I'm Not Racist, But ... (2019)

Steph Tisdell is a major up-and-comer in the Australian Comedy Scene. After cutting her teeth in the UK and winning the Deadly Funny National Grand Final in 2014, Steph has been collecting awards and accolades wherever she goes and building an impressive TV, radio and print credit list most recently having appeared on ABC’s Comedy Up Late and Tonightly.

Steph is a proud Indigenous woman and is making a fast rise as one of Australia’s funniest Aboriginal comedian’s putting her in a unique position to encourage other Aboriginal artists to come forward and showcase why they’re the funniest race in the world. She has a background in social sciences and a huge passion for Aboriginal rights and advocacy.

Born and raised in Darwin, David Woodhead started comedy in 2015 entering the Class Clown Comedy competition. At 21 years old David has performed in the 2016 & 2018 Adelaide Fringe Festival, was a national finalist in the Melbourne International Comedy Festival RAW Comedy Competition in 2016, a writer and actor on season 3 of ABC’s Black Comedy, and appeared in ABC’s Be Your Own Boss.

Dane Simpson is one of Australia's rapidly rising stars. He has toured around Australia doing various comedy shows. He starred in the hit standup comedy show "Aborigi-LOL" which sold out its entire season at the Melbourne International Comedy Festival 2018.  He toured Western Australia with his variety show "Great Danes" and also performed at the XXI Commonwealth Games Festival. 

You might have seen him on ABC's Comedy UpLate, on the Melbourne International Comedy Festival Gala or the Melbourne International Comedy Festivals "Opening Night Super Show"

Luke Carroll is an actor, known for Australian Rules (2002), The Tender Hook (2008) and Stoned Bros (2009).  He was nominated for a 2013 Australian Academy of Cinema and Television Arts Award in the Best Guest or Supporting Actor in a Television Drama category for his role as Lenny Brewster in Redfern Now (2012).  He won a 2013 Deadly Award in the Male Actor of the Year category for this role. 

Aside from his work on stage, Luke is best known as one of the presenters on ABC's Play School. He also teaches primary school drama and literacy strategies as part of STC’s School Drama program.  

Sukhjit Kaur Khalsa is a ‪#‎grownwoman‬, hairy, and a storyteller.

You'll find her on park benches dnm'ing with strangers about the evils of the patriarchy or impromptu rapping about Tony Abbott with her best mate. She is passionate about the performing arts and inherently merges her advocacy background with the arts. Sukhjit, from a young age, enjoyed writing pieces and performing them for her family.

In 2014, she performed spoken word to a wider audience at the Australian Poetry Slam Competition, which spiraled into a YouTube Channel titled Contemporary Kaur.

Sukhjit writes stories of the Sikh diaspora, family, cultural confusions, feminism and gender. Recently, Sukhjit took to the stage of Australia's Got Talent and wowed the audience with her honesty. For her, the journey has just begun.

Lesh is a qualified Medical Doctor and is currently working as a Management Consultant at KPMG on the Health, Ageing and Human Services team. Lesh started doing slam poetry in June 2018. As sheer dumb luck would have it, Lesh won his first slam at BPS which, most importantly, gave him the opportunity to collaborate with a group of powerful poets, warrior wordsmiths and just generally amazing human beings as part of ‘Mouthful of Melanin’.

For Lesh, slam is as much about the poetry and performance, the wit and wordplay as it is about the sense of community, solidarity and slamily.

Nieshanka is a performance poet, who loves to speak her mind, share stories and move an audience.  She is currently in her second year of Arts/Law at UNSW, and discovered her interest for performance poetry in high school. This saw her take on the form for her HSC English Major Work, which had the privilege of being published.

Since then Nieshanka has won the 2018 Bankstown Poetry Grand Slam alongside her team, Mouthful of Melanin, and continues to perform at various school and community events for celebrations like Refugee Week and International Women's Day. Her work largely explores the complexities of her Australian- Sri Lankan identity, as well as other socio-political issues which she is passionate about.

Aishah Ali is a fourth-year law and political science student, who began performing spoken word poetry in 2015 as means to release all her HSC stress. Since, her poetry has been published in the BPS Anthology 'The Resurrection', and her work has been showcased by ABC News and the Daily Telegraph.

She's featured at several slam events around Sydney, including Moonlight Feminists, Word-in-Hand, Poetica and enjoys performing at festivals such as Sydney Writers Festival, rallies and working with NGO's such as Batyr. In late 2018, she went on to win the Bankstown Poetry Slam Grand finals with her team Mouthful of Melanin and directed her second short film in collaboration with Amnesty International, which she debuted at the Sydney Jewish Museum, before it was released globally. 

Daiane Moret is a Brazilian woman, spoken word poet, performer and mother. Together with her team “Mouthful of Melanin” she is the current Bankstown Grand Slam winner, she has featured at Poetica, Newcastle Fringe Festival, the International Women’s Day Poetry Salon, Sydney Writers Festival and performs in various open mics around Sydney.