Considerable Sexual Licence | Joel Bray
There’s a moment in the middle of Considerable Sexual Licence that is so tonely different from what comes before it that it feels almost shocking to watch. We’d been prepared for it to a degree, but this moment of prolonged brutality, smashes away the light, flirtatious and satirical energy built through the preceding scenes. Joel Bray has something he wants to say with his latest work and he was there to passionately present it to Meanjin, whether we were ready for it or not. His work could never be described as subtle.
Considerable Sexual Licence is the latest immersive and promenade dance-theatre piece from Wiradjuri performer Joel Bray. Joel returns to the Brisbane Festival for the third time to present his latest work, which is as charming and flirtatious and deeply personal and political as his previous shows, Daddy and Biladurang. Once again, he explores topics that he’s passionate about; his connection to his First Nations culture and identity, his Queerness, and explorations of sex positivity. This time however, he doesn’t do it alone, and is joined by powerful Indigenous performer Carly Sheppard, Daniel Newell (aka Dandrogeny) and Nadiyah Akbar to make his most provocative work yet.
I can’t really talk about the show any further without going into spoilers, so if you’d like to see it fresh, best to end here.
Images: Atmosphere Photography
As we entered into an unusually open and warm Powerhouse Theatre space, I knew we were in for something different, something more interactive than most of the other shows in this year’s BrisFest Program. The seating bank has been locked away, and there are scant few places to sit. Instead, we had to mill around a central circular bed under lights and a disco ball, and most punters stayed as close to the walls as they could get. It was a weeknight in Meanjin after all, it takes us a while to warm up at the best of times. I found myself looking around the room and wondered how many people had been drawn to the show from its name and hero images. If you hadn’t seen Joel Bray’s work before, you could have fooled yourself into thinking that you were able to see a titillating dance romp. Oh how wrong those punters would have been.
The nervous glances to the centre of the room continued until the performers entered and spread themselves through the room to welcome us individually and break the ice. As the music started, we gave our Acknowledgement to Country, and the performers beckoned the audience to the centre of the room, into the sacred space. Through some gentle and skilled manoveuring from the performers, most punters in the room was soon grooving. The music began to rise in speed and volume and the energy lifted, becoming celebratory, infectious and even flirtatious.
The ice-broken and punters sufficiently warmed up, the quartet took to centre stage for a crescendo of dance, movement, love, connection and sex-positivity. Dance and partying were showcased as the ritual and connector they are for so many. It didn’t feel forced; it was joyous, without inhibition and shame. I couldn’t wipe the smile off my face. Looking around the room, many felt the same, with the knowing smiles that only the memory of similar experiences can bring.
Images: Atmosphere Photography
Following that glorious release, the mission bells rang and we were forced to stop and sit, as we were thrust back in time. Joel and Carly presented us with scenes of sex as power over, violence, corruption and and control. Showing how far we’ve come from what we’d just seen.
First, Joel shared the only prose of the night, a surprisingly personal family story of his ancestory, a First Nations women was used by a prominant and powerful family in our nation’s history. Left behind and forgotten, they didn’t benefit from that family’s empire.
Then, they delved into their vision of colonial fantasies were replete with repressed passion and hidden and secret fantasies. The juxtaposition with the opening scene was stark. I felt like I’d witnessed a shameful expression of lust and desire that the characters could not shared and celebrated in the way that we’d just celebrated the unbridled passion on the dancefloor.
Thrust further back in time, we were unwilling voyeurs to the worst forms of sex connected to invasion, terror and colonisation. Sex used as power, control and violence. Without consent. Corrupted. Drawn out in front of us. Not a smidgeon of connection, passion or joy is left. A hard-hitting metaphor for colonisation if there ever was one that many of us felt at our deepest levels. It was all too much for a few members of the audience.
When it was finally over, the ensemble gently brought us back, forcing us to move and shake off what we’d born witness to. With the circle re-connected, the performers push away from this trauma, first embracing their own rhythm and style and then reconnecting through movement. They paint each other under black light, their bonds apparent under the glow. In many ways, it felt like both an ode to traditional cultural practices and a wish for more genuine and meaningful connection for all of us as a country going forward. We are left with them coming together in a way that is more gentle, supportive and hopeful.
Images: Atmosphere Photography
Leaving the theatre, I came upon Joel’s Artist Statement about the work. The idea behind Considerable Sexual Licence came in part from a night on the dance floor where a fellow punter flippantly told Joel that the dancefloor was his version of a corroboree. What started out as outrage, cooled with time, and Joel had since learned that Corroboree, or Garabari in his father’s Wiradjuri language, could include both sacred and solemn ceremony and wild and crazy celebration where “Considerable Sexual Licence was allowed”.
While not readily obvious to me while watching, Joel’s artist statement leaves me with a feeling that Considerable Sexual Licence is his attempt to showcase that the reclamations and new celebrations of identify, sexuality, and Queerness are actually society returning to its roots that began long before the lauded sexual revolution of the 60s. That we are finally returning to indigenous ways of expression and being after so many of these norms were brutalised, shamed and hidden away due to invasion and colonisation. I wish I’d read the statement before seeing the show, but I appreciate the thought and meaning behind the creation of the work and his desire to making the implicit, explicit. Contemporary dance companies have rarely provided a deeper explanation of their works that I’ve seen in recent times, and the Artist Statement meant that his piece resonated with me far longer than other dance pieces I’ve seen in recent memory.
As his statement made some of the layers of the work more apparent to me after the show, I’m left wondering if some additional dialogue or sign-posting might have helped to convey his message more strongly. Upon reflection I wondered if the length of the final dance washed away some of the impact of the savagery of the metaphors of colonisation. Howeve, I do appreciate that the ensemble may have wanted to leave the audience with the power of what was and what could be.
Considerable Sexual Licence has stayed with me in the days since I saw it. As with his previous works, I get a sense that Joel is an artist who feels an urgency to convey how his exploration of self, of sexual expression, of his culture and of the make-up of so-called Australia can help the rest of us see behind the colonial structures and binds that have been forced upon us all. I ponder on the impact of the show on those who came for titalisation, and who were impacted far more than they expected. Were some metaphors too in their face and others too subtle? Would more sign-posting and dialogue have helped to convey the messages he wanted to express? Would the norms and variations of expression by the Queer members of the audience be recognised and celebrated by the cishet members? I would have loved to have been a fly on the wall of all these discussions afterwards. I hope there were discussions.
Whatever the case may be, with Considerable Sexual Licence Joel Bray cements his place as a fearless storyteller and provocateur to watch. Through sharing deeply personal stories, he again invites the audience to ponder the personal and societal norms of our country and how the invasion of unceded lands has an ongoing impact on all of us who live here. I look forward to what he produces next.
