Worthing stage - giving a voice to trans young people

Scarabeus’ Emerging comes to Worthing’s Pavilion Theatre on Friday, October 21 – a show centring on the relationship between a transgender son, who has questioned his gender identity for as long as he can remember, and his mother as they embark on a journey into the unknown.

The production combines aerial dance and visual theatre with excerpts from letters written to each other to create an immersive multimedia performance.

Artistic director Daniela and collaborator Naissa harness their art to better understand both themselves and each other as they navigate their relationship and a complex, life-changing story.

They are promising a piece which sensitively explores the themes of gender identity and representation.

“Emerging is an intimate and epic experience of the power of creativity to facilitate profound change, created in consultation with young gender-diverse and trans-people and their parents/carers,” Daniela said.

“Emerging is a multimedia performance involving physical theatre and dance combined with aerial skills. It is layered with visual and metaphorical landscapes, created by juxtaposing live performance, text, designed video projections and a bespoke commissioned soundtrack.”

Naissa added: “Emerging is an exploration of the dialogue between a mother and a young transgender person, how they inevitably have to navigate the transition in their own ways.

"It also explores how they have to find ways for the pain not to outweigh the love between them. It is a representation of the true dialogue that went between us, via the letters we wrote to each other over the first three years of my transition.”

Daniela explained: “We made the decision to be inspired and share extracts from the real letters we wrote to each other during the last three years.

"As the artistic director, I worked very hard with my dramaturg mentor Tessa Walker in choosing the most significant of these letters and to edit them to their very essence.

"Naissa has collaborated in the choice. These letters were never written for the stage, but because of that, they are poignant and draw the audience into a very intimate space. We are not aiming to re-live our story on stage.

"Through this performance we want to give a true voice to the experience of many unheard people, the trans young people and their families who go through a similar experience to ours. We write our story and history. Nobody else can do it for us.”

Naissa added: “It was terrifying at first and raw, but with all our collaborators involved we have found ways to neutralise the space and not re-live those hardships. We feel proud, and hope it speaks to audiences in any capacity.”

Daniela said: “We hope the audience will have an emotional connection with the characters and the story.”