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What's On

Enemies of Grooviness Eat Sh!t

Betty Grumble

Presented in Season 2 2023

Presented by Arts House and Melbourne Fringe
Produced by Performing Lines

Tuesday 17 – Saturday 21 October
8.30pm

90mins

Post-show artist talk
Wed 18 October for all ticket holders 

Auslan Interpreted Performance 
Wed 18 October

Saturday 21 October
Performance followed by HIPHOPHOE

Tickets
Standard $35
Reduced $20
BLAKTIX $10
A small transaction fee will be charged per order. 

Warnings
Strictly for ages 18+  

Energetic Considerations: Strobe, Incense burning, Loud music, Full Frontal Nudity, Death, Grief, Sex Scenes (masturbation), Love energy, Rage energy, Discussion of Violence, Intimate Partner Violence, and Sexual Violence, Hope energy and more full frontal de-clothed body!   

We acknowledge the power to be able to speak truth to power and invite you to take care of yourself and your stories within this work.   

Detailed access information is available to download below
PDF | Word Doc

Program available here

Arts House
North Melbourne Town Hall
521 Queensberry St,
North Melbourne

Assistance Animal
Auslan Interpreting
Companion Card
Quiet Space Available
Visual Rating 50%
Wheelchair Accessible

“Grumble does not belong to me, she belongs to the universe. Like the fractal landscape of a flower, like a drag face on the bum of a caterpillar. She has held me, and at this threshold of maturation, I let her become and unbecome me. Thank You Body!” – Emma May Gibson (aka Betty Grumble)  
 
After a decade of playing within her spiritual access point and avatar, Betty Grumble performance artist Emma Maye Gibson re-emerges, bringing her latest offering Enemies of Grooviness Eat Sh!t back to the stage as a mantric wish.  

Across the season, Gibson returns Grumble from whence she came, performing an unfurling of the eco-feminist seeping carapace that gave her a way to heal, feel and defy the damn enemies of grooviness that keep her, them, you, all of us down.   

Conjured as an antidote to the ever-present cultures of violence and ecocide, Enemies of Grooviness Eat Sh!t is poetry, a tribute, a rock n roll performance art collision, love scene and revenge fantasy. An unshaming dance and chance to allow ourselves to be seen, it is a sensual, surreal and sublime experience of an all singing, dancing, howling and loving cabaret du Sex Clown.   


“A deeply embodied and genre-defying mix of dance, music, poetry, clowning, drag, aerobics, and cabaret.” – ABC   

“Funny, filthy, deeply felt, unapologetic, full-frontal….She reclaims pleasure and joy as a pathway to catharsis, and parallels the personal with the political.” – Time Out  

“Transformative and WILD. See Grumble” – Peaches  

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About the artist

Emma Maye Gibson (AKA Betty Grumble) is a Sydney based performance artist. Largely through the avatar/war mask/love letter/critter of Betty Grumble she engages her body as a medicinal site of performative catharsis, often in a genre smash of ritual physical theatre, cabaret, performance art and multi-media. She is a proud ecosexual and believes in the spiritual powers of live space. She has her Masters in Fine Arts/Arse and has presented work at Dark Mofo, The Sydney Opera House, Sydney WorldPride, Glastonbury, Edinburgh Fringe, Perth & Adelaide Fringes, The Melbourne Comedy Festival, The Festival of Dangerous Ideas, Belvoir St Theatre, The Bearded Tit, Vivid Sydney, Brisbane Festival, Darwin Festival, Berlin Fringe and beyond. She believes in the flesh riot and is currently engaged in developing a new work under the guidance of mentor Annie Sprinkle in her world-saving trilogy of performance ceremony.
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Artist statement

Enemies is a radical re-worlding and wilding of a performer’s body and avatar using dynamic acts of ritual theatre, performance art, music, and poetry. It flies in the face of censorship and taboo around women’s bodies and how they are meant to behave. Enemies confronts violence under an eco-feminist lens, harnessing rage and hope energy as weapons and medicines in the battle/quest for justice.

Enemies is an ongoing womanifesto that includes all bodies in a crusade for recognition and response-ability, a work that exists as a healing balm and road map for action in times of inaction and paralysis.

Enemies is mother and child. Maiden and Crone. Madonna and Whore. Flower and Weed.

We live in a country where one woman a week is killed by their partner, where governing bodies make policy with homicidal outcomes.

Who are the Enemies and how do WE Groove?

Who has the power? What do we do if we can't take it back?

A dance before the police come.

A governmental composting.

All Welcome.
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Credits

Creator: Emma Maye Gibson
Performers: Betty Grumble & Megana Holliday
Dramaturg / Art Doula: Victoria Spence
Original Dramaturgical Team: Dr Vivienne Linsley, Charlotte Farrell & Dr Annie Sprinkle
Care Consultant: Stella Delight
Sound Design: Betty Grumble & stereogamous
Pussy Print Flag: Ms Saffaa
Costume Design: Matthew Stegh / Haus of Helmutti
Lighting Design & Operator: Alex Torney
Producer: Performing Lines

Enemies of Grooviness Eat Sh!t is produced by Performing Lines. This project is supported by the NSW Government through Create NSW; the Australian Government through the Australia Council for the Arts, its arts funding and advisory body; and was originally supported by The Red Rattler Theatre. This project received Cash to Create through the Fringe Fund, with thanks to the Pulse Giving Circle.

Presented by Arts House and Melbourne Fringe
Produced by Performing Lines

Tuesday 17 – Saturday 21 October
8.30pm

90mins

Post-show artist talk
Wed 18 October for all ticket holders 

Auslan Interpreted Performance 
Wed 18 October

Saturday 21 October
Performance followed by HIPHOPHOE

Tickets
Standard $35
Reduced $20
BLAKTIX $10
A small transaction fee will be charged per order. 

Warnings
Strictly for ages 18+  

Energetic Considerations: Strobe, Incense burning, Loud music, Full Frontal Nudity, Death, Grief, Sex Scenes (masturbation), Love energy, Rage energy, Discussion of Violence, Intimate Partner Violence, and Sexual Violence, Hope energy and more full frontal de-clothed body!   

We acknowledge the power to be able to speak truth to power and invite you to take care of yourself and your stories within this work.   

Detailed access information is available to download below
PDF | Word Doc

Program available here

Arts House
North Melbourne Town Hall
521 Queensberry St,
North Melbourne

Assistance Animal
Auslan Interpreting
Companion Card
Quiet Space Available
Visual Rating 50%
Wheelchair Accessible

Image credit: Joseph Mayers 

Image description: A surreal image of performance artist Betty Grumble with many arms, legs and heads, tossing her hair around wildly. She is a caucasian woman in her 30s and in the image she is awash with purple light while wearing a white and silver custom jumpsuit in a cowboy style. The many limbed effect is created with multiple exposures layered on the one image, giving the effect of frenzied movement.