Riverside welcomes the world premiere of Zashto? in March as part of SIMA’s Jazz Now Summer 22 Festival. The theme of the Mara! Big Band’s new 60-minute musical suite “Zashto?” (“Why?” in Bulgarian language) is the experience of migration to Australia and the spectre of incarceration (physical and psychological) that has hovered over each wave of migration in the past 230 years. Through the stories of three women who arrived in Australia at very different times in our history, we investigate the fact that deprivation of liberty or trauma has scarred the migration experience of many in our community and we pose the question “Zashto?”

The Sandy Evans Indian Project returns to the Riverside Theatre due to popular demand after a sell-out education season in 2016.