The Ballarat Poetess

Award-winning spoken word artist Megan J Riedl makes her full-length debut in this thought-provoking solo performance featuring performance poetry, video and soundscape.

Upon discovering her predecessor Ellen F Young in the pages of a little-known handwritten poetry collection from the 1800s, Megan J Riedl embarks on a transformative journey to discover what it means to be the voice of a city.

Megan embodies Ellen Young the Ballarat Poetess in her youth, her loss-tinged marriage, emigration to Australia and through the tumultuous events at the Eureka Stockade. Described by historians as "controversial, political, feminist and questioning the status quo", Ellen Young's poetry collection provides more than a women's viewpoint of the events of the infamous miner's rebellion, it reveals the use of poetry as catharsis.

Developed with support from Punctum Inc's Seedpod Ballarat Initiative with Creative City Ballarat.