Tashka Urban

Musician.
Tashka’s passion for music is leading her to central Queensland to teach songwriting and instrument making.

 
Tashka recently attended the CONTACT ACADEMY: A multi-arts series of professional development workshops for emerging artists – run by Contact Inc and held at Visible Ink Valley. We asked a few questions about her experience.

Why did you come to the contact academy – what were you hoping to gain?
It was an amalgamation of Art forms.  A mix of great people.  A chance to try different things & meet new people.  Since I also conduct workshops for a living myself I am always interested in seeing how other’s are running & to open my mind to fresh ways of doing things.  This is the first time in my life I’ve spent time & lived in a City, with events & opportunities like these everywhere, so I’m lapping it up like crazy – soaking in as much as I can get!!!
I thought Contact Academy was one of the best run workshop serious I’ve ever been to… it’d be great to have an overview of the whole workshop timetable again & the names of all the facilitators who we worked with so we can look them up!

What is your arts practice interest and what would you like to be doing with it in Brisbane?
My Arts practice in short is music, but I’d say it is more about facilitating others to channel themselves through creative expression.  I teach piano/singing during the week & travel conducting workshops for projects a few times a year.  For example, I have been working in Indigenous communities facilitating story through singing/recording/filmmaking workshops since 2006.  In 2 weeks I am in remote north QLD with the J.A.M crew (Join Australian Music) in a great collective of muso’s facilitating songwriting, instrument making & industry development to remote schools, some of which don’t even have a music teacher!

After moving from Alice Springs to Brisbane, really what I’d like to be doing here is exactly what I’m doing, but more of it!  Immersing myself & immersing others.  I am hoping to step it up a notch & get more work on more projects & events.  I love working with other amazing people & arts collectives towards shared vision.  I have a lot to share & can add many levels to projects.  I am very interested in how we can be doing things differently & actually engage with each other & community in a way that not only makes it sustainable but also puts it into the people’s hands so they themselves become the art. Contact Tashka   tashka@humancanvas.net