Donations made in support of Ride or Die before or on Thursday 22nd October 2026 (AusArt Day) will be matched dollar-for-dollar up to $5K!
Ride or Die is a queer interdisciplinary performance created by Cheryn Frost and Emma Kew that explores the death of the heterosexual norm as a gateway to awakening a truer, liberated queerness. Centred around a car, the work turns this symbol of transportation into a space of transformation - a metaphor for the end of heteronormativity and the birth of something new. The vehicle becomes a portal through which we explore life’s rites of passage - first loves, road trips, breakups, coming out and death.
Part interactive installation, part performance, audiences are invited to reimagine the car as a confessional booth, a dance floor, a shrine or a grave, transforming it into a site of intimacy, transition, and revelation.
Your support will bring Ride or Die to Liveworks in 2027!
Cheryn and Emma say:
"We think some of the most exciting work happening in Sydney right now is coming from performance artists who are willing to step outside the usual rules of theatre-making - working across disciplines, challenging expectations and making work that doesn’t fit neatly into a box. That’s what we want Ride or Die to do. Risk-taking is a privilege in the current arts economy. Support through AusArt Day gives us more room to experiment, build something technically ambitious and make the kind of weird, generous, boundary-pushing work that might not otherwise get the chance to exist. If you’re excited by artists making bold new work - we’d love you to get behind Ride or Die."
About Cheryn Frost and Emma Kew
Cheryn and Emma are a creative partnership driven by conceptually bold, hyper queer site-specific work. Their practice is rooted in experimental performance and shaped by responsiveness to unconventional spaces. As a duo they have credits across performance, drag, directing, writing, lighting design, curating and producing and have presented work for Performance Space (Queer Development Program), Dark Mofo (Night Mass), Biennale of Sydney (Here Here), Bundanon (Not So: Blue Light Disco), Bondi Festival (Heavy Lifting), MCA (Artist Ball) and The Bearded Tit.
Cheryn and Emma are part of the 2026 Experimental Commissioning Consortium; a new multi-year, multi-organisation initiative that scaffolds independent artists to make and present ambitious work. In 2025 they were the recipients of the Steven Cummins Residency for Performance Space. As individuals they are also accomplished artists - Cheryn was the recipient of the Moogahlin Performing Arts First Nations Scholarship for the Queer Development Program 2020/2021. Other credits include Queer Woodchop (Liveworks), Brolga: A Queer Koori Wonderland (Performance Space), Volcanoes & Vulvas: The Exploration of My Two Greatest Loves (Redline Productions/The Old Fitz) and Hydraulic Fucking (PACT).
Emma recently presented her sold-out return season of Notes On A Scandal: Folie A Deux (Qtopia Pride Festival) and consistently collaborates with award-winning production companies including ATYP (Straight Panic), film collective, Studio Antics (Venus Baby, Buff, Dykes on Bikes - An Origin Story, Single & Winona) and Stage Mum (Dough!, Truly Madly Britney & I Still Haven't Found What I'm Cooking For).
About Performance Space
Performance Space is a hub for experimental artists in Australia and the Asia Pacific to explore contemporary practice. For more than 40 years, we have invested in and worked with artists in generative ways, providing a platform for the development and presentation of radical and genre-defying art and performance. We offer development opportunities as they grow, creating pathways to the sustainable practice in the creation of experimental art, often over multiple years.
We champion First Nations, culturally and linguistically diverse, and queer and gender diverse artists, providing platforms and dedicated spaces for self-determined development and presentation.
Ride or Die is art that we want to amplify, and we can't wait to share it with you at Liveworks!
Yes
Yes, as soon as your donation is processed.
Performance Space acknowledges the Gadigal people of the land we work on as the traditional custodians of this place we now call Sydney. We acknowledge the significance of Redfern as a place of change, resistance, resilience, and refuge for many communities, and as the birthplace of Black theatre in this country, and that we hold that history and honour it in what we do at Performance Space. We pay respect to all First Peoples Elders (past, present and emerging) and recognise their strength, wisdom and creativity.
