AustLit

'Joel Bray has made quite a name for himself inviting strangers into his hotel room for Biladurang. A solo dance cabaret drawing on the creation story of the platypus and his own complicated identity – Blak, white, queer – Joel’s hilarious and bittersweet show won Melbourne Fringe’s Best Performance Award. Since then, he’s been busy performing at major festivals across the country.

'In this YIRRAMBOI World Premiere, Joel is back, and he’s got ‘daddy’ issues. His cravings for father figures and paternal connection – from candy-coated childhood innocence to saccharine queer adulthood – leave him consumed with desire and wanting more. The sugar fixes leave cavities, gnawing away at him. Featuring Joel’s trademarks of disarming humour, dance and unexpected audience participation, Daddy is a confessional laced with lollipop-psychology and the sugar crash of post-colonisation.' (Production summary)

'A dark, funny and intimate solo work by dancer, choreographer and proud Wiradjuri man Joel Bray, performed for an up-close, bathrobe-clad audience in a hotel room.

'Inspired by a period of upheaval in his life, and loosely based on the Dreamtime story of the Biladurang – the platypus – the winner of Best Performance at the 2017 Melbourne Fringe is a sexy, tender and affectingly autobiographical piece of dance-theatre about heritage, identity and yearning for home.

'As a gay man meeting middle-age, a dancer toiling at the peak of his powers and a Wiradjuri man with ties to Israel and country Australia, Bray took a long look at his life and wondered, “Who am I?” In Biladurang, he chases his demons and goes soul-searching in the neutral space of the hotel room, inspiring audience members to chat, drink and dance together as he weaves his story across every part of the room.'   (Production summary)