Lorna Irvine speaks with Shir Freibach about the project, part of this year's Arches Live festival.
In the UK, misconceptions and stigmas around the HIV/AIDS virus still persist, and it is a disease which has been pushed into the background and marginalised, in terms of both media coverage and government funding over the last twenty years.
London-based director and dramaturg Shir Freibach, who works as an activist in raising awareness on the illness, having co-founded the national magazine Positive Nation in 1995, has worked with theatre performers, contemporary choreographers, poets and dancers, bringing the message as far afield as Europe and the Middle East.
Now she is taking her provocative and thought-provoking AIDS cabaret show to Arches Live. Shafted?! which is co-created with Dan Glass and Tilly Gifford under the collective Theatrical Dissidents, and which promises ''dance, performance, live music, stunts'' and spoken-word testimonies of those who are coping day to day with HIV/AIDS.
As if all of this weren't an amazing and fascinating prospect, there is always “the HIV positive Human Cannonball!”—cabaret like no other, theatre to make you think, react, discuss and, more importantly, get involved.
Come along in your best funeral clothing and celebrate the strength and tenacity of human beings living with the virus.
Shafted?! is at the Arches, 28th September, 4pm. For more information: www.shirfreibach.co.uk
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