS, Cecilia will further this research and explore how dance and improvisation can be a vessel to ask: What can empowerment look like? Can we find it through control as well as surrender? Can we both harness our power as well as make room for softness? What is the role of discomfort in this work and the way it is experienced?
Cecilia Martin is an Australian interdisciplinary artist grown from Argentinian roots. Based on the lands of the Jagera and Turrbal people, movement is Cecilia’s principal artistic language and her work spans dance, theatre and circus. Cecilia’s studies at the National Institute of Circus Arts led to a five-year engagement (2016-20) with internationally acclaimed CIRCA. In 2023, Cecilia premiered her first full-length solo, ‘Break’, in collaboration with dance-theatre company The Farm and co-commissioned by Home of the Arts and Metro Arts. Nominated for two Matilda Awards, ‘Break’ is her first work combining dance with autobiographical-theatre and acrobatics.
GOLDEN THURSDAYS | SCENES FROM SWAN LAKE
Golden Thursdays presents Scenes from Swan Lake. Golden Thursdays is a mixed-ability Ensemble from Northern NSW and Meanjin/Brisbane, who will use Swan Lake as the container to expose their investigation into defining, transposing and elevating the choreographic ideas and physical virtuosities of each of the neuro-diverse Golden Thursdays artists and our developing ensemble practice. Scenes from Swan Lake will be our first major work in which we simultaneously tell the story as it transforms in our hands, and at the same time invites the audience inside the complexity of process that is applied to enable the artists to dance movement that has been born of their own physicality and investigative practices.
At GUTS, Golden Thursdays will apply this practice to the deconstruction and re-making of key scenes from Swan Lake that the artists have identified as meaningful for them.
Golden Thursdays is an independent project and choreographic lab established in February 2023 by three dance and performance artists living with Down Syndrome – Alice Misty Boscheinen, Max McAuley and Bryn James. The trio employ Stuart Shugg and Kate McDowell as co-facilitators and fellow dancers to hold the space from which they can develop their own work.
NGIOKA BUNDA-HEATH | ESTUARY
Estuary is a contemporary duet exploring First Nations connections to land and waterways, deeply rooted in Ngioka's Wakka Wakka, Ngugi, and Birrpai heritage. This work examines the cultural and environmental significance of estuaries as sites of convergence, resilience, and transformation, drawing parallels between the fluidity of water and identity. Through movement, sound, and language, Estuary reclaims and revitalizes cultural knowledge, honoring Indigenous ways of being in relationship with Country.
At GUTS, Ngioka will further develop Estuary, refining its movement vocabulary, deepening my research into the Ngugi language of her grandmother, and exploring how the work resonates within the Central Desert context. This residency offers an opportunity to explore the tension and relationship between water-dependent cultures and the arid landscapes of Mparntwe/Alice Springs.
Ngioka Bunda-Heath is Wakka Wakka, Ngugi from Queensland; and Birrpai from New South Wales. She graduated from the Victorian College of the Arts, as the first Aboriginal woman in dance. She has worked for Bangarra Dance Theatre in “Rekindling” their youth education program; and is currently the First Peoples Partnership Coordinator at Chunky Move. Ngioka’s choreographic work includes Blood Quantum (2019), Birrpai (2021) awarded Dance Best Duo/Ensemble at the Greenroom Awards, Bridge (2022) and Footprints (2022).
2025 RESIDENTS
PREVIOUS RESIDENTS
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BENJAMIN HURLEY & EMMA RICHES
2022 Residents
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ASHLEIGH MUSK & MICHAEL SMITH
2021 Residents
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TEGAN NASH OLLET
2021 Resident
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EMILY FLANNERY
2021 Resident
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KELLY BENEFORTI
2020 Resident
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JENNI LARGE
2019 Resident