Feast Festival’s “Heavier Than Air” forces us to consider the ‘performance’ of LGBTQI teachers in today’s schools.
With the explosion of interest in the experiences of young people in schools, it was only a matter of time until we turned our eyes to the experiences of LGBTQI teachers.
This performance animates transcripts from real-life teachers that ask audiences to critically consider the ‘performance’ of being an LGBTQI teacher in schools. The show is based on interviews with queer and tarns* Australian teachers, and has been devised from those transcripts into a contemporary performance piece that explores experiences of being hypervisible yet unseen in education contexts.
Using the metaphor of paper airplane flight, which models and mobilises efforts to move bodies and identities “heavier than air,” this performance highlights how LGBTQI teachers remain spectral or partial figures in schools that refuse to invite ‘whole selves’ in.
The play charts the journeys of six composite characters including lesbian, gay, queer, MTF and FTM trans* teachers, who confront in diverse ways the challenges, joys, and triumphs of being queer teachers in 21st century Australian schools.
Featuring: Stacy Holman Jones, Anne Harris, Rachel Forgasz.
There will be a free forum panel discussion at Feast Lounge of the Lion Arts Centre Courtyard, starting at 4:30pm. Such discussions are held in order to expand the conversation about how it may be improving for queer students, but queer and trans* teachers are still largely underserved by the education system.
Heavier Than Air
Date and time: Friday 27 and Saturday 28 November, 7pm
Location: Nexus Theatre, Lion Arts Centre Courtyard, Adelaide
Cost: $30/Conc $25
Feast Festival runs annually in November – Check out the full 2015 program at www.feast.org.au.
