If you can’t stand the heat, get out of the way of Hot Brown Honey. Cityscape braves the flames to find the best way to decolonise and moisturise.

Who is Hot Brown Honey? There’s Lisa Fa’alafi, aka The Game Changer. Lisa is a powerhouse performer as well as the co-writer, director, choreographer and designer of the show. Hope One is our internationally renowned beatboxer and a connoisseur of the dance move “The Pony”. Ofa Fotu is The Myth Slayer. She is a multidisciplinary artist with a killer voice. Crystal Stacey, aka The Peace Maker, is our outstanding aerial hoops artist. Elena Wangurra, aka The Soul Soother, is our off-the-hook dancer, with styles from hip hop to indigenous contemporary. And then me, Busty Beatz. I’m the musical director and composer as well as being the Queen Bee. Then there is The Hive Who Comes Alive. We call her The Mother.

You fuse socially and politically charged themes with high-octane performances – is it difficult to find ways to express your ideas without losing the message and meaning? We like to call Hot Brown Honey a genre-defying, theatrical explosion. Some have referred to the work as hard to describe, some say it’s energised theatre, others say it’s the best pumping political party in town and will have you dancing out of the building! We haven’t found ideas difficult to express because everything in the show is a part of our lived experience as Black and Brown Women, as women from global First Nations heritages, as Women of Colour intersecting on the stolen land known as Australia. We have made deliberate choices in how we use particular forms, and play on preconceptions of genres such as hip hop, burlesque and cabaret to lure in with humour and satire. We then wow with skill and execution and finally slap with the hard stick soaked with reality – our reality.

As a collective, do you have a method for how you collate your ideas for the show? When Lisa and I decided to write this work, we were really clear about the fierce artists we wanted to be involved and their multi-layered, genre-defying skills, from beatboxing to dance to circus to singing. We also knew they were artists with connections to activism and having something to say about the world we live in. Working with these phenomenal women we have developed some really specific frameworks for collating ideas, the main method being laughing and eating together.

What is one thing you hope audiences take away from your performances? We hope people come away from the show feeling empowered to do something. While we use this platform to tell our stories, we are also inviting audiences in, teasing them into interrogating their own views. We ask them to stand and shout, to make noise, and we hope to inspire change no matter how big or small by confronting our similarities and celebrating our differences.

What inspired Hot Brown Honey to form, to push boundaries and to challenge societal norms? Just by existing as fierce Black and Brown Women, we push boundaries and challenge norms! We exist on the edges, fringes and margins so the mainstream gates remain closed to us on many levels. However it’s on the edges that we create vital art. It’s on the fringes that we critique the status quo, dismantling and redefining our identities through brilliant creativity. As artists we have decided that the stage is our battlefield, it is our playground and it is where we can reimagine and create our world, tell our stories, use our voices and reclaim our bodies. Hot Brown Honey is our attempt to break through those gates and have a party while doing it!

Do you have any pre-performance rituals? We recite the words “Decolonise and Moisturise” to a phat beat on repeat. It’s our pre-show meditation.

Do pop culture and social media play a role in what direction the show will take? Pop culture plays a massive role in the show. We create our world within the space – loud, vivid and unapologetic, with a booming soundtrack drawing from hip hop, funk and soul, and dance that stems from our own cultural backgrounds. By placing ourselves centre-stage we then use this platform and the moment to shine a light on micro-aggressions, privilege, complicit behaviour, social justice, equality, our truths and our lives. In a time when movements like #blacklivesmatter, #metoo #TimesUp and #SovereigntyNeverCeded hit our social media feeds asking everyone to examine their own position, we are adding to this conversation from the point of view of Women of Colour coming out of Australia.

Hot Brown Honey
Bread & Circus - World Buskers Festival
Jan 11 – Jan 20, Assembly Hall, Christ’s College. 
breadandcircus.co.nz

Image: Danika Yakina