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Queer New World 
Northern Connections
Riley Theatre 
Friday 11th March

The Programme Note
 

A work-in-progress that combines dance, drag and poetry to explore what parts of ourselves we hide from the world, and what parts we feel we can show. What we have to destroy in order to survive, and what we desperately reconstruct. What we perform for others, and what's left after the show's over.

 

Inspired by the moments shared on disco dance floors and on the makeshift stages of D-I-Y cabarets. For this work Jake collaborated with the poet/performers Brendan Curtis and Day Mattar, of Liverpool-based poetry collective Queer Bodies. This solo will be developed into a full-length work.

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Writing and Choreography: Jake Evans

Movement & Rehearsal Direction: Stefania Pinato

Poetry Mentors: Brendan Curtis & Day Mattar

Dramaturgy: Harry May-Bedell

Lighting Design: Mark Baker

 

Costume: Jake Evans

Wig: Miss Blair

Jacket: Lord Whitney

‘The Plea (Be Tender)’ recorded by Rory Ballantyne at Bidston Observatory, Wirral

 

“Some will say that all we have are the pleasures of this moment, but we must never settle for this minimal transport; we must dream and enact new and better pleasures, other ways of being in the world, and ultimately new worlds.” - Jose Esteban Muñoz

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The Interrogation

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Did your laugh sparkle like a diamond necklace? Was your pitch too high? Did you voice slink itself onto the pavement, and stain it cherry red? Did you flick your limp little wrists too freely? Did you love the company of girls a bit too much? Did you stare at that boy too long?  Did you focus on his lips? Don’t you love men being rough? Don’t you crave the intimacy of a clenched fist? 

 

Admit it, 

 

Didn’t you want to lie limp in the grass and for those boys in black Reebok trainers to kick the man back into you? Didn’t you deserve it? Where’s your backbone? You fail at man and you at woman, what’s left? Who could love someone like you? Who could hold you without you crumbling to a pile of ash?

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You’re nothing but a body an apology.

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The Plea (Be Tender)

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Be tender with me, please

Be tender

 

Allow me softness, a mother’s touch

Give me surrender, into a warm chest

 

So that my skin forgets my bruises

That my fists unclench my rage

That my ribs uncage my breath

 

Be gentle with me

 

Allow my limp wrist, small frame, and swish of my hips

Permit me the lavender streak in my hair

Let me play with mum’s lipstick and throw like a girl

Give me nothing to prove or measure up to

Allow the fake strength to melt away and 

Leave me quivering, but honest

Forgive the pride inside me slowly swallowed by shame 

 

I know in my weakness I need to be brave

But please

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Be tender with me

Be tender with me

The Unfinished Manifesto

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I want to be violently gay

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I want to be so visible, I’m everywhere, like coca cola 

I want every kiss on your favourite tv show to be a gay kiss 

 

I want to chaotically mince, and flounce, and prance

I want every time I moan in orgasmic ecstasy to be a battle cry 

I want it to be deafening

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I want to slay kings and queens

I want to ruin empires with a flick of my lithe, delicate wrist

I want to be beat you up if shove your straightness in my face just one more time

I want to kill for my rainbow flag

 

I want to stop you promoting your straight agenda in schools

I want to protect queer children from the straight lifestyle

I want to campaign for an anti-straight propaganda law 

I yes do want a person with HIV for prime minister

I want to infect the world with the courage to accept themselves for who they really are  

 

I want straight pride to be just one boozy day in summer, cos gay pride is the whole fucking year, baby

Is that too much to ask?

I want to invent a closet for straight people to come out of

Instead of a closet it’s a binbag - just kidding

I want to love and exist through seeming contradiction 

I want a world where 7 billion of us can be more than 2 genders

I want to rule cryptocurrency with my own version, BitchCoin

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And I want to kiss every single one of my friends on the mouth

I want to have really great sex, and I want to deserve it

I want every wee I have to be a sit down wee

And I need safety and comfort

I need to community and family

And not feeling alone

I need to hold and be held

And I need all of you to need it too

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