Emele Ugavule is a Tokelauan, Uvean, and Fijian storyteller, working as a performer, writer, director, producer and educator. A graduate of the National Institute of Dramatic Arts, she has worked with various artists and organisations across the Pacific. Her work centres on Indigenous Oceanic storytelling, exploring themes of temporality, memory, kinship, and knowledge transmission. She is the founder of Studio Kiin, an Indigenous-led creative studio and collective, serves as the Creative Director of Talanoa, a platform dedicated to Oceanic digital storytelling, and is represented by Liberty Artist Management.

Emele’s developed and produced theatre work include Kalaga Atu (Commissioned by the Art Gallery of NSW), Toe Fai! (Commissioned by BLEED Festival + Arts House), Ancestor Incarnate (Arts House and IIML), Talaucaka (Te Whaea Theatre), I am always with you (Playwriting Australia), Goodbye, Papa (Playwriting Australia).

As an orator, Emele has spoken at the NZ Young Writer’s Festival, We’re All Going to Die Festival, Pasifika Film Festival, presented at international events such as the United Nations AI for Good Summit in Zurich, Switzerland and Nuit Blanche in Tkaronto, Canada, and she was the Toi Hourua keynote speaker at the Aotearoa Digital Arts Symposium in 2024.

Emele’s essay writing has been published in The Pantograph Punch, Transmediale, SBS Voices, Seismic Temporal and her poetry has been published in Cordite Poetry and Everything That Moves, Moves Through Another.

In 2019, Emele directed Dance Rites: Meet the Dancers for Sydney Opera House. Her documentary series supported by Pacific Media Network, Pūlotu, is currently in pre-production, set for release in 2025.

Her accolades include the Creative Australia and Creative New Zealand Digital fellowship in 2022, Create NSW + Think + Do Foundation In other words residency in 2021, Critical Path Digital Residency in 2021, and Ignition Initiative Playwriting Australia in 2020. In 2024, she was a Read NZ Pōkai Tuhi writer, selected for Playmarket NZ’s Brown Ink intiative, and was the first Melanesian Emerging Pasifika Writer in Residence at the International Institute of Modern Letters, Te Herenga Waka.

Emele has tutored at the Western Australian Academy of Performing Arts and the National Institute of Dramatic Arts and currently she is a senior tutor at Te Kura Toi Whakaari o Aotearoa: NZ Drama School.