Progesterone Dreams is a musical theatre of conscious and unconscious dreams. Waking dreams are created with conscious effort; an externalised material dreaming that drives an individual or society to power. And then there is the dream that arrives upon the somnolent mind, from somewhere outside of language; a dream that makes the world and all relations unknown again.
Progesterone is a hormone given to women during assisted pregnancy cycles. One of its side effects is wild and vivid dreams. The material for this work is inspired by this induced state of 'feminine' dreaming and the way it can complicate the conscious dreaming that drives one's own power and success. In the performance, three personas sleep and wake, relating and interpreting a series of progesterone dreams to each other, making gender, individuality, reality, sex and violence feel slippery and uncanny.
This short performance was commissioned by Bundanon for the opening of Man on Fire, an exhibition featuring Arthur Boyd’s Nebuchadnezzar paintings, and a new commission by Sean Gladwell.