Shoot the Sissy (2016)
by Nando Messias
Gasp… Be amazed… Take aim… It’s a live target!
Nando Messias is back with a new work, Shoot the Sissy – his own disturbingly beautiful freak show, a queer menagerie of carnivalesque contortion and florid fantasy.
How many ways are there to shoot a Sissy? Confronting the everyday danger of death inherent in the queer condition, Messias pulls the audience into the firing line. In response to the shootings in Orlando, it is time to reflect on whether ‘queer lives matter’ too.
Following on from his national tour of acclaimed work The Sissy’s Progress, Messias invites you to witness secret insights into the murky depths of doubt, terror and dreams, bringing compulsive gazes closer to the bold fragility of his trademark body — a Sissy body.
Roll up, don’t be shy…. come Shoot the Sissy!
Shoot the Sissy is supported by Chisenhale Dance Space, Outburst Arts, Royal Central School of Speech and Drama, Queen Mary University of London and Live Art Development Agency. Funded by Arts Council England. Photo: Holly Revell.
A previous short version of this work was performed as part of Scottee’s now extinct variety show, ‘Eat Your Heart Out,’ in Edinburgh Fringe Festival, Contact Theatre (Manchester), Marlborough Theatre (Brighton), Hackney Empire, Royal Vauxhall Tavern and Riversides Studios (London).