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 The fluidity of gender and sexuality is the theme of dancer Sofia Woods’ new show, Blurred Lines, writes Evelyn Hartogh.
With more than ten years performance experience under her belt and numerous dance degrees and master classes, Sofia Woods’ new solo trapeze and dance work, Blurred Lines, takes the audience through multiple transformations as she morphs from a high femme to a butch to an androgyne to a drag king.
“I identify as a dyke but I am very open to the possibility in sexuality, as in anything,” Sofia says.
“As for my gender identity, I identify as a femme and I like to play with other aspects like butch and drag king.”
In Blurred Lines she does just that, changing costumes and personas live on stage with “suit and tie, a pair of lovely, lovely black high heels and neutral underwear”.
Many Brisbane circus, dance and drama fans will already have delighted to Sofia’s highly physical and cutting edge performance in her work with Brides of Frank, Vulcana Women’s Circus, and Circa (formerly Rock n’ Roll Circus).
And with her girlfriend and performing partner, Divo, Sofia also acts in the circus and dance duo Switch.
Sofia admits being in a relationship with your performance partner can be tricky. “It is hard work, we are both very good about compartmentalising the relationship and our work – like making sure we talk work in meetings to keep the balance”, she says.
Sofia and Divo fell in love first and then later, “we got interested in what each other were doing in performance”, and the circus/dance duo Switch was born.
The women recently returned from a whirlwind tour of the UK, and for Sofia the highlights were “seeing what a huge and diverse queer scene they have in London - people who are very fluid with their gender and sexuality [with] all sorts of kinds of ideas around this that I hadn't even thought of”.
“We had a fantastic gig in this great venue called The Horse Hospital in London, which was part of LGBT history month. [There was] about 150 people crammed into this space and it was one of those gigs where the audience were so engaged. We had old style vaudeville singers, a FTM transman called Lazlo singing about his pussy, a beautiful queer boy called Snake Boy who does gorgeous Indian dance and a man singing about falling in love with a Dalek!”
In London Sofia and Divo discovered “that there were so many thriving places for queer performance”. However, the gigs were “still underpaid [but] they were well supported by the community and really allowed Switch to begin more of a reflective dialogue with our audiences”.
She discovered there were “a lot of people making beautiful work out there, particularly queer performers, but that we are still limited to performing in marginalised space”.
Sofia’s advice to advice to young queer performers is to be “be visible and get support ... I struggled to get funding as a queer performer – I could get funding as a dancer but there is nothing for queer performers”.
“I believe if you make work which is queer – don’t be afraid to say it is queer - be very out about it and talk to people including industry professionals – don’t be afraid to ask questions”.
Blurred Lines runs from Wed August 6 to Sat August 9 at the Brisbane Powerhouse. For bookings, phone (07) 3358 8600 or visit www.brisbanepowerhouse.org
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