HOT Brown Honey has been busy pollinating the world over the past year from New Zealand to Canada and now this fabulously fierce all-female cast of First Nations women have landed at Fringe World.
Director and co-creator Lisa Fa’alafi, aka The GameChanger, said their show was a call to make noise and take down the system wrapped up in a bow with phat beats, colour, culture and controversy.
“It’s a fast-paced rollercoaster ride that will have you laughing ’til you cry and shaking all that ya mama gave you,” Fa’alafi said.
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READ NOW“It’s genre-defying, political theatre you never thought could be so fun or a cabaret you never thought could make you cry.
“HBH is about to set fire to the system and trust us when we say the revolution will not happen without dancing.”
Fa’alafi, whose father is Samoan and mother has English/German descent, was born in New Zealand before her family moved to Brisbane, where she grew up with her cousin Fez Faanana, the creative director and host of Fringe World favourite Briefs.
“Briefs are our brothers from other mothers, our superhero counterparts… it’s like being part of family and for some of us we literally are family,” Fa’alafi said.
“Fez and I grew up together, we made work together for over 10 years prior to Briefs and now he directs the boys and I direct the girls.”
Hot Brown Honey has been in the making for 20 years as Fa’alafi and co-creator Kim Bowers, aka Busty Beatz, toured together working in remote indigenous communities in their 20s and 30s.
“Fast forward to 2012 and HBH was birthed, started by Busty, her sister Candy and myself as an underground movement,” she said.
“After over 20 years of continuing to see not enough brown faces on the stage, let alone in theatre audiences, we decided to make our own platform to make work the way we wanted to make it – filled with brown faces.
“In 2015 Busty and myself decided to write ourselves onto the main stage and we were going to take our very talented sisters with us. Now we tour many months of every year spreading radical fierce love while sharing our stories and giving other women of colour a chance to see their faces on stages reflected back; you cannot be what you can not see.
“Some say art has the capacity to make change in the world, to shift culture, so for us, this is our call – to dance, to shout, to laugh, to cry, to rise up and transform current conversations.
“It will get sticky but we promise, it is totally worth it.”
THE ESSENTIALS
What: Hot Brown Honey
Where: Teatro, The Pleasure Garden
When: February 8 to 25
Tickets: www.fringeworld.com.au