Shining a bright light on living with HIV
One-man show tackles ignorance surrounding disease
Written and performed by Jacob Boehme, Blood on the Dance Floor is a mix of dance, theatre and storytelling. Its message: you can be HIV-positive and live a normal life.
“We’re lucky now, particularly in Western countries,” Boehme said. “For me, it’s two pills in the morning. What’s complicated is when people have no understanding of it. That misunderstanding can breed stigma or ignorance.”
Blood on the Dance Floor is a co-presentation from DanceHouse, SFU Woodward’s Cultural Programs and the Talking Stick Festival. Boehme originally developed the show as part of a writing lab hosted by ILBIJERRI, an Australian theatre company dedicated to work by First Nations artists.
A Melbourne-based dancer and writer, Boehm identifies as gay, black and HIV positive. Blood on the Dance Floor is based on his experiences, and draws on his background as an Aboriginal from the Narangga and Kaurna nations of South Australia.
“One thing that came out of all of this was that, because HIV is a blood-borne virus, questions about my blood obviously arose,” he said. “I had started to tap into my ancestry and my heritage. As a dancer, my formal training was working with traditional dance, and looking at our ceremonies and stories for answers in how I’d lived, and how I’d be.”
In putting the show together, he and collaborators Mariaa Randall (choreographer) and Isaacc Drandic (director) “looked at working with elements of ceremony and traditional storytelling and dramaturgy.”
Blood on the Dance Floor is a series of theatrical vignettes with sound and video design, choreography and narrative. One sequence depicts Boehme in silhouette against a red-and-black backdrop of moving blood cells. Another scene is played out between Boehme and his father (Boehme plays both parts).
Blood on the Dance Floor marks Boehme’s writing debut. He started out as an actor, moved into dance, and eventually “landed in puppetry for awhile” before starting to write.
“A few inciting factors” inspired him to write the work, he says. "The piece had always been there, burning and bubbling away and wanting to come out.”
But 2013 was the 30th anniversary of the first case of HIV in Australia, and was the 15th anniversary of Boehme’s living with HIV. “And I was about to turn 40. Those three things spurred me into action.”
Blood on the Dance Floor premiered in 2016 in Melbourne and went on to play Sydney. In Melbourne, it was awarded Best Independent Production at the 2016 Green Room Awards. The Sydney Herald called the show “a song … of resilience and hope — a tragicomic fumbling toward the possibility of love.”
The show’s current Canadian tour marks its first performances outside of Boehme’s native Australia.
Boehme sees benefits in taking his message on the road.
“Other people with HIV can see themselves onstage without being portrayed as sick or dying, because I’ve lived with it now for 20 years,” he said. “So there’s that. But then it’s also a catalyst for conversation and education.”
He notes that “HIV is very different now.” Approved in Australia and Canada, PrEP is a medication that can reduce the risk of HIV transmission. U=U is an international campaign detailing how effective medications are in preventing sexual transmissions of HIV.
“These are important things that people need to be aware of,” Boehme said. “HIV isn’t a death sentence. It’s a manageable thing.”
Blood on the Dance Floor addresses this, Boehme said, “in the sense that you’re seeing a very ordinary man onstage with problems like your own, who just wants to be loved.”
HIV isn’t a death sentence. It’s a manageable thing.”
Playwright Jacob Boehme