Indigenous Helath and Wellbeing: Culture, Context and Colonisation

Empowerment through Performance

KEY MESSAGES:

• A great way to communicate

Friday 14:00-15:30 QUEER GIFTED AND BLAK 3: INDIGENOUS GAY, LESBIAN AND QUEER EXPLORATION OF FAMILY THROUGH PERFORMANCE

Margie Fischer, Feast Festival
Raymond Zada & Kym Wanganeen, Violet Buckskin, Moolagoo Mob
Tempestt Summer-Lovett, Marlin Pascoe

Contact: info@moolagoomob.com; margiefischer@ozemail.com.au; www.moolagoomob.com

PRESENTERS’ BIO:

The presenters are a number of the performers involved in the Queer Gifted and Blak 3 project. All are members of the lesbian and gay Indigenous community in Adelaide. Some have extensive experience in writing and performing, others have experience in developing audio visual presentations others are emerging talents. The work created for this project is all original on the  theme of family and being queer from a personal perspective.

ABSTRACT:

Queer Gifted and Blak 3 is a performance based project involving 8 gay, lesbian and queer SA Indigenous community performers exploring the theme of family. Come and see what we did and where we are heading. Feast, Adelaide’s GLBTQ Arts and Cultural Festival was established in 1997 and has become a leading Australian Queer Festival. Feast has always acknowledged and actively pursued the strong link between creativity, self expression and health and wellbeing of individuals, groups within the queer community. Feast initiated community cultural development project have been an integral part of Feast since its inception. QGB3 follows on from a number of previous Feast Indigenous CCD projects with performance outcomes including Blak'N'Out1 and 2 and three QGB projects. QGB3 brought together a group of queer Indigenous performers, dancers, songwriters, musicians and  storytellers to work towards a performance outcome around the theme of Family. 7 of the participants are emerging performers, one established. An Aboriginal Project Coordinator Naomi Hicks was employed as Project Coordinator, Margie Fischer, a member of the Feast Board, was the project mentor. Indigenous GLBTQ people have many issues of coming out to their families, being accepted by their family, issues that have rarely been explored creatively. They also create their own families and have children. This project culminated in series of original songs, both digital and live storytelling, comedy and dance focusing on Family. There was a large audience for the performance including Elders, family, friends and both Indigenous and non Indigenous queer community members. The show was stunning, groundbreaking, moving and of a high artistic standard. This presentation allows you to meet some of the artists involved, hear about the process from their point of view and enjoy some of the showmed during Feast 2009 at the Feast Hub.  There was a large audience for the performance including Elders, family, friends and both Indigenous and non Indigenous queer community members. The show was stunning, groundbreaking, moving and of a high artistic standard.  This presentation allows you to meet some of the artists involved, hear about the process from their point of view and enjoy some of the show.