JOYRIDE Comes to Melbourne Fringe Festival Next Month

This Melbourne Fringe Festival join critically acclaimed Variety Artist Anna Lumb and Drag Icon DANDROGYNY as they navigate the tiny space in the front seat of a beat-up Beamer, when a casual lift home shifts dangerously into fifth gear.

A new hybrid physical theatre and live artwork staged in a car, Joyride is the bastard child of Thelma and Louise and Wild at Heart - an electric reimagining of the quintessential road movie as a voyeuristic live experience.

A representation of status and power, as well as a coveted refuge, the car is an autonomous space. A space of contemplation, a bubble, a place we can eat, fight, laugh, sing, and rage. Test driving the full potential of this world as a theatrical stage, this exciting 45-minute performance is a prototype in the development of a new hybrid physical theatre and live artwork.

“When we’re driving a sort of temporary intimacy occurs between people; we’re momentarily captive to each other.” explains writer/performer Anna Lumb.

“We’re also lulled into a false sense of privacy, forgetting that people can still see in the windows. With Joyride, we’ve tried to examine the car in all its uses and forms. There’s so much to draw from, but ultimately it’s the relationships and personal journeys that take place within a car that are the foundation for this work. It’s being staged in an unusual setting in the carpark at the Festival Hub and audiences can expect physical absurdity, confessional conversations, and (of course) an excellent car radio soundtrack. In a 1985 BMW, no less? We’re really wanting to take audiences on a wild ride.”

Spotlighting the glorification of “the car” in Western society, Joyride takes this symbol, upon which we project our desires, values, and identities, and presses private parts up against the windshield, while firing secrets out of the windows. 

Running in the carpark at the Festival Hub for two weeks only and supported by the Melbourne Fringe Cash to Create Fund, Joyride is a must-see experience during the 2023 Festival.

Joyride writer/performer Anna Lumb is a Melbourne-based circus artist, theatre maker, writer, and actor. She has performed at circus, music, and theatre festivals around the world (Finucane and Smith’s Glory Box/The Burlesque Hour, La Soiree, New York’s Absinthe) and has toured extensively with world renowned Sway (formerly Strange Fruit) and Strut and Fret Production House.

She is also a core-collaborator of the award-winning outfit Retro Futurismus. Her solo work combines text, circus, and comedy in a variety of short form and full-length performances, including the critically acclaimed Hard to Reach Places and her popular touring children’s show, Super Amazing Giant Girl.

Performer and Joyride co-collaborator DANDROGYNY (Daniel Newell) is a performance-maker, dancer, educator, and graduate of the Victorian College of the Arts.

Through drag and experimental performance art, Daniel has created solid prominence in Australia’s queer ecology with character DANDROGYNY - playfully calling on us to notice the performed nature of hyper masculinity and its toxic implications. A recent creative resident at Footscray City College (Creative Workers in Schools) and Abbotsford Convent (Pivot 2), Daniel is currently in residence at Chunky Move and Warrnambool Art Gallery, while also teaching at St Martins Youth Theatre and The University of Melbourne - Victorian College of the Arts.

Pooling their extensive experience gleaned from working in Variety performance, theatre, and clubs all over the world, Anna Lumb and DANDROGYNY now fuse their talents in this compelling new work - promising an incredibly unique and exciting night out for 2023 Melbourne Fringe Festival audiences.