As part of my role as graduate artist working on AUB Dance’s production of DIVA: design & define, i wanted to create a piece centred around the idea of humanising the diva.

soundtracked to olivia dean’s everybody crazy, i choreographed this work in order to storyline a narrative thread about these DIVA icons being humans too, picking apart and dismantling the divide between us and them. i had a key focus on the constant need to uphold an image, conceptualising how tiring it must be to be constantly performing.

i wanted to explore the pressure of being such a big figure, the pressure of being a DIVA; what goes on behind the stage curtain, what happens when you drop the performative facade?

i wanted to embed a sense of the vulnerability & the fragility of the DIVA into the show. to explore the negative impact of being in the limelight, and how isolating it can be to uphold this DIVA status, whilst simultaneously depicting the unity of that feeling; the universality of not being as strong as you appear.

opening with everyone taking on the role of the DIVA, holding gorgeous figurehead positions, representing the image they have to uphold, a dancer then enters, embodying the real human behind the facade, trying to be like the other DIVA’s but failing and fading away. the other dancers slowly break out, realising they’re just as human as her, slowly forming a collective teaching eachother that it’s okay to not always be the perfect standard that they’re expected to be, working together to debunk the stigma, holding hands through the pain. ultimately, one dancer breaks back into their DIVA status, and the toxic cycle ensues again with everyone else attempting to bring her back down, unable to hand over the fame to someone else.

it has subthemes of picking apart others and then noticing similar flaws in yourself, the need for love and adoration from the audience/ external sources , and learning to accept the dark parts of yourself, but at its essence this piece is about this counterbalance of being human vs being a DIVA, the idea of craving fame so much you don’t realise you’re jeopardising your true self and the need to rely on others to find your way back to who you are.

i really love exploring the narrative thread of ‘humanness’ in my works so this was a really beautiful endeavour to be able to re-centre and focus in on the idea that these DIVA’s are human too in amongst their chaotic, outlandish, fabulous, alluring lives - we all have struggles & i think this was a much needed part of the puzzle to fit into our show.