Woolf & Wilde: A Queer Party

Maxine Beneba Clarke is the author of the acclaimed memoir The Hate Race, the award-winning short fiction collection Foreign Soil, the poetry collections Carrying The World and How Decent Folk Behave, and many other books ...

Selina Jenkins is an acclaimed musician, award winning cabaret artist and celebrated character comedian. She has performed extensively throughout Australia and the US, appeared on ABC Comedy Up Late and will be debuting her highly anticipated new solo show ‘Boobs’ at this year’s Melbourne Fringe Festival. Selina is also the woman behind renowned comedy character 'Beau Heartbreaker'.

James Andrews is an Australian dancer and dance maker with a broader practice spanning sound, costume and visual design.

A graduate of the Victorian College of the Arts, James is an Artistic Associate of 2NDTOE – presenting collaborative work, as well as his own solo work, in various forms around Australia, most recently at Melbourne Fringe 2014 with his debut solo work I Can Disappear.

Other credits include DARK MOFO, Lee Serle’s P.O.V., James Welsby’s HEX and Chunky Move’s It Sounds Silly.

Tristan Meecham is an artist who facilitates creative frameworks that enable social transformation; connecting community, audience and artists together in events that transcend the everyday. He is the Director of All The Queens Men.

All The Queens Men create spectacular theatrical and participatory arts experiences. Established with Bec Reid, All The Queens Men champion social equality, celebrating diverse community through creative action and in exciting art contexts.

Recent creative actions include The Coming Back Out Ball, a spectacular social event held at the Melbourne Town Hall celebrating Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender and Intersex (LGBTI) elders; LGBTI Elders Dance Club, a monthly social event for LGBTI elders; Congress, a citizens’ assembly in which diverse community members collaborate with professional wordsmiths to create first speeches and personal visions for our collective future; and Fun Run, a riotous performance spectacle in Tristan runs a marathon on a treadmill live on stage supported by hundreds of performers from the local community.

Tristan was Artistic Director of Give it up for Margaret: A month of philanthropic inspiration, a month long festival inspiring innovative arts philanthropy. GIUFM was created in partnership with Victorian College of the Arts, Margaret Lawrence Bequest and over 20 subsidiary organisations. 

Tristan was the creative lead for Going Nowhere, a sustainable international arts exchange at Arts House (2015 Green Room Award for Curatorial Contribution to Contemporary Performance). He remounted The Everyday Imaginarium as part of Vitalstatistix’s Climate Century in Port Adelaide. From 2010-2014, Tristan was an Artistic Associate and the Philanthropic Manager of Aphids.

Tristan is the recipient of the VCA George Fairfax Memorial Award, British Council’s Realise Your Dream Award and the inaugural Richard Pratt Scholarship. He was the Chair of Green Room Award’s Contemporary and Experimental Performance Panel (2013-2017). Tristan has a Bachelor of Fine Arts (Visual Arts) from QUT and Bachelor of Dramatic Arts (Acting) from VCA.

Dosh Luckwell is a theatre maker, performer and poet. Luckwell’s performance practice is a crossover of theatre, poetry, music, dance and installation that explores the themes of intimacy, sexuality, sex, relationships, gender and power.

Recent theatre works include: Box Me (AIDS 2014), Iron Man: The Shop Window Ironing Strip Show (Midsumma & Fringe World) and Mr Femme Fatale (Fringe World).

Luckwell is also the creator of the ongoing live art projects Sex Poetry Booth and the Sex Wall. Luckwell has released a nationally distributed album of sex poetry/music titled Sex Poems and is one half of the music outfit Public Sex that combines dirty words with techno.

Luckwell has been awarded Best Emerging Artist at the 2012 Fringe World awards and Best Live Artist at the Melbourne Fringe 2012.

This year, Luckwell has completed a Postgraduate Diploma in Performance Creation (Animateuring) at the Victorian College of the Arts.

Teetering on the brink of cult status whilst on the verge of a nervous breakdown, Yana Alana is the divine and deluded alter-ego of Sarah Ward, one of Australia’s fastest rising cabaret stars.

With a Helpmann Award 2014 and ten Green Room gongs, Yana Alana and Tha Paranas is cabaret at its very best – incisive, hilarious, confronting, revealing and, most of all, musically divine.

The statuesque, frosted-blonde love-child of Brigette Neilsen and Annie Lennox, DJ Whiskey Houston is a contemporary vehicle for the cold, hard glamour of the androgynous 80s, transporting revellers to an alternate universe of hard-out camp, where disco reigns - and glitter rains – supreme.

Whiskey earned her stripes in Melbourne’s inner north as resident DJ, promoter and founder of Danceteria Party (2010-2013), with 2013 seeing the launch of her solo venture Flawless and gay disco venture The Outpost with co-founders Steven Weir (Loves Saves The Day, Sundays at the Toff) and Gerard Long (Love Saves the Day, Fridays at the Laird).

