OUR STORY
It began with a festival.
Before WAFF Collective, before The Living Room and before French Holiday Program, there was Bonjour Perth Festival.
Bonjour Perth Festival and the first steps of Perth French Theatre shared the same impulse: bringing people together around French culture, creating something locally, and seeing what could grow from it.
Over time, that impulse became something broader: new ways to experience language, art and culture together in Perth.
Along the way, other things happened.
Not everything became a permanent program.
There were Le Bal champêtre and Le Bal masqué. Canapé Surprise, and Poetic Splash, spilling poetry into the streets of Subiaco
Some lasted for an evening. Some returned. Some simply left a strong memory behind.
But they all came from the same desire: to take culture out of its usual frame and create moments people could step into, share and make their own.
Some ideas stayed and grew roots
Perth French Theatre became a place to make theatre in French, to train, perform and build something together over time.
French Holiday Program brought that same belief in language as something lived, played with and shared into a space created for children.
And Our Living Room opened things out again: stories, readings, exhibitions, gatherings and collaborations, with more room for other languages and other communities to enter.
They are different projects, with different rhythms and different people around them.
But they are held together by the same instinct: make something with care, open the door, and let each project find its own form.
WAFF Collective is the name we now give to all of it.
Still becoming.
WAFF Collective is not the end of the story.
It is a way of bringing together what has grown over the years, while leaving room for what has not been imagined yet.
New performances. New gatherings. New collaborations. New languages around the table.
The shape may change. The impulse remains the same: create something, invite people in, live it together.