UNFASTEN YOUR SEATBELTS
It’s gonna be a bumpy night! Performance collective, Briefs is coming to Mardi Gras this year with their extravaganza of drag, boy burlesque and circus escapism, says MC Fez Faanana.
The Briefs collective bring you drag, boy burlesque and circus escapism!
DNA: If someone has never seen a Briefs performance, what should they expect? Fez Faanana: To explain it to a Briefs virgin I’d say it’s circus, it’s drag, it’s burlesque, it’s comedy and it’s variety and it’s all wrapped up in a theatrical glitter bomb package. It’s about letting the audiences undo their seatbelts to escape reality and come to this ridiculous world that we create that’s just about celebrating the individual.
Tell us the Briefs story.
We started 11 years ago as a simple club night in a warehouse space in Brisbane that was about celebrating the freak and celebrating performance art and celebrating drag – all the things that live on the periphery.
Brisbane is one of those cities in Australia that is the butt of jokes – that it’s a big country town in a small city – but there was some interesting creative work coming out of that isolation. The drag was interesting and it was pretty punky. The circus acts were really out-there. Making this kind of club night felt like the perfect platform to showcase and celebrate all of that.
Later on, we realised that there were quite a few pockets of these festivals and parties happening around Australia so we just went with our gut. Now, ten years later, we’re a production house that’s still running these club nights and parties but we also produce, develop and present and create physical theatre works, political theatre, and we do shows at festivals around the world from huge events like the Glastonbury Music Festival in the UK all the way through to smaller and more boutique festivals like the Adelaide Fringe. Unbelievably, this year’s festival will be the first time Briefs has performed at the Sydney Mardi Gras, is that so?
As a company we’ve never had the chance to perform at Mardi Gras before, although as individuals we’ve all been involved in the festival in various ways before. We’ve had conversations with Mardi Gras for a very long time but things just never lined up. So, we’re really excited for this year.
What got you interested in this kind of performance to begin with?
I come from a theatre background and I guess I’ve always been on the fringe of that world, being queer, being of colour, being an immigrant, being regional. It was always about cultivating your own spaces and cultivating my own work and so when I found that there was a gap in places for queer folk to go that wasn’t necessarily clean and shiny, it was about being resourceful and making a space that suited my friends and my demographic and it turned out
It’s circus, drag, burlesque, comedy and variety all wrapped up in a theatrical glitter bomb.
that others were interested in that space as well. What can we expect to see of you in the show? I’m the orchestrater, the host, the MC, but also my drag character is very present throughout the show. I welcome you into the space, I break down the fourth wall of the theatre and invite the audience into this party, and then I have the pleasure and the privilege of introducing some pretty extraordinary acts. We have some special guests in this show – Dallas Dellaforce and also Thomas Worrell who are both Sydney performers. Dallas is iconic as Australia’s queen of avant garde drag and Thomas is one of Australia’s finest aerial contortionists. The variety goes all the way from very high-end circus to underground high-end drag and I get to play in and around and amongst all of this anarchy and silliness.
It sounds like pretty sweaty work. Should people in the front row be worried about being in the splash zone?
For Club Briefs we encourage people to get close. It’s variety, it’s cabaret, so it’s about being able to get the flicks of sweat off the performers. It’s about being able to hear then sneeze and being up-close and personal. Circus is one of those amazing things where you get to see everything up-close including the danger, and drag is one of those art forms where you want to see the detail and you want be part of the story telling, and with burlesque you want to be close to somebody when they’re taking off their clothes. I encourage people to get into the splash zone and expect a fun and silly night that’s never about alienating audiences and is always about celebrating and allowing audiences to become part of the show.
With burlesque you want to be close to somebody when they’re taking off their clothes. I encourage people to get into the splash zone.