17 July 2026
AYO Momentum Leaders champion intersectionality at NIDA
AYO Momentum Leaders 2026 program kicked off with an illuminating workshop at Sydney’s National Institute of Dramatic Arts (NIDA).
Held across three in-person workshops periods in Sydney and Melbourne, this year’s Momentum Leaders is a collaboration between AYO and ARTS8 partners Flying Fruit Fly Circus and NIDA and is supported by the Ian Potter Foundation. The workshop bought together three AYO participants – composer and violinist Abigail Lui, bassoonist Bailey Ireland and trumpeter Arkie Moore – with circus artist Arabella Renwick and director Madeleine Diggins from Flying Fruit Fly Circus and NIDA, respectively.
The first workshop saw participants acquaint themselves with each other. Coming in, Arkie admitted to some first-day jitters, observing that “none of us have worked, you know, collaborated through these disciplines before.” The nervousness quickly dissipated however, after a key theme was established.
What if?
“Through a workshop, we learnt about two words, which have kind of become a central theme this week,” said Arkie. “And it’s just the words: ‘what if?'”
“And it’s that simple if you ask yourself, ‘what if?’, anything becomes possible.”
Arkie Moore
With those two words, the stage was set for a truly exciting artistic collaboration. For Bailey, the workshop provided an invaluable opportunity to step out of his “usual working environment.” In an on-site interview, Bailey described the working environment as unique, in the fact that it was a chance to “figure out what we’re doing with safe boundaries…to get the opportunity to make mistakes.”
Arkie shared similar sentiments, saying that “you have to come into it with a mindset that nerves are okay” and to be “willing to put yourself out there and bounce off of other people’s ideas.” This workshop is vastly different from a classical musicians usual working environment and required our participants to embrace the unknown.
What can a bassoonist learn from an aeralist?
Though their methods of communicating with an audience may be different, Bailey acknowledged that there was a common thread uniting the AYO musicians with the NIDA and Flying Fruit Fly Circus participants. Bailey observes that “we’re all trying to evoke something or answer something or pose some kind of question.” Through that shared goal, the participants were then able to share their different and unique skills formed through their individual artistry—skills, Bailey notes, that are “are definitely transferable that maybe because we don’t interact, don’t get transferred as much.”
For Arkie, the workshop led her to reflect on her trumpet playing through a new lens. She notes that “as a trumpet player, there’s not a lot of movement involved a lot of the time”, and that by watching the circus artistry of Arabella Renwick, she recognises that movement can be just as an important and beautiful factor in her performance as the sound.
Audience awareness was another central theme of the workshop. Arkie said, “that something else I’ve learned this week is that rather than thinking just about how you portray an emotion [in a performance], it’s how the audience feels that emotion.”
Momentum Leaders continues
The Momentum Leaders program was launched in 2025 and builds on the objectives of the Momentum Ensemble to develop multifaceted, versatile careers in music and cultivate artistic leadership. In 2026, the program draws participants from AYO, NIDA, and the Flying Fruit Circus under the guidance of leading industry professionals. This year’s mentors include performer/composer Erkki Veltheim, artistic director Marshall McGuire and theatre director David Berthold. The 2026 program continues with two more in-person workshops across Sydney and Melbourne, before culminating in the premiere of a new multi-disciplinary work at the Circus Centre Melbourne in November.