At the end of August this year The Banff Centre in partnership with Red Sky Performance showcased the premiere of Backbone (2015) is an Indigenous dance piece crafted to depict the idea of the mountains being the spine of the Americas. With a troupe of mostly Indigenous dancers, the show unfolded brightly with a Fijian dancer  placing the South Pacific on stage. I felt right at home. The lights lowered, the atmosphere changed and movement began immediately. The choreography poured through intense and high energy technical pieces that favoured the male dancers. The muscular physiques led into fast sequences, dramatised within the theatre environment and moving effortlessly from one excerpt to the other. Backbone was dreamt up by the Director of Indigenous Arts Sandra Laronde and was produced in collaboration with Jera Wolfe (Co-Choreographer) and Thomas Fonua (Faculty/Co-Choreographer). With a strong presence annually in Banff, Fonua is featured in many of the photographs that advertise the Banff Indigenous Dance Residency and his role as faculty and performer has allowed him to form strong relationships with …

Agnes Dean was a cabinetmaker. That’s a somewhat startling piece of information when you consider the detail. A woman and with the name Agnes, would put her back somewhere in the early part of the twentieth century. Furniture making, of course, was the preserve of men, along with all the other ‘manly’ professions. To be born female and in 1920 or thereabouts would be a recipe for the predetermination of one’s role, clearly defined and limited to the narrow confines of domestic help, nursing or occupations of similar ilk. But Agnes broke the mould in conservative England where social parameters were rigidly set and strictly followed. What helped Agnes Dean was the fact that her foray into an exclusively male domain happened during the war years where all the traditional gender roles, of necessity, were, at least temporarily, abrogated. Men in large numbers conscripted for war meant shortages on the home front which were filled by women, who kept “the home fires burning”. Thousands worked in munitions factories for which Rosie the Riveter was the …

BRIEFS FACTORY/BLACK HONEY COMPANY (AUS) Presented by Brisbane Festival & Briefs Factory in association with Judith Wright Centre Through word-of-mouth recommendations and a fortuitously available spare ticket, I viewed the critically popular all-female (and one drag queen) production Hot Brown Honey.  Created by performer and dancer Lisa Fa’alafi, the show addresses and attempts to redefine cultural stereotypes, often with a less than subtle criticism on patriarchal colonial systems and their trappings.   The first irony that I notice, as the audience filled into the theatre, was that a majority of the patrons were not brown skinned.  I was aware that HBH was written to inform people about the issues that accompany cultural stereotypes, but dually conscious that this production didn’t hold back in regards to vocal criticisms of white Australians.  As one of the audience members at my table pointed out though, the performers of HBH had a fabulous and perhaps intended opportunity – to reach people who are often the main perpetrators of cultural misunderstandings.  This ironic tension lasted throughout the show – with …