Liverpool Homotopia 2015: Preview

In case you needed a reminder, Homotopia is Liverpool’s annual LGBTQ arts festival that brings a fleet of exhibitions, debates, films and live performances before an ever-growing Northwestern audience. You probably don’t need that memo, though, for a couple of reasons. Firstly, the programme has swollen to over 50 events – a handsome portion of which are dedicated to live performance and theatre. Secondly, since its tenth birthday a couple of years ago, Homotopia has managed to anchor itself to public awareness beyond its usual four-week residence. Indeed, the festival is becoming quite the evergreen affair.

And even if that hadn’t lassoed your attention, you’re sure to have spotted their scarlet programme, emblazoned with this year’s theme: ART = LIFE – an inversion of the AIDS activism slogan ‘SILENCE = DEATH’. The festival draws to its finale on World AIDS Day, so it’s apt that the festival should be curated around the theme of AIDS awareness. “Gay culture has been commodified, somewhat,” we're told by Gary Everett, artistic director of Homotopia. “Because of all the bars and clubs and hedonism, a lot of the key themes about life and health and responsibility are lost. We’re not a health promotion agency, but it’s important that people can take a breath, see an exhibition or a piece of theatre, and can see outside of that bubble we’ve created.”

I tell Everett that it seems like the discourse about AIDS and HIV has been maintained mostly through the means of teary Comic Relief shorts and dated musical Rent, so it’s difficult for young people to engage with this important and relevant issue. But Everett, among others, has spotted the cycle, and laments the steep rise in not only contraction of AIDS itself, but also the ignorance surrounding it. “The point I’m making is that the message that was quite harsh and critical and clear in the 80s and 90s is gone, y’know? It’s been watered down, and doesn’t have the same immediacy.” He sees the arts as a tonic for invigorating that vital activism in new and contemporary ways.

For example, many of the performances have strands of comedy and playfulness woven into them. The “gently political” Big Girl’s Blouse features a joyful Kate O'Donnell confiding about life as a transgender person in the 1970s, drenched in sparkly chiffon and an even sparklier perspective. And The Butch Monologues, despite driving social change through their soliloquies about sexuality, are potent and rib tickling in equal parts. Even Ecce Homo!, Naughty Nickers’ cabaret act, which discusses the AIDS epidemic, is set to be a “hom-com” studded with songs, facepaint and glee. “You have to tease people in. I think that having playful, anarchic elements in there helps invite the audience in. And they appreciate that, actually.”

Along with comedic aspects, the theatrical lineup is also peppered with multimedia approaches, as with the specially commissioned Scandinavia Has Been Good to Me, an autobiographical piece which explores Mandy Romero’s newfound trans identity upon her relocation to Liverpool, touching on stories of lost friends to lack of access to AIDS treatment.

But 2015’s Homotopia isn’t where it ends. As an ongoing project, Everett wants to draw attention to the fact that over two thirds of Commonwealth member states regard homosexuality as illegal, causing tragic obstacles for those who need to access AIDS treatment and support. “Homophobia and transphobia are not like a virus, where it’s about medicine and research and science. They’re insidious. They happen across borders in ways that you can’t always map or investigate or interrogate or challenge. It’s a more difficult beast to manage or maintain.”

A difficult beast, indeed – but one that the creative forces behind Homotopia are seemingly fit to wrestle.