HIGHNESS
Melanie Jame Wolf / Savage Amusement
Australian Premiere
Performance & video series
8pm, Wed 18 Jul
8pm, Thurs 19 Jul
8pm, Fri 20 Jul
8pm, Sat 21 Jul
Video series from 7pm
60 mins
$35 / $30 / $25
Arts House
North Melbourne Town Hall
521 Queensberry St,
North Melbourne
Warning:
Smoke effects
Accessibility:
Wheelchair Accessible
Show Program:
PDF version
Word version
Masterful women, drag superstars, actual monarchs, ageing queers – what makes a queen a queen? Dedicated to every queen you’ve ever met, HIGHNESS parades the regal feminine from the famous to the everyday, shape-shifting through a shining array of queen personas.
Highly performative and visually immersive, HIGHNESS richly considers the work of wearing a crown: its freedoms and limitations; its histories of colony, blood and theft; the trick of appearing born to rule; duty, devotion and spectacle.
Featuring videos made in collaboration between Wolf and UK-based artist Sam Smith, HIGHNESS is part two of the Arch Type trilogy of performance and video works exploring three archetypes of womanhood – the Whore, the Queen and the Hag – which began with Mira Fuchs (Arts House, 2016). Lavish, playful, touching and disturbing by turns, HIGHNESS is for people who love the moving image, people who love pop, people who love performance, people who love women, people who love drag: people who love queens.
“…a dazzling and thought provoking performance with female drag.” tanzraumberlin.de
Australian Premiere
Performance & video series
8pm, Wed 18 Jul
8pm, Thurs 19 Jul
8pm, Fri 20 Jul
8pm, Sat 21 Jul
Video series from 7pm
60 mins
$35 / $30 / $25
Arts House
North Melbourne Town Hall
521 Queensberry St,
North Melbourne
Creative Director, Writer & Choreographer:
Melanie Jame Wolf
Video:
Sam Smith, Melanie Jame Wolf
Sound Designer:
Annika Henderson, Savage Amusement
Set Designer:
Sam Smith
Costumes:
Veronika Schneider
Performers:
Martin Hansen, Ivey Wawn, Melanie Jame Wolf
Supported by – HIGHNESS has been supported by the governing Mayor of Berlin – Senate Chancellery Cultural Affairs; the Australian Government through the Australia Council for the Arts, its arts funding and advisory body; Metro Arts; Schwankhalle Bremen; and the City of Melbourne through Arts House. It was developed through CultureLAB.
Image by – Sam Smith
