PRESENTED BY THE SEXUALITY SUMMER SCHOOL, CENTRE FOR THE STUDY OF SEXUALITY AND CULTURE, UNIVERSITY OF MANCHESTER

So many things. What to do with them all? How to get inside? Where to find my forbidden desire?

Nando Messias invites you into their Narnian closet, a trans archive of exquisite ephemera, poignant stories and bodily wonders. Their TransMission is an intimate dance of self-confrontation, exhumation, immolation, lovingly bequeathing and fabulo-cannibalising, all from the inside of Sissy TV.

In an endlessly layered solo performance, Nando Messias discloses an extraordinary personal archive: a reliquary of sumptuous costumes, imperious fabulosity, unsterilised physicality and of course the trademark, legendary poignancy.

This wild act of fabulo-psycho-archaeology tears at the seams of inexorable time.

The moment is now.

The archive is urgent.

For the stuff that you’d rather file away out of sight will rise up from below, catch you unaware and devour you whole.

Image: Holly Revell

ABOUT NANDO MESSIAS

Nando Messias’ work straddles performance art, dance and theatre. Their performances combine beautiful images with a fierce critique of gender, visibility and violence. Nando has performed at prestigious venues such as the Royal Court, The Gate, Hayward Gallery, V&A, Tate Britain, Roundhouse, Royal Vauxhall Tavern and ICA, among other spaces across the UK and internationally.

As well as a practitioner, Nando is movement director and a researcher of queer theory and performance. Nando’s publications include ‘Sissy that Walk: The Sissy’s Progress’ in Queer Dramaturgies (2016), ‘visibility: Performance and Activism’ in Performing Interdiscisplinarity (2017), ‘Injurious Acts: A Struggle With Sissy in Performance in Choros International Dance Journal (2018) and ‘Bibi is a Sissy: Drag, Death by Silence and the Journey to Self-Determination from Brazil to Britain’ in Drag Histories, Herstories and Hairstories (2020).

Nando’s solo work has been curated by the Live Art Development Agency as part of the programme ‘Just Like a Woman,’ shown in the City of Women Festival in Ljubljana (2013), New York and London (2015). They were the recipient of 2019 Library of Performing Rights Commission for which they developed The Pink Supper.

​In 2015/16 Nando completed a national tour of The Sissy’s Progress to much acclaim and press interest, followed by a tour of Shoot the Sissy to prestigious LGBTQ festivals and venues across the UK in 2017. Death and the Sissy, the closing performance of their sissy series, was presented in 2017 in London.

ABOUT THE SEXUALITY SUMMER SCHOOL

The Sexuality Summer School (SSS) is a postgraduate summer school held annually in May at the University of Manchester. During the same week the Summer School also hosts a series of public events including lectures, films and performances. Throughout the year the Sexuality Summer School also co-sponsors events at the University and at venues like Contact and HOME, including Queer Contact and POUTfest.

For more information about the Sexuality Summer School, email sexualitysummerschool@gmail.com to get on the mailing list, Facebook Sexuality Summer School or tweet @SSS_Manchester.

Learn more here.

CREDITS & PARTNERS

Sexuality Summer School, Centre for the Study of Sexuality & Culture, University of Manchester

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