ABOUT US
Outback Theatre for Young People (OTYP) delivered our first project in 1989, from the back of a ute in Hay, NSW. In the more than 35 years since, we have evolved into an organisation that succeeds in our unique context through both embedded and sustained engagement with our communities, and by producing quality artistic outcomes that share the story of our place.
We are a lean yet mighty machine that has been refined and positioned to provide remote, rural, and regional young people with access to professional arts experiences that are developed in their communities and for their communities, in a responsive and agile way.
We deliver authentic, meaningful, and affirming outcomes across a 30,000 square kilometre regional footprint in the Southern Riverina of NSW and extend, through our Outback Outreach program, to the Far West and Northwest of the state. The rural communities we live and work in are spread across vast plains and farmlands with limited services, and minimal permanent arts infrastructure.
We are responsive, transformative, and adaptive, and we value the telling of rural stories, by rural young people, for rural communities, that only our unique regional context provides.
OUR REACH
Our work extends across the NSW Southern Riverina and covers an area of approximately 30,000 square kilometres and more than eight Local Government Areas (LGAs).
From Booligal in the north to Bunnaloo in the south, from Balranald to the west to Berrigan in the east, our footprint is larger than Belgium and approximately half the size of Tasmania!
Our Outback Outreach program (also known as Regional Arts Connect, running since 2016) sees us embedded across three other remote NSW community areas: Broken Hill and Wilcannia; Lake Cargelligo and Condobolin; and Bourke and Walgett.
OUR GOALS
- To champion young people in everything we do.
- To develop relevant, authentic, diverse and innovative arts projects which reflect and connect our people, our culture, and our places.
- To manage and grow relationships and partnerships and seek opportunities for collaboration.
- To guarantee viability and sustainability through effective, efficient and adaptive governance and leadership.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT OF COUNTRY
Outback Theatre for Young People acknowledge all First Nations peoples as the traditional custodians of the unceded land on which we live, work and meet. We pay our respects and gratitude to all ancestors and Elders, past and present.
We acknowledge the traditional custodian groups of the lands across which we live, travel, work, and play: the Yorta Yorta, Wemba Wemba, Baraba Baraba (Perrepa Perrepa), Wiradjuri, Wadi Wadi, Nari Nari, Madi Madi, Yitha Yitha, Barindji, Barkindji, Danggali, Wiljali, Barundji, Wongaibon, Gunu, Barranbinya, Wailwan, and Kamilaroi.
We honour the First Nations cultural and spiritual relationships to the land, waters and sky.
Always was, always will be.
