ARTISTS TESTIMONIALS
EMMA on the DA approach:
I'm someone who steps in both worlds, because my background was in classical performance and then my reality has been in queer cabaret worlds but I've always kind of existed in both. So I feel very comfortable to code switch between the two, but recognizing that not everyone was. ... What happens if we give the kind of the you know here are some of the themes that we've been excited by. ... You know, ‘oh my god look here is historic evidence of queerness!’ What happens if we give that as a concept and then just let the artists do their own thing? ... bringing the idea of classical performance into the world of queer cabaret.
Emma on her goals for the cabaret:
My vision for it has always just been to stand back and let the artist do what they want to do. I'm always a big fan of commissions that don't like put too many impositions on the artist because I think then you start to you start to affect maybe what the outcome is going to be. So I'm excited. I think we've engaged with five really engaged with five different artists, five really talented artists, fairly established artists mostly. So I'm excited because I think what will come back will be brilliant. And then I'm interested to see what happens and what feels different for the artists, given that they've been offered more support in this process than perhaps one would usually have creating a cabaret act. Like, oftentimes making cabaret performance, ... you're drawing inspiration from yourself, so it's interesting to see what happens when that comes from a brief. It's interesting to see what happens when that comes with a bit more of a budget, with a bit more rehearsal time, ... excellent technical support – all things that aren't always there within the world of Queer Cabaret.
Prince on sharing resources:
Through working with this act and having the resources that we do, for example, like, one of the many resources that we have is like the budget for a costume. I've been able to give a startup designer the opportunity to design me a costume in a way that I've never been able to before. I've really wanted that to happen. I love wearing suits on stage, but I've always had to make work what I could get my hands on. But this time it's being completely designed for me, with the thought of this act and the history of the context of me being Persian... it's amazing to be able to do that.
Prince on the working process of DA in Cabaret:
My usual creative process is very in the moment, very dependent on where I'm at in life, what I want to create. And suddenly it gets done within a few days, and I work hard on it. But this time those few days have been like chunked into like four months. ... So also, I've been telling everyone about it. And everyone's so excited and, like, conceptualizing it a lot. So there's been basically a lot of room to think it through with other people in a way that I haven't been able to do before, and it's made me realize that in the past most of my acts. I haven't talked it through other people. ... it's always been in my head. .. But this time it's been really nice actually to talk to you guys about it, have the sessions that we had the resident days the opportunity to have these workshops and meetings with each other, and to speak about it. Speak it through with people. My goodness, it's been revolutionary.
Prince on the workshops:
I think, the way having the resource of having those workshops at each other really helped feel like this project was as much as it is independent, but also collective. ...It eased us into it. So there's like this, start point, midpoint, end point. I really find that helpful, whereas in comparison, I feel like if those workshops didn't take place in the beginning. I feel like it would have felt a lot more lonely, very, very different to what it is turned out to be.