Star children’s entertainer Emma Memma to end her Dance Island Party tour with special Toowoomba show

Emma Memma's Dance Island Party tour will conclude with an exclusive filmed performance in Toowoomba after overwhelming demand from Garden City families.

Award-winning children's entertainer Emma Memma will touch down in the Garden City for her Dance Island Party tour on November 30, 2025. Photo: Emma Watkins

Award-winning children’s entertainer Emma Memma is set to end her Dance Island Party tour with a very special show in the Garden City.

The Empire Theatre show on November 30 is extra special for Emma and her crew, with the show set to be filmed and uploaded to the Emma Memma YouTube channel.

Dance Island Party will be Emma Memma’s second time performing in Toowoomba, after high demand saw her add one final show to the tour.

Creator Emma Watkins said the feedback she received from her Highfields shows last year was overwhelming, placing the Toowoomba region among the biggest Emma Memma supporters in the country.

The all-inclusive show provides a marine adventure full of music and dance, embedded with sign language principles allowing an immersive experience.

Toowoomba's youngest are in for a treat with the Empire Theatre show to include fan favourites Elvin Melvin, BB Butterfly, Waffles the Wombat and Memma Mates. Photo: Emma Watkins

Ms Watkins said the inclusion of sign language principles had been a major part of Emma Memma and her team’s development over the past three years.

“Preschoolers between the ages of zero and six are using visual communication a lot more than spoken language if they even use spoken language, so it’s crazy why we would do arbitrary movements in my perspective,” she said.

“So now with me, we really don’t do it unless it’s related to the song and you can see instantly that we don’t really leave anyone behind in the audience.”

When Ms Watkins first began the Emma Memma journey, she was essentially the only one in the team who could communicate with her co-performer Elvin Lam, who is profoundly deaf, with her whole team now able to sign.

“Our team has embraced that challenge and it’s been of their own accord to find their individual way to communicate with Alvin, which is really special,” she said.

While there are some schools that incorporate Auslan as part of their education, Ms Watkins said she would like to see the education system introduce it in more schools across the country.

“There is a huge systemic change that needs to happen because of course we really want Auslan to be brought to children from deaf professionals and that really requires support from the education system to encourage them into roles as our teachers,” she said.

“At the moment we don’t have that many deaf teachers (in education) because some of them don’t have qualifications because they may never have had the opportunity to go to university because they weren’t allowed to submit assignments in sign language.

“It’s a deeply rooted change that does need to happen, there’s some of the most amazing teachers in Australia and I think it’s our responsibility to get behind them.”

Tickets to the Empire Theatre show are available here.