A subterranean deep dive into myth, motherhood, and misfit identity.
Liminal Theatre and Performance returns with a fierce new theatrical work, in collaboration with performer Georgie Durham and directed by Draf Draffin: The Selkie Project.
The Selkie: a creature of myth; a seal who removes her sealskin to taste human pleasures for a night. But when a man steals her sealskin, she is imprisoned on land, grotesquely animal and bewildered, caught in the wrong skins of woman and mother. After she escapes back to the sea, her misfit, hybrid daughter — the only one of her kind — is left alone to navigate an inheritance of grotesque femininity, intergenerational trauma and displacement.
Giving a virtuosic one-woman performance, Georgie Durham portrays both mother and daughter, in a spiraling, sensual descent through myth and memory, which ends in a blazing celebration of the freedom found in being a misfit. Poster Image: Steven Mitchell-Wright
The project has allowed writer and actor Georgie Durham to critically explore her own experience as a woman, mother and daughter. She says: “I really identified with the myth of the selkie. What I found magical was that, hundreds of years ago, the communities who passed the myth on to successive generations were clearly going through the same sort of struggles I’d been going through, trying to accustom myself to new identities as mother and adult daughter, while at the same time trying to hold on to my own sense of self.”
A visceral blend of poetry and punk, this show is brought to life by an award-winning creative team: Ivanka Sokol’s immersive video projections surround the stage in living imagery, and Meta Cohen’s ambient sonic design is punctuated by the thrashing of Stella Delmenico’s live electric guitar.
Liminal Theatre and Performance is a Green Room-award winning company of artists led by artistic directors Draf Draffin and Mary Sitarenos. After a hiatus of several years, in which the artists pursued individual goals, Liminal has returned to create this new show, collaboratively devised using a methodology developed by Draffin through decades of practical research.
June 12 – 21
Tickets: https://www.eventbrite.com.au/e/the-selkie-project-tickets-1110898179359
