The Pageant
In development: Naarm and Boorloo
Part pageant, part talent quest, part This Is Your Life, The Pageant is a spectacular public celebration, honouring older individuals thriving in their prime time.
In Development
Joyfully subverting youth-obsessed forms such as beauty pageants, fashion runways, TV reality shows and glamour magazines, The Pageant matches with 12 fascinating older individuals (Protagonists) with leading Australian Fashion Designers to co-design Haute Couture, inspired by the Protagonist’s identity, creativity and life story. This process culminates in a large-scale, site specific live performance work in the civic heart of a city; an unapologetic, authentic and joyful reclamation from those often unseen, of public space.
As Haute Couture meets the everyday, The Pageant is a coalescence of multi-generational creative Collaborators’ visions across fashion design, theatrical direction and design, choreography, audio visual storytelling and music.
Operatic in scale and inspired by Busby Berkley mise-en-scene, The Pageant will be presented in a series of ‘rounds’ that are a mechanism to reveal the life stories of each Protagonist. These narratives will be non-linear meditations on love, loss, grief, success, ambition and values. As stories become more personal, the live work will explode in form featuring aligned community performances, showcasing professional artistic collaborations and surprise appearances from individuals close to each celebrated Protagonist.
The climax of the Pageant is the final ’round’ revealing these glorious design collaborations and visual representations of how each Protagonist truly wants to be ‘seen’.
Combined, each life-story will build into a moving portrait of character, community and place.
Social Mission
While ageing is universal, ageism in contemporary Australian culture is rife. The Australian Human Rights Commission recently released the national report ‘What’s age got to do with it?’ in which 90% surveyed believed ageism is a significant cultural problem.
The Pageant is a cultural proponent offering creative solutions to complex social challenges. It contributes to a larger discourse and social movement across Australia to face ageism, together.
Its mission is to create live events as catalysts affecting larger social change; in this case, a highly stylised, public celebration and declaration of older people’s worth and value, encouraging reclamation of space within a mainstream and ageist paradigm. Because we all deserve to age, fashionably well.
Creative Team and Colloborators
Created and led by Tristan Meecham, Bec Reid and Sam Watson-Wood
The Pageant unites a multitude of crossdisciplinary creative industries, people and practices including:
→ All The Queens Men
→ Artemis Media
→ Clothing The Gaps
→ Friends with Strangers
→ Melbourne Arts Precinct (Fed Square)
→ Melbourne Fashion Week
→ Melbourne Youth Orchestra
→ Nicol & Ford
→ Perth Festival
→ Romance Was Born
→ Victorian Seniors Festival
→ WA Tafe
→ Western Australian Youth Orchestra
Project Partners
