The Naked Self – Michele Lee & Tanya Dickson

Returning in a specially curated new season, The Naked Self is a beautiful installation that blends both confessional and digital cultures.

 

The Naked Self invites participants to listen to audio portraits of strangers who reveal stories and secrets about their bodies.

 

Participants also have the opportunity to step into a private booth, undress and contribute an audio self-portrait to the growing The Naked Self archive.

 

A voice guides the naked participants through a gentle examination of their bodies and to view themselves in a totally different perspective.

 

Artists Michele Lee and Tanya Dickson explain that The Naked Self is a chance to share in the uniqueness of every body, “There could be thousands of pictures of you online: photographic ‘selfies’ contrived to capture your best angles and features. This is an opportunity to really express how you feel about yourself and your body.”

 

Honest, generous and affecting, The Naked Self was first seen at the Festival of Live Art at Arts House in 2016 where it was described as “a lovely, gentle, respectful piece that carves out the opportunity to listen to and commune with the one thing that never leaves us: our bodies.”

 

Michele Lee is an Asian- Australian playwright and theatre-maker based in Melbourne working across stage and audio. Recipient of the 2018 Victorian Premier’s Literary Award for Drama and the 2016-17 Queensland Premier’s Drama Award for Rice, Lee’s works explore female identity, otherness, intimacy and chaotic worlds (usually through a non-Anglo perspective). She has been commissioned by Malthouse Theatre, Griffin Theatre, Sydney Theatre Company, Next Wave, ABC RN, Darwin Festival, Westside Circus and St Martins.

 

A director, creative producer and graduate of the Victorian College of the Arts, Tanya Dickson has worked with Melbourne Theatre Company, Malthouse Theatre, fortyfivedownstairs, the National Play Festival, Adelaide Fringe,

True North Festival, Red Stitch Actors Theatre, MKA Theatre of New Writing, Next Wave, You are Here Festival and Darwin Festival.

 

 

Duration Allow 30 minutes

Location Arts House, 521 Queensberry Street, North Melbourne

Tickets FREE (for audiences aged 18 years plus)