Sydney 2002 needs your body

Sydney 2002 needs your body

The organisers of the Sydney 2002 Gay Games opening ceremony have put out an anguished call. They need your body -“ whatever shape it’s in -“ plus your unbridled enthusiasm -¦ plus whatever dancing/acrobatic/ performing skills you may possess.

But it’s not just your body they need. They’re hoping to get 3,500 volunteer bodies to help stage what they say is going to be a spectacular curtain raiser for the Gay Games on 2 November.

Auditions and registrations for opening ceremony performers will take place at Petersham Town Hall on Saturday and Sunday of next week, and according to artistic director Ignatius Jones, everyone is welcome.

No one will be turned away and no one should be frightened of this, Jones said. It’s going to be fun.

Organisers need four categories of volunteer: three types of dancer (professional, advanced and basic) and another group -“ whom we might call, not unkindly, the spear-carriers.

We’ve got a place for anyone who wishes to be part of it, Jones said. When you do an arena show there are a hell of a lot of different things going on.

The Dykes on Bikes will make an appearance as part of the ceremony, Jones said, although he hinted that they would be featured in a different way than they are in the Mardi Gras parade.

The challenge here is to work with the usual suspects, but to do so in a wonderful, fresh, new and creative way, he said. We are reflecting on who we are, how we got here and where we’re going. We want to be very representative, but in a very creative way.

Performer auditions for lesbian and gay community parties are not unusual, but this will be by far the largest cattle call of talent in queer Sydney’s history. Detractors say these auditions favour the young, cute and big-breasted, but Jones stressed that he was looking for a diversity of body types.

There will be some routines which will be full of your alpha body types. In other routines we’ll make the varied nature of what we’ve got a feature, he said. We are after gays, bis, dykes, straights, fatties, furries, every fetish category. It is important that we do that. One of the great things about doing an arena show is that you’ve got much more of a capability to showcase an entire community, rather than just one body type. I think it’s really important that it is representative of the community as a whole, and we can do it in such a way that it is wonderful.

Joining the 3,500 volunteer performers for the opening ceremony will be a number of big-name performers. This week, The Daily Telegraph suggested that Jimmy Somerville and kd lang had signed on for the opening ceremony gig, but Jones said he could neither confirm nor deny their involvement.

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