Upcoming: Funny Uncles
I recently had dinner with my parents, brother & sister-in-law and 3 year-old nephew, Harry. Oh, and my boyfriend. My nephew is one of the smartest kids I've ever met, and I'm not just saying that. He picks up on everything, asks questions about the smallest details, and is generally like a very small, curious yet uninformed little man. And he laughs a lot. Harry, at one point in the evening, asked my boyfriend, "What do you and Uncle Mike do?" All the adults laughed a bit while the boyfriend explained that we go to rock shows, watch movies, listen to music, stuff like that. Good save. A bit later in the evening, Harry asked, "Uncle Mike, do you have a girlfriend." I replied that I didn't. "Do you have a boyfriend?", he asked. Shocked, I replied that I did. I was saved from further questions, though I think he was starting to put two and two together.
My nephew is one member of a great new generation: a generation of kids growing up around out queer people who are in loving relationships. And he's learning that it's normal. (Or rather, he's not learning that it's abnormal.) For the rest of us, these new types of family relationships that have become more and more common might take a bit of getting used to.
The Liz Lerman Dance Exchange explores these new types of family structures in a stage production called Funny Uncles, which "explores the reality of contemporary families through movement, theatre, video and spoken word." While I don't know much more about the production than what's described on its website, it seems like something definitely worth checking out.
The Liz Lerman Dance Exchange brings its performance of Funny Uncles to the Round House Theatre in Silver Spring for three shows on December 7th and 8th.
1 comment:
Thanks for referencing our "Gumdrops and the Funny Uncle" performance and website.
And the conversation with nephews and uncles...and aunts and grandma's and neighbors and blood born and chosen families...is what the performance work and the surrounding dialogues is all about. My hope is that we are replacing the notion that families are ONE thing. The reality of life is that families are many things: single parent led, same gender led, you and your pet, adopted family members across ethnic and racial lines. And regardless of who is in the family, they work because of commitment - not because of a government or society that says that a family works because they look a certain way.
The New Gay - and the new generation - is much more savvy than previous ones, because even at a young age, the authenticity of true intentions can be read and realised as more true than the "picture" of, or a facsimile of, true relationships that create family.
You can find the Funny Uncles blog site through Liz Lerman Dance Exchange or Great Dance.
Thanks - Peter DiMuro, Artistic Director of Liz Lerman Dance Exchange
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