OBSERVER: Piera Dennerstein
Opera singer turned cabaret cantatrice Piera Dennerstein performs her award-winning solo cabaret Pursuing Pleasure at the Gasworks Arts Park, Albert Park, on March 7 and 8 and also at The Round in Nunawading on April 4, as part of a Creative Australia funded national tour.
From Puccini to Cardi B, Piera tells the story, with humour, sincerity and hope, of her experiences forming her values and beliefs as she recovered from the toxicity of the opera industry and intimate partner abuse.
Extrapolated from a poem she wrote in 2020 entitled, ‘This is what my body was built for’, this work will explore how leaning into the pleasurable – demonstrated in the operatic and sensual – as long as it causes no harm to others, is a powerful political act.
“A large portion of my healing from the challenges I will gently touch on in this work occurred due to strong artists and women showing me what is possible,” says Piera.
As fellow soprano and cabaret performer Ali McGregor says: “Cabaret particularly is a place where people can see themselves on stage when they may not otherwise be able.
“I hope that through presenting a work such as this, where I am publicly vulnerable and share my story, I will in some way show others who have experienced such challenges what is possible, and that they are not alone. As performance art legend Betty Grumble says, ‘it is wonderful to be seen’.”
With dramaturgy by Melbourne Fringe Living legend Moira Finucane, and from the director of Skank Sinatra, Olivia Charalambous, this personal work continues Piera’s dramatic aims of blurring the boundary between high and low art and cultivating a shared humanity.
This cabaret was developed through The Round’s Midsumma Residency program, aimed to support the development of LGBTQIA+ performing arts projects, assist local LGBTQIA+ artists to develop/maintain their arts practice and advance their creative development.
Following a decade of operatic training and performance both here and internationally, Piera ‘ran away and joined the circus’ in 2018 when she commenced her tenure as an artist with cabaret company, Finucane and Smith.
From there, Piera has performed everything from opera, to jazz, to country; everywhere from rural China to Kalgoorlie. Piera is also an award-winning writer and poet and has MC’ed extensively throughout a variety of performing artforms.
Performance Details: March 7 and 8 at 8pm at Gasworks Arts Park, Albert Park. Also on April 4 at 8pm at The Round, Nunawading.
Bookings: pieradennerstein.com