Luke Macaronas – Support Material
Artist Bio
Luke Macaronas is an experimental performance maker from Naarm (Melbourne, Australia) of Greek and Serbian descent. Recontextualising traditional dance and religious rituals, Luke brings audiences into experiences that are both violent and tender, playful and erotic. Seeking to revive theatre as an ecstatic intervention on the mundane, he has plotted a career path between Melbourne and Tokyo, where his practice oscillates between the orthodox (ballet, folk, religious ritual) and the radical (rave, butoh, burlesque, queer performance). Luke is curious to discover how the queer-body, techno-body, collective-body, folk-body might challenge the capitalist-body, the binary-body, and the white-body.
Luke is a member of the acclaimed Japanese theatre company Gekidan Kaitaisha (Theatre of Deconstruction), he completed Bachelor of Arts in Art History and Theatre Studies from The University of Melbourne and wrote his Honours thesis with Rawcus, researching the aesthetics of sensation and affect in disability theatre. His recent projects include an intergenerational dance performance Infinite Affection (2022), nominated for “Best Choreography” and “Breaking Ground” 2023 Green Room awards, and a post-butoh burlesque show『本物 // Real Thing 』(2022) presented at the YPAM Fringe in Yokohama, Japan, and the participatory queer ritual This is My Body (2023).
This is my Body
(2023)
This is my Body is a participatory queer ritual that traces the history of the Eucharist in order to uncover the erotic, subversive and sacred meanings of breaking bread and drinking flesh and blood.
Part-theatre, part-dance, part-ceremony, this show cracks open a pandora’s box of orgiastic rites and disordered feasting that lies just beneath the veneer of the world’s largest religion. It is an experiment in turning food into flesh and flesh into food that promises to be different every night
Developed with the support of the Hannah Barry Memorial Award in 2022, and the mentorship of Joel Bray, This is My Body premiered at Testing Grounds in Melbourne in February 2023. In 2024, This is my Body has also been presented in Athens at WoW Space, and Portugal at Waking Life.
Performer: Luke Macaronas
Writer: Sar Fegan
Project Mentor: Joel Bray
Images: Sodi Murphy-Shrives
『本物 // Real Thing 』
(2022)
YPAM Fringe, Yokohama
『本物 // Real Thing 』is an experimental strip show made in collaboration with Hino Hiruko, a former showgirl and student of Hijikata Tatsumi. Presented in the red-light district of Yokohama as part of the YPAM Fringe, the performance explored the intersecting histories of butoh and burlesque, interrogating contemporary sex culture and erotic performance tradition in Japan.
Images: Jun Yokoyama
Luke Macaronas 