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Work Overview
As a kid I loved to dance. When I was maybe three or four I was obsessed with Cher (particularly her auto-tune era) and Ricky Martin; one Saturday morning we must have had on RAGE (Australia's answer to MTV's top-of-the-pops music videos TV show), seen the films to Cher's Believe and Ricky Martin's La Bomba, and gotten so hooked my family recorded them to VRC and purchased their albums. At every opportunity I'd want them played, choreograph a dance routine, and demand the whole family come watch as I performed my recital in the living room.
Not too many years later I became embarrassed by that quirk of my childhood. I had by then grown out of the dance recitals, instead producing complex melodramas acted out with Batman figurines or Thomas The Tank Engine trains (again insisting the whole family came to watch), but every time my mum made the slightest mention of my love of Cher or Ricky Martin I'd plead with her to stop, and as I neared the age where family might make speeches at my birthday, eighteenth and twenty-first etc, I became truly mortified at the thought an anecdote be shared, or worse still, a home video might make an appearance.
I didn't come out till my mid-twenties. In fact, I didn't even for myself come to terms with my queerness till my early-to-mid-twenties. At some point after, having been out for a while and feeling comfortable owning my queerness, I had a realisation about my younger self: that kid was so wonderfully gay. He was so fabulous, expressive, unapologetic and full of joy. Without sexuality/attraction even factoring into it, at some point the world convinced him that boys don't dance, that they're not fabulous or expressive in that way, and even that this was something to be ashamed of. And how tragic is that. I've grieved for the twenty years of light and joyousness that had wasted, and I hope one day I can be as fabulous and free as that young boy dancing in the living room.
Work Details
Year: 2023
Instrumentation: 2 pianos, electronics.
Duration: 18 min.
Difficulty: Advanced
Commission note: Commissioned by Chromic Duo.. commissioned by Chromic Duo, created with support of the Australian Government through the Australia Council, its arts funding and advisory body,
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