Brisbane’s very own Aly Lorén is set to make an appearance at Brisbane’s MELT Festival. The singer, writer and performer will participate in the festival’s Queer Youth Panel.
Aly debuted their musical performance at a young age, and over the years have been involved with a handful of events such as Melbourne’s Fringe Festival. After performing at the Fringe Festival in 2017 and receiving some positive feedback, Aly was quite eager to progress to the next step.
“A couple of mates told me about the festival and I’ve never been to it before, because I lived away for a couple years. But I did Melbourne Fringe last year for the first time and debuted this show,” Aly explains. “We thought: 'Queer festival in Brisbane? Yes, let’s apply', and then before we knew it we got in.
“We got a message from someone from the festival asking if I wanted to be involved with the panel, moderated by Benjamin Law, which is incredible.”
“I am going to be speaking about growing up queer,” Aly says. “I do a lot of talking about this topic and I try to get involved with as much social justice stuff as I can”. They try to be as verbal as possible regarding these issues, and are therefore very excited to be invited to speak. “The panel's going to be great because I can talk sort of not just about me the whole time.”
“I love the whole concept of real human vulnerability,” Aly explains. “I love the concept of just speaking in front of a whole bunch of people. It’s going to be harder to probably share a lot of these stories with people I know from my life that will be coming.”
“I'm excited to challenge myself and I'm excited to challenge other people”.
Aly believes they can bring along real life experience to the Queer Youth Panel. “I’ve just seen so much of what it is to be queer here and it’s because of other people's stories. I really want to have the opportunity to tell the stories and anecdotes and statistics and examples of people growing up and now who have a lot less privilege than I do,” Aly says. “Whether it be non-acceptance from family, whether it be homelessness. Whether it be not being able to be employed because of one's gender expression or being trans or anything like that. I really do want to make sure I’m opening the discussion up to those who are a lot less fortunate than I am.”
Audiences can expect a very intimate show. “You can expect to absolutely know me after this show. If you have never met me, if you’ve never had a conversation with me ever, trust me, you’ll feel like you just did.”
“You’ll feel like you’ve really participated in the show just by being there. I hope that you feel a sense of togetherness and acceptance and hopefully be inspired to be whoever you want to be.”
“I'm so excited to be a part of something so special and bring something home.”