In her peroxided prime, she spins the soundtrack to the homoerotic dream of a leather-clad motorcycle ride through 1980s New York, spinning her picks from the late 70s to early 90s: disco, soul, new wave, 80s synth-pop, early house and techno, electro rap, Miami bass, vintage hip-hop and r'n'b - studded by a few contemporary tunes to slap you back into the now.

From supporting high profile US acts Spinderella (Salt-N-Pepa), JD Samson (Le Tigre, MEN) and David Banner to representing at homegrown affairs, Whiskey’s played em all. Party highlights include City of Melbourne NYE Fireworks 2013, Midsumma Carnival after parties, L'Oreal Melbourne Fashion Festival (LMFF) Independent Runway after party, Channel 10’s Party Tricks wrap party, Women of Letters, Late Bit @ ACMI, Spectacle Launch Party at ACMI, Fringe Festival hub events in 2010, 2011, 2012 and 2013, Penthouse Mouse, Bikefest, Comedy Festival, The Real Hot Bitches Dance Troupe performance nights, Body Electric dance performance nights, Chunky Move, Fitzroy Learning Network’s Annual Ball and Fitzroy’s Hares & Hyenas Rent Parties.

Guest club night sets include Heavenly Bodies, Grouse Party, Disco Abyss, Shock of the New, Control, LA Nights, The Toff in Town, Boney, Carlton Club, Hasti Bala, Shebeen, Laundry Bar, Bimbos, Cheated Hearts (Brisbane) in addition to guest-programming live DJ sets for RRR radio.

Buck Angel was born a biological female and conquered a lifetime of adversity to undergo his transformation and become the healthy, happy, self-confident man he is today. Buck created the first FTM adult website in 2003 and became the first FTM adult entertainer and film producer. In 2007, Buck made history again as the first transsexual man to ever win the AVN Transsexual Performer of the Year award (the academy awards of the adult industry).

From early childhood, there was no doubt Buck Angel was born in the wrong body. He roughhoused with the toughest bullies and was accepted as a boy by friends and family. When he started to grow breasts and menstruate, it was devastating, as he felt his body was betraying him. This caused severe depression and led to substance abuse problems.

In the 1980s, Buck got his first break in the entertainment world as a high-fashion female model, under contract with two of the world’s most prestigious modeling agencies, Elite Model Management and Z in London. Not surprisingly, Buck pushed the envelope in the high-fashion world, as well. His look as a professional female model was progressive, beautiful, and almost androgynous, which opened the doors for some of today’s most successful models. Many girls dream of becoming models, but this career was painfully difficult for Buck.

He turned to drugs and alcohol to deal with the unbearable distress between his inner and outer selves. He ended up living on the streets, homeless and hopeless. Buck even attempted suicide on more than one occasion.

Buck sought professional help from a number of therapists, most of whom did not know how to deal with his problems, which stemmed from his gender identity issues. One suggested he was simply a ‘male identified female’.

Life for Buck finally took a turn for the better when he came across a documentary about a female-to-male transsexual. This film changed the course of his life forever. Not long after, Buck finally found a therapist who understood the nature of his problem. He then began taking the necessary hormones and later underwent breast-removal surgery.

His transformation was a dream come true, and for the first time in his life, Buck was able to live comfortably in his own skin. After becoming the man he had always perceived himself to be, he began to live a productive and fulfilling life with peace and self-acceptance.

Following gender reassignment, Buck began working in the adult entertainment industry as a fetish filmmaker and website developer for the male-to-female (MTF) on-line market. After a few years, he came to realize that there were no female-to-male (FTM) adult entertainment sites on the internet.

As an icon of popular culture, Buck has appeared on the Howard Stern Show, Spike TV, Much Music, OUT TV, the Tyra Banks Show and has been featured in every media outlet: television, radio, web, and print.

Recently, Buck has devoted himself to informing and enlightening the world. As he demonstrated in his speaking engagements at Yale University and IdeaCity 2010, Buck is not only inspiring people to think outside the box, he is redefining gender and educating an entire generation on the fluidity of sexuality and identity politics.

In 2012 Buck was appointed to the board of directors of the Woodhull Sexual Freedom Alliance. Buck produced a documentary, Sexing The Transman, in 2012, which went on to win awards and has become a film festival favorite. This very important documentary has opened up much needed dialogue about the sexuality and the effects of hormone on trans men during their transition from female to male.

2013 a documentary about Buck’s life was released, Mr. Angel. The film has become a Netflix favorite and has also won numerous awards including a Telly Award.

2014 Buck now travels the world speaking and educating using his own transition to help change the world.