Residency: Echoes in the Pavement

Presented by Blue Joy Theatre Company and SPACED with support from the City of Belmont.

May - December 2026 // Various Venues, City of Belmont

An outdoor, devised theatre and cross-disciplinary project that explores micro-gestures of memory, care, and resilience in overlooked public spaces.

Led by multidisciplinary artists Mohammed “Ayo Busari”, Shelby McKenzie, and Ken Meyer, the project combines performance, movement, sound, immersive design, and community engagement to uncover the emotional and social dynamics embedded within public space.

The residency centres lived experience, intergenerational storytelling, and collaborative creative practice, asking how performance and community engagement can transform familiar environments into spaces of reflection, connection, and visibility. Rooted in community storytelling, their site-responsive research focuses on liminal everyday sites, footpaths, bus stops, laundromats, and street corners, where people pause, pass, and persist.

Running across the City of Belmont from May-December 2026 as part of SPACED KTN#4: Gestures.

Creative Team

  • Mohammed ‘Ayo Busari’

    Creative Artist

    Mohammed “Ayo Busari” (he/him) is a Nigerian-born, award-winning interdisciplinary artist, Creative Producer, composer, and writer based in Boorloo (Perth), Western Australia. A defining voice in the state’s performing arts sector, his work spans theatre, music, poetry, and immersive live performance exploring belonging, migration, identity, and joy. He is co-frontman of TAB Family, recognised with the 2025 FRINGE WORLD Award for Music & Musicals and R&B/Funk/Soul Act of the Year at the WAM Awards, alongside a nomination for Electronic Producer of the Year. His solo practice fuses spoken word, movement, and live sound, with his forthcoming EP Joy & Balloons exploring Afro-fusion, EDM, and house. Ayo is the founder of Mobus Entertainment and Blue Joy Theatre Co, co-founder of The Outsiders, and currently serves at The Blue Room Theatre while sitting on the boards of Regional Arts WA and WA Youth Theatre Company.

  • Shelby McKenzie

    Creative Artist

    Shelby McKenzie (she/they) is a performer, director, and movement artist who graduated with First Class Honours from WAAPA’s Bachelor of Performing Arts (Honours) in 2022. Their published thesis Moments in Performance; developing an aid for articulation and reflection examines embodiment in live theatre and reflects their research-led practice. Shelby builds character through movement methodologies including Laban Movement Analysis and Bogart’s Viewpoints, developing extensive physiological understandings of character to support an outside-in approach to performance. A bilingual/bimodal artist studying Auslan, they are committed to inclusive and accessible theatre-making that broadens pathways for performers and audiences alike. Recent credits include Il Trovatore with West Australian Opera at His Majesty’s Theatre and The Twelve: Cape Rock Killer.

  • Ken Meyer

    Creative Artist

    Ken Meyer is a German-born, German/Japanese multidisciplinary artist based in Walyalup (Fremantle), working across digital and physical media. With a background in graphic design and photography, his practice integrates sculpture, projection, light, and sound to create immersive, contemplative installations that shift perception and reveal unseen forces shaping human experience. He explores metaphysical and scientific ideas around consciousness and how art influences attention, connection, and collective experience. His recent work Where the Light Rests featured in Fremantle Biennale 2025: Sanctuary, alongside exhibitions including Diffusion, Interference, and Relic. Ken holds a double Bachelor of Arts from Curtin University and was selected for The Lab in early 2025, strengthening the collaborative foundation that now unites the trio’s shared creative future.