Donations made in support of Ride or Die before or on Thursday 22nd October 2026 (AusArt Day) will be matched dollar-for-dollar up to $5K!
Ride or Die is a queer interdisciplinary performance created by Cheryn Frost and Emma Kew that explores the death of the heterosexual norm as a gateway to awakening a truer, liberated queerness. Centred around a car, the work turns this symbol of transportation into a space of transformation - a metaphor for the end of heteronormativity and the birth of something new. The vehicle becomes a portal through which we explore life’s rites of passage - first loves, road trips, breakups, coming out and death.
Part interactive installation, part performance, audiences are invited to reimagine the car as a confessional booth, a dance floor, a shrine or a grave, transforming it into a site of intimacy, transition, and revelation.
Your support will bring Ride or Die to Liveworks in 2027!
Cheryn and Emma say:
"We think some of the most exciting work happening in Sydney right now is coming from performance artists who are willing to step outside the usual rules of theatre-making - working across disciplines, challenging expectations and making work that doesn’t fit neatly into a box. That’s what we want Ride or Die to do. Risk-taking is a privilege in the current arts economy. Support through AusArt Day gives us more room to experiment, build something technically ambitious and make the kind of weird, generous, boundary-pushing work that might not otherwise get the chance to exist. If you’re excited by artists making bold new work - we’d love you to get behind Ride or Die."
About Cheryn Frost and Emma Kew
Cheryn and Emma are a creative partnership driven by conceptually bold, hyper queer site-specific work. Their practice is rooted in experimental performance and shaped by responsiveness to unconventional spaces. As a duo they have credits across performance, drag, directing, writing, lighting design, curating and producing and have presented work for Performance Space (Queer Development Program), Dark Mofo (Night Mass), Biennale of Sydney (Here Here), Bundanon (Not So: Blue Light Disco), Bondi Festival (Heavy Lifting), MCA (Artist Ball) and The Bearded Tit.
Cheryn and Emma are part of the 2026 Experimental Commissioning Consortium; a new multi-year, multi-organisation initiative that scaffolds independent artists to make and present ambitious work. In 2025 they were the recipients of the Steven Cummins Residency for Performance Space. As individuals they are also accomplished artists - Cheryn was the recipient of the Moogahlin Performing Arts First Nations Scholarship for the Queer Development Program 2020/2021. Other credits include Queer Woodchop (Liveworks), Brolga: A Queer Koori Wonderland (Performance Space), Volcanoes & Vulvas: The Exploration of My Two Greatest Loves (Redline Productions/The Old Fitz) and Hydraulic Fucking (PACT).
Emma recently presented her sold-out return season of Notes On A Scandal: Folie A Deux (Qtopia Pride Festival) and consistently collaborates with award-winning production companies including ATYP (Straight Panic), film collective, Studio Antics (Venus Baby, Buff, Dykes on Bikes - An Origin Story, Single & Winona) and Stage Mum (Dough!, Truly Madly Britney & I Still Haven't Found What I'm Cooking For).
About Performance Space
Performance Space is a hub for experimental artists in Australia and the Asia Pacific to explore contemporary practice. For more than 40 years, we have invested in and worked with artists in generative ways, providing a platform for the development and presentation of radical and genre-defying art and performance. We offer development opportunities as they grow, creating pathways to the sustainable practice in the creation of experimental art, often over multiple years.
We champion First Nations, culturally and linguistically diverse, and queer and gender diverse artists, providing platforms and dedicated spaces for self-determined development and presentation.
Ride or Die is art that we want to amplify, and we can't wait to share it with you at Liveworks!
Yes
Yes, as soon as your donation is processed.
Performance Space acknowledges the Gadigal people of the land we work on as the traditional custodians of this place we now call Sydney. We acknowledge the significance of Redfern as a place of change, resistance, resilience, and refuge for many communities, and as the birthplace of Black theatre in this country, and that we hold that history and honour it in what we do at Performance Space. We pay respect to all First Peoples Elders (past, present and emerging) and recognise their strength, wisdom and creativity.
