Tuesday, January 24, 2012

Cabaret Star Meow Meow Struts Her Stuff For Australian Vogue

Feminine Feline: Meow Meow (Photo: Karl Giant)
"Performance artist Meow Meow gives the traditional fairytale Little Match Girl a cabaret twist. She’s sold out shows in the West End, at Carnegie Hall and the Sydney Opera House. David Bowie, Mikhail Baryshnikov and dance legend Pina Bausch all selected her to be part of their festivals. She sings, dances, tours and is recording an album. So does highly acclaimed cabaret artist Meow Meow ever have a quiet night in? 'Yes, I remember one,' she says, fluttering her thick lashes and pressing a finger to her cheek. 'Gosh, it must have been back in 1956.' The witty and deliciously vampy Meow is back in town for her new show Little Match Girl at Melbourne’s Malthouse Theatre. It will not, however, be a traditional rendition of the Christmas fairytale. 'In my mind what I’ve got is a collision of things, European fairytales in the snow and the ice with a really hot bushfire poem country – that’s sort of my starting point,' she declares. Meow seems to have been neatly slotted into the current cabaret revival, but her work is more far reaching than that. 'I see it as performance art,' she says, sipping her champagne cocktail. 'Definitely music/ dance/theatre: it’s a hybrid.' She laughs. 'It’s about triggering as many sensitivities of the audience as possible, so doing it visually, aurally, [with] smell as you go.'" [Source] Watch a clip of the chanteuse in action (even an operatic vocal bit...) in a video after the jump.