'Hot Brown Honey' will be playing at the Brisbane Powerhouse as part of the Women of the World (WOW) Festival.
“'Hot Brown Honey' sort of sits in two worlds. So one, if you're talking about form, it's a cabaret with lots of dance, theatre and circus. It’s a party of a night with hip hop, mixed with an amazing set and it'll feel really fun. The other side is that it is a political movement disguised as a cabaret. It's a call to arms for both people of colour and also to everybody, that it's time to take a stand and make a change,” Lisa Fa’alafi, a Creator, Writer, Director and star of the show says.
“So, for us it's our stories on the stage and we are telling the world what it's like to live in Australia as a person of colour, what it's like to be a woman in this world where Trump is spurting vile, vile things. So, it really is our stories, but we're inviting our audience along for a fun ride of change. So it's a fun night out, but there's also a chance, maybe after the show because it's so fast paced, to have a conversation about if you're ready to rock the boat or not rock the boat.”
'Hot Brown Honey' features a line-up of six strong women, “In a way we play heightened characters of ourselves, just for telling our stories. We've got an amazing soul singer who sings 'A Man's World' and we're looking at things like Golliwogs and also what our First Nations people feel about being affected by colonisation. Which all feel very heavy, but the way we present our work through the visual ideas make for a fun night.”
Lisa tells us about the origins of 'Hot Brown Honey': “'Hot Brown Honey' started off like a club night. We were inviting other hot brown honeys from Australia to do a spot at like Red Bennies in Melbourne or a small theatre in Brisbane. Just for fun, because we were sick of not having enough opportunities to showcase our quirky work. And then after that we just said bugger it, let's get down and write this properly and get it out of the club and into the theatre. Let's take it into all the major theatres. So, we really had that in our sights when we sat down to write it at the end of 2014. Then we were able to test it out at Adelaide Fringe 2015.
Image © Dylan Evans
“When we can, when the tour allows, we do a 'Hot Brown Honey' block party alongside our show, so basically we have a week where we find out who's in the neighbourhood and invite other artists to play and share the space with us. It's also a good chance for us to test little things that aren’t in the main show. We do believe that's what we can do as a platform.”
Lisa believes that art has the power to make a change, “It's the one platform where I believe things are truthful to whoever's stories are on the stage. I think art does have the capacity to make change, and that's at the core of what we do and why we do it. We can definitely feel it in different audiences, whether people are taking it on or whether people are just going to see the show and then leave.”
Lisa tells us the one thing that she hopes people take away from seeing her show, “Just that they too can make small changes that will improve the world. If they can just have some empathy and possibly look through other people's eyes. And the other thing for us is just conversations, to keep talking so you can vocalise your thoughts on what Australia is like right now. That helps.”
