Performance / Mates & Lovers
- Queen of the Whole Universe
- Sing Out Choral Concert
- Fairy Stories
- The Idea Of America
- Tomboi
- Confessions of a Drag Queen
- Drumdrag
- Mates & Lovers
- Xerxes
Mates & Lovers
by Ronald Trifero Nelson
Dates: 8-12 March 2011
Times: 6.30pm, 90 mins
Price: $35/$25
Tickets can be purchased online, by phone at or in person at Downstage?s box office. For up-to-date information visit www.downstage.co.nz
Based on the book by Chris Brickell
The untold lives of our brothers, sons and fathers.
This work presents sexually explicit situations, images and language.
Mates & Lovers takes you on an intimate yet bold celebration of our whakapapa and our hidden history.
Based on Chris Brickell's Montana award-winning book Mates and Lovers: A History of Gay New Zealand, recent Toi Whakaari Masters in Directing graduate Ronald Trifero Nelson is bringing the critically acclaimed Mates & Lovers to Downstage.
Meandering through pre-colonial to the 21st century Aotearoa/New Zealand with a perfect blend of humor and pathos, Mates & Lovers includes exhilarating new choreography by Taiaroa Royal (Tama Ma) and an evocative original score by Samuel Holloway.
Performer Paora Taurima has toured extensively nationally and internationally with several contemporary dance companies and has appeared in TVNZ?s Rude Awakenings. Paora will be joined by Simon K. Leary, a recent graduate from Toi Whakaari. His solo performance The Election was based on the complex relationships and sexual politics in NZ high schools, and received excellent reviews.
Mates & Lovers had a sell-out season in Wellington at BATS Theatre in 2009, with John Smythe declaring it ?memorable and haunting, evoking a hitherto hidden strand of our history and whetting our appetites? - John Smythe, Theatreview.
"Mates and Lovers on stage is a brave work well realised. It speaks to us. It entertains us and even manages to educate us a little too. Because it is us" - Jay Bennie, GayNZ
"This is important theatre"- Jack Gray, Theatreview
"Warm-hearted, cheeky and hot-headed" - Janet McAllister, NZ Herald
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