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EMMA



         FRANKLAND






         HEARTY COMES
         TO TRANS PRIDE






























                                          BY STUART ROLT


      Performer, TV actor and award-winning theatre creator   Indonesia  and  the  UK.  Travelling  with  her  six-year-
      Emma  Frankland  has  focussed  her  energies  on   old  in  Indonesia  last  January,  Frankland  spent  several
      discussing gender and identity. Her latest work, Hearty,   weeks living with Bissu shamans. “Bissu come from
      asks questions about how trans experiences are framed.   the trans community, so it was incredible to see them
      Now  it  comes  to  the  Marlborough  Theatre,  as  part  of   valued amongst their society.” This followed a previous
      Trans  Pride.  As  a  locally-based  artist,  she’s  delighted   trip where she worked with trans women in Jakarta and
      there’s an established season dedicated to the work of   Yogjakarta. “I have also spent time with trans and travesti
      trans  performers.  “That’s  ground-breaking,”  she  tells   women in Brazil at the brilliant SSEX BBOX conference
      me. “The Marlborough are the UK’s only all-year-round   and with 2Spirit and trans women in Canada. All of these
      LGBTQ theatre venue and the support they give to trans   experiences have made me realise how connected this
      artists sets such a great example. It allows me as an artist   experience is, despite our immense cultural differences
      to push further in my work, rather than always feeling the   and privileges” Conversations with all of these individuals
      work needs to also explain what being trans means.”  aided her in creating Hearty’s unapologetic commentary
                                                on what it means to be a trans woman in 2019.
      Hearty  stands  as  the  final  work  in  her  None  of  Us  is
      Yet a Robot project. Over the last seven years this has   Visually  it’s  a  striking  show.  Frankland  wears  a  long
      explored change, gender and the politics of transition,   prosthetic rat tail and metal wings constructed from
      creating ground-breaking performances and workshops   knives, as well as a slogan T-shirt that is an appropriation
      for the trans community in locations as diverse as Brazil,   of  one  of  Germaine  Greer’s  trans-exclusionary  hate



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