What do you think of when you hear the words ‘Stripper’, ‘Escort’, ‘Pornstar’?
Originally devised in 2014, the award-winning Sex Worker’s Opera will tour the UK for the first time this autumn following a multitude of sell-out performances around the UK, Ireland and Greece. Comprised of 50% sex workers, this provocative show gives platform for sex workers – tired of being spoken for – to finally tell their own stories on their own terms.
Smashing together genres, Sex Worker’s Opera collides opera with hip-hop and incorporates sound art, projections and poetry to showcase an unflinchingly honest and upliftingly human insight into the lives of sex workers around the world.
Experimental Experience provides a platform to tell the unheard stories of sex workers from 17 countries across five continents, exploring a street worker giving marital advice, a webcam model and her ventriloquist dummy and a daughter making career choices in a male-dominated world.
Co-Director, Siobhan Knox, comments, ‘Everyone has an opinion about sex work, even if it’s a joke or something they’ve heard on TV. Art and the media portray sex work in a very one dimensional way, it is either extremely glamorous or extremely tragic, and one of the messages of the show is that sex work is human, it is not good or bad it’s just complex.’
Cast member (anonymous) comments, ‘It has given me the chance to explore my happiness in my career as a sex worker, to heal all my pain, to make poetry with my life.’
Slaps tropes round the face with a PVC glove – Time Out
What every great opera should do – Royal Opera House
