Sister Act: Amy and Rosana Cade at Queer Contact

With six years of experience under its belt, this month Queer Contact festival returns to Manchester with its most impressive programme to date. Celebrating and showcasing the very best LGBT art and culture, the festival spans genres and artists, featuring performances of international renown alongside a variety of unseen faces.

Exploring themes of both sexual and gender identity, as well as interrogating society’s obsession with age and family (biological and otherwise), this year’s Queer Contact includes the powerful – and somewhat baffling – performance piece Sister.

It may well be a piece you are familiar with. Debuting with a bang at last year’s Edinburgh Fringe, Sister has racked up an impressive amount of press coverage since. Written and performed by real-life sisters Amy and Rosana Cade, the piece acts as an unflinching examination of self: of their family bonds, shared experiences and ultimate independence.

Some have focused on the show's feminist labelling, while others have concentrated on the lap dancing and full nudity (both essential to the piece). Many more have questioned the sisters' self-identifications as a 'shaven-headed lesbian' and 'sex worker.' But none of these angles really get to the bottom of what makes it such a successful show – namely, that at its heart lies a simple story, honestly told, about two sisters.

I spoke to one half of the duo, Rosana Cade, to find out more about the history of the piece and what she has learned from making it.

"I always think the naked body in a performance space is interesting" – Rosana Cade

The Skinny: When did the idea for Sister first come about?

Rosana Cade: It started about five and a half years ago when Amy and I took part in Nic Green's Trilogy [a celebratory venture into modern-day feminism in the form of what is essentially a big naked dance]. It got me thinking about the female body and how it is represented. At the same time our grandmother was dying, so we were helping our mum with that. It brought us together, and we made a new connection as adults. Amy had left home at 18, so we had been on different paths for a while. It all began with a conversation.

It's still quite a big step from a conversation to a fully formed performance piece...?

Amy was working as a lap dancer in Berlin and – as it happens – she was using the name Rosana. I got her to teach me the dance, and that became My Sister Taught Me This Lap Dance. Working on that led to Sister; I got funding for it, and we worked on it on and off for a year until it premiered at Edinburgh.

I imagine you had a lot of material to work with – was editing it the hardest part?

In a way we were dealing with our whole lives – we had this vast pool to draw from, plus all of the issues we wanted to explore around body image, feminism and identity. When we first rehearsed, the show was almost two hours! The unique thing about the performance is that we really are sisters, so we focused more on that – finding the moments that are meaningful.

And how about the more theatrical elements – did you work on those beforehand or need outside direction?

It would never be natural for me to sit down and write a script, it's just not how I work; I don't express myself using text. We set the piece in the situation of a lap dance, which examines Amy's world – but because we are literally performing in a theatre, my world is addressed too. I always think the naked body in a performance space is interesting, as is the presentation of the more stereotypical lap-dance version of a woman. There's a grey area between the two that I think is important to explore.

How do audiences react to the nudity?

We're both bold, confident people and used to alternative ideas. I'm a lesbian and Amy is a sex worker so we are confident about being different – and the audience can sense that. It's also perfectly natural for Amy and I to be naked around each other and think nothing of it, so that helps too. I think through our relationship of understanding and acceptance we draw the audience into our world, and then everyone feels at ease and comfortable. At first we bring people onto the stage for a lap dance, which is quite a bold thing to begin with, but by the end everyone is comfortable with us and it becomes normal to be naked.

Is it difficult to work creatively with a family member?

It's very different to other collaborations I have done before. A lot of our relationship was formed in the first few years of my life; she could speak when I couldn't, could do things that I couldn't. I looked up to her and idolised her so much – there is a lot of residue from that dynamic, still. If you were interviewing both of us, she would do most of the talking.

Does that relationship dynamic carry into the performance?

It had to, because that's part of who we are; it would have been unnatural if we had tried to change it. Amy isn't a trained performer – she's very good in the show, really good, but she wouldn't feel comfortable adopting a persona, so it couldn't work unless we were ourselves.

Have your family seen Sister?

Our mum has seen it a couple of times. It's helped her understand our decisions. We've been on the BBC's Culture Show and her living in a small town means people know. It's hard for her. I don't think she's at the stage of being comfortable with talking to just anyone about it – but it has definitely helped. Our dad is very supportive, but doesn't want to see it. Our younger brother has had problems with Amy's choices, but some of his friends have seen it and told him "you should be proud of them." He might see it in London.

Has Sister achieved all you hoped it would?

It's very different from my other shows, but then again a lot of my work is very different from each other. I think this has done a lot for my personal development: I understand things better. A lot of my own identity was formed in reaction to things that happened when I was a teenager and I have been dealing with that since. Now I think I can reflect on that journey and am ready to move on.