Blak Cabaret

BLAK CABARET 10 – 22 FEB 2015 FORECOURT

Malthouse Theatre and SummerSalt present

BLAK CABARET *** 10 – 22 FEB 2015 FORECOURT *** Concept and Creative Producer / Jason Tamiru Text / Nakkiah Lui Staging / Matthew Lutton Directing Consultant / Michael Kantor Set & Costume Design / Chloe Greaves Sound Design / Jed Palmer Dramaturgy / Mark Pritchard Performers include / Kamahi Djordon King as Queen Constantina Bush and Nikki Ashby Musicians / Deline Briscoe, Emma Donovan, Kutcha Edwards, Bart Willoughby

Malthouse Theatre would like to acknowledge the people of the Kulin nation on whose land this work is being presented.

Presented in association with SummerSalt Outdoor Arts Festival 2015.

Proudly supported by VicHealth Arts About Us.

A note from Matthew Lutton Australia has a long history of vaudeville and political satire.

On stage, on screen and over the airwaves, we love to laugh at ourselves. And from the first televised Aboriginal comedy Basically Black (1973), to the film BabaKiueria (1986) to last year’s Black Comedy, there’s a growing canon of work from Indigenous artists taking Australian history and politics to task using satire.

Blak Cabaret is the brainchild of producer and provoker Jason Tamiru. The work was first presented in 2012 at the Melbourne Indigenous Arts Festival in a variety format – with a cheeky MC and an extraordinary cast of Indigenous musicians, dancers and comedians – and has been touring regionally ever since. But for this special incarnation at Malthouse Theatre, Jason imagined a version with an epic satirical narrative at its core: the story of reverse colonialism, where a ‘blak’ queen arrives and declares her newly found land terra nullius; where natives are white and require protection from their own culture; where white culture is dispossessed, exoticised, and a play thing for politicians.

Nakkiah Lui was the writer with the wit and bravery to realise this vision, and she set out to write five savagely satirical vignettes for the legendary alter ego of Kamahi Djordon King – Constantina Bush. She would become ‘Queen’ Constantina Bush, our blak queen, and four of Australia’s greatest musicians (they should be considered blak royalty) were invited to perform their most moving and empowering songs in and around Queen Constantina’s romp through time. The result is a new Blak Cabaret with bite.

We must never forget the brutal history of this country and the ongoing effects of colonialism, and never stop thinking and dreaming of possible futures, but we must also never forget to laugh – to engage, to listen and to crack open the big ideas, to be empowered, by laughing at ourselves.

Matthew Lutton / Staging

COVER IMAGE //

Andrew Gough & The Sisters Hayes REHEARSAL IMAGES //

Sarah Walker