Archer Asks
James Welsby is a VCA-trained performer, choreographer and producer with a decade of professional experience. His group Phantom Limbs won “Best Dance” and “Melbourne Festival Discovery Award” at Melbourne Fringe 2013. He is the founder and artistic director of the hit internationally touring cult cabaret YUMMY. His drag alter ego is “Valerie Hex.” In Midsumma …
Internationally recognised UK drag queen Velma Celli chats with Belinda Quinn about vulnerability in drag, learning to like your creative self, and her cabaret, A Brief History of Drag.
Archer Asks: video director Triana Hernandez and electronic producer Geryon discuss their collaboration, Nerves
Director Triana Hernandez and electronic producer Geryon had been friends for a year before they decided to collaborate as artists together. Their debut collaboration, a music video made by Triana for Geryon’s new single Nerves, is intimate, visceral and considered in its creation. The track Nerves was prompted by Geryon’s experience going through gender-affirming surgery …
Genderfication: Non Binary ART in a Linear World is the Leftover Collective’s performance of an anonymous Jacobean text from the 16th century that challenges the audience’s understandings of binary gender. All performers have the same speech – however the language pronouns and the structure of each have been shifted. Each speech is now unique, with …
Creatrix Tiara has produced and performed interdisciplinary work in writing, performance art, digital games and music (to name a few) across Australia and the United States. She recently co-produced and performed in all-disabled primarily-queer cabaret Quippings: Not Normcore! in Midsumma 2018 and was a Dandy Minion and Burlesque Dancer for the Helpmann Award-winning 24 Decades …
Sydney performance artist Mish Grigor’s work engages with issues of gender, identity and politics and is an ongoing examination into the intersections between populist entertainment and experimental performance practices. She is one third of the collaboration POST, formed in 2003, with Zoe Coombs Marr and Natalie Rose, whose credits include Oedipus Schmoedipus, Sydney Theatre Company …
André Aciman is the critically acclaimed author of Call Me By Your Name and the sprawling Enigma Variations. Ava A spoke with André at the Sydney Writer’s Festival about the thematic elements he uses to produce his powerful prose and the novel-turned-movie that tugged the world’s heart strings. Ava: Can you speak to the significance of exploring queer, …
Nic Holas is a writer, activist and the co-founder of The Institute of Many (TIM), an advocacy platform and grassroots movement for People Living with HIV. TIM has the largest membership of any HIV organization in Australia. We chatted with Nic to talk about U=U, TIM’s latest campaign aiming to highlight the message that an …
Clarence Chai is a gay Singapore-born Australian fashion designer and vintage clothing dealer. Clarence spoke to Angela Serrano about his work.
In light of his self-released record, Small Cruelties, Melbourne based musician William Hannagan-Mckinna spoke to Archer about the inner-city-queer-millennial-experience, the breakup that instigated the record and his one true love, the club. Your sound epitomises ‘90s house meets queer disco’ and the lyrics deal with many funny and relatable queer-relationship tropes, that feel so relevant. …
Allan Clarke is a Muruwuri man and an investigative journalist with the ABC. He has previously reported for BuzzFeed, NITV and SBS. The Mardi Gras magazine recently published his article about the First Nations history of Mardi Gras, commemorating 40 years of black queer protest and celebration. How important is the Sydney Mardi Gras …
Alex Andrews is an Australian feminist from Melbourne and the Founder of Get Hairy February. Alex is a law graduate who has worked with various social enterprises, while campaigning for issues that are important to her. Alex now studies Kinesiology while continuing to develop her passion for innovative change-making. Tell us about the campaign …
Angela Serrano speaks to Panti Bliss, an Irish drag queen and marriage equality activist.
Samantha X is a British-born, Australian-based, journalist-turned-escort-turned-writer who now also manages her own escort service, Samantha X Angels. When not juggling her own business and client-base, Samantha is frequently sought by the media for her pundit insight into the much maligned and misunderstood sex worker trade. SE: What makes a good client? SX: What makes a good client is reliability, seemingly a …
Krissy Kneen is a Brisbane-based author best known for her erotic fiction, including her most recent novel An Uncertain Grace, published this year by Text Publishing. Stranger in the Dark is Kneen’s ongoing project for Australian literary journal The Lifted Brow, a subscription series of 12 monthly emails being sent out over the course of …
Archer Asks: Justin Shoulder and Bhenji Ra, performance artists and community organisers
Justin Shoulder and Bhenji Ra are two irreplaceable icons of Sydney’s queer scene. They collaborate on projects such as Ex-Nilalang, a genderfluid folklore-inspired video series, and Club Ate, a QTPOC performance arts club space. Sharing a Filipinx-Australian identity, they are performing new work at Asia-Pacific Triennial Performing Arts (Asia TOPA 2017) in Melbourne. Angela Serrano talks …
Rebecca Shaw (aka Brocklesnitch) is a writer, co-host of Bring A Plate podcast and creator of the parody Twitter account @NoToFeminism. She tweets hilarious responses to the sexist arguments about gender equality, complete with shoddy spelling and grammar. She just recently turned her famous Twitter account into a book, No To Feminism. Dani Leever asked her a few …
Member of poetry duo Darkmatter, Alok Vaid-Menon, chats to us about performance, faggotry and being freakishly queer. This is an excerpt from Archer Magazine #7, the THEY/THEIRS issue. Q: How has your trip to Australia been so far? Politically and racially, everyone has a different idea of what’s going on here. US frameworks around race, …
Alex Lahey is a singer-songwriter from Melbourne, Australia who is having a pretty fantastic year. From winning the $7,500 Josh Pyke Partnership and playing on the stages of Splendour in the Grass festival to the release of a seriously successful debut EP, Lahey is getting a lot of love from the music industry. I meet …
JD Samson is best known as a member of electroclash band Le Tigre and the art/performance collective MEN. She helped form the Dykes Can Dance troupe, and contributed to Broadly documentary The Last Lesbian Bars. Lottie Turner interviewed JD Samson for issue #6 of Archer Magazine, which you can buy here for the modest price …
Dale Woodbridge-Brown is a queer Kamilaroi man from Mungindi, trained in acrobatics, flying trapeze, baton twirling, and dance. He joined Circus Oz in 2012, and is the MC for the currently touring Twentysixteen show. A: Being queer, being a Kamilaroi man, do you see your performance, your acrobatics and MCing as a way of giving …
Archer Asks: Cash Savage chats to her wife, Amy Middleton, editor of Archer Magazine
Cash Savage is a country-blues musician and a Melbourne institution. Her new album, One of Us, is currently at #1 on the Australian community radio charts. Here, she is interviewed by her wife Amy Middleton, founding editor of Archer Magazine, about her national tour, being a woman in music, politics and married life. Q: Hi …