Get moving and check out - Black Face/White Mask: A Play About Transforming Identity
We chatted with the team at Western Edge Youth Arts and The Flemington Theatre Group who are presenting Black Face/White Mask: A Play About Transforming Identity next Thursday at 8pm. It’s a free production in Flemington, which should be both entertaining and confronting.
Here are the main details.
What
Black Face/White Mask: A Play About Transforming Identity
When
Thursday 14 October at 8pm
Where
Flemington Community Centre, 25 Mount Alexander Road, Flemington.
How much and bookings
Tickets are free on the door
Best train or tram stop:
Flemington Bridge Train Station
Now here are some questions we asked them about the show.
Tell us a bit about your organisation?
Western Edge is a non-profit organisation established in 1993 to provide positive arts and performance experiences for young people from diverse cultural and social backgrounds living in the western suburbs of Melbourne. The Flemington Theatre Group is an emerging company of young, predominantly African theatre makers.
What will people see when they come to your show?
Black Face, White Mask is a fast-paced and confronting play by a new theatre company - The Flemington Theatre Group - whose members are predominantly from Horn of Africa backgrounds. Directed by Dave Kelman and Cuong Nguyen, it showcases a new cultural voice from Melbourne’s Inner West. The play focuses on the lives of eight young people and what it means to be Afro-Australian as they confront casual racism and family tensions. It is fast, funny and in your face, exploring the complexity of contemporary Australian society from an Afro-Australian perspective with a direct, challenging blend of drama and comedy.
How long have you been working on this show? And what’s been involved?
The show is the culmination of six years of theatre in education programs Western Edge Artistic Director Dave Kelman has run at Debney Park Secondary College with culturally diverse, recently arrived and ‘at risk’ young people from the Flemington community. Following their graduation from high-school in 2009, a group of these young people from predominantly African backgrounds decided to start their own theatre company (The Flemington Theatre Group, or FTG) with Western Edge’s support. Black Face, White Mask was originally performed in July 2010 to capacity audiences at the Incinerator in Moonee Ponds. Following the show Western Edge and the FTG were approached by Arts Victoria, the Department of Planning and Community Development and Flemington Neighbourhood Renewal to restage the production as a means of engaging Flemington youth in contemporary issues associated with the renewal program in 2011.
Where did you draw your inspiration from for this show?
The show blends the FTG’s own life stories and experiences as Afro-Australians with their reading of post-colonial theory (particularly Franz Fanon) and love of soccer.
In 10 words or less why should people get moving and check out your work?
The most exciting, challenging new performance group in Melbourne.
What was your biggest challenge along the way?
The FTG have faced a myriad of challenges along the way, however the biggest challenge at present is bringing culturally diverse youth theatre to the attention of the mainstream Australian art world.
Where will we see you next?
Western Edge and the FTG are currently planning Identity Tales, a large scale, big budget theatrical and multi-media production scheduled to premier in mid-2011.
