+3 Interview: If There’s Not Dancing at the Revolution, I’m Not Coming

Posted in EdFestivals 2016, Written Interviews by

“I created this show while studying in New York City and the city is infused into every part of this work. “

WHO: Julia Croft

WHAT: “A rich contemporary performance collage of film scripts, pop songs, advertisements, elaborate costumes and dance all stretched, teased, shattered, and reassembled to challenge the treatment of women’s bodies as spectacle in popular culture. If there’s not dancing… uncovers the collective fantasies underneath these bodies, intervenes and explodes them into feminist confetti.”

WHERE: Summerhall – Anatomy Lecture Theatre

WHEN: 12:05 (60 min)

MORE: Click Here!

Is this your first time to Edinburgh?

Yes. First time. Anticipating a trial by fire. And some great whiskey [sic].

Tell us about your show.

If There’s Not Dancing At The Revolution, I’m Not Coming is a rich, contemporary performance collage of film scripts, pop songs, elaborate costumes, dance and live art, all stretched, teased shattered and reassembled in order to challenge the treatment of women’s bodies in popular culture. It is a wild, anarchic and poetic collision of popular culture texts combined to uncover the collective fantasies underneath female bodies. It unapologetically intervenes and explodes these fantasies into feminist confetti.

I created it because I am angry. It was created as a response to powerful men feel who so much ownership over a woman’s body that pulling a women’s ponytail is “just joking around” and the idea that this does not happen in a vacuum. These actions come out of a cultural context. How we look at women and violence towards women are not unrelated things; they are part of a spectrum. This is about how we look and how our looking is a political act.

I created this show while studying in New York City and the city is infused into every part of this work. I have performed in in 3 seasons in New Zealand, all of which have sold out. Post fringe I am travelling to Mexico to create a new work in collaboration with a Mexican artist. Dancing will tour to Australia early next year and hopefully return to the UK/Europe after that.

What should your audience see at the festivals after they’ve seen your show?

There is a great contingent of shows coming all the way from New Zealand, and my lord I mean ALL the way. Torum Heng’s one woman show, Keep out of my box at the Gilded balloon. She is a brilliant boss lady comedian. Tim Carlson performing his solo One Day Moko about homelessness in New Zealand, also at the Gilded balloon. Arthur Meek performing his solo Hilary Clinton/Young Lover at Summerhall. Come see what theatre looks like at the bottom of the world.

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