* Winner 2021 Green Room Award for Best Physical Performance! *
CONSIDERABLE SEXUAL LICENSE is a large scale work that had its Australian Premiere at Yirramboi Fesitval 2021. Through gentle and carefully staged interactivity, this contemporary performance invites participants to consider the impacts of colonisation on ideas and expressions of sex, sex positivity, consent and societal queerness.
Through a fellowship at the National Library of Australia and consultation with Elders, Joel researched the ceremonies of his people — the Wiradjuri of Central NSW. RH Mathews, an anthropologist embedded with the Wiradjuri when Joel’s people were still living traditionally, wrote in an article: "During the night preceding the taking away of the novices, considerable sexual license is allowed...".
What if sex positivity, queer sexuality and polyamory was a part of pre-contact Indigenous cultures?
The work is a promenade work for a Black Box space with no seating, with four performers. Joel Bray, Indigenous performer Carly Sheppard, Drag royalty Daniel Newell (aka Dandrogeny) and Nadiyah Akbar . (Niharika Senapati original cast member).
The creative team: Stephen Nicolazzo - Collaborating Director, Katie Sfetkidis - Lighting Designer, Daniel Nixon - Sound Designer and Nathan Burmeister - Set and Costume Designer.
CONSIDERABLE SEXUAL LICENSE extends promenade and participatory practices and thematics from Joel’s previous works (Biladurang, Daddy) to create a space of both safety and provocation for audiences. The work manifests as an immersive dance-theatre experience performers weaving storytelling, dance and space for audience participation to ponder a past (and perhaps an imagined future) of the sexual ecology of Australia before the Coloniser and the Bible.
This project was supported for its premiere presentation at Northcote Town Hall by Darebin Arts in May 2021, for Yirramboi Festival.
2022 season - Brisbane Festival, September 15 - 17.
Photos by Bryony Jackson.
Considerable Sexual License has been supported through
2019 - Creative Victoria VicArts
2019 - City of Darebin Speakeasy
