GLORY BOX
Finucane & Smith’s Glory Box is an explosive, electrifying genre-defying, immersive live-art salon, internationally renowned for its rigor and daring in defining & redefining of performance forms. Blending historic entertainment forms with the avant-garde & surreal – from butoh to chanson, the gothic literary to vaudeville, circus to grand guignol – and creating brand new performance forms in continuous evolution and revolution, Glory Box is the Franken-Spectacular of erotically charged, monstrous and electrifying acts that shoves a fork into the toaster of cabaret, circus, burlesque and performance art.
Led by the woman who has been hailed as the Queen Provocateur, “La Gloriosa” Moira Finucane, Glory Box has played to 300,000 people worldwide, received standing ovations across 5 continents, acclaim in thirteen languages, winning twelve awards, including 5 Green Room Awards, Scotland on Sunday’s “Hottest Temptation of the Festival”, and The Golden Potato for rural cultural engagement & inspiration.
After 70 international sell-out seasons, from Croatia to Tokyo, London to Ljubljana, Italy to Edinburgh, and 3 under the sails of the Sydney Opera House, In 2013 Glory Box became the first Australian work ever to be invited to Latin America’s most prestigious arts festival, the Festival Internacional de Buenos Aires.
In 2014 Glory Box turned Ten, with The Age begging “Ten more years please”, and seasons around the world culminating in performing for 10,000 people in Praca Franklin Roosevelt in Sao Paulo, BrazilIn 2015 Glory Box becomes the first Australian work ever to be invited to the Havana International Theatre Festival in its thirty year history.
Awards
2015 Perth Fringeworld Cabaret Weekly Award Winner
2014 Golden Potato Award for cultural services to the Bellarine Community
2014 Adelaide Fringe Cabaret Weekly Award Winner
2013 Farsa Magazine Show of the Year List (Buenos Aires)
2012 Outstanding Contribution to Cabaret Winner Green Room Award
2011 Helpmann Award Best Cabaret Artist (Caravan Burlesque) Nominee
2009 Helpmann Award Best Cabaret Artist (The Burlesque Hour) Nominee
2005 Scotland on Sunday “Hottest Temptation of the Festival”
2005 Australian Dance Most Interesting & Innovative Works List
2005 InPress Magazine Show of the Year (Burlesque Hour)
2004 Green Room Award Most Outstanding Work (Burlesque Hour) Winner
2004 Green Room Award Best Direction (Burlesque Hour) Winner
2004 Green Room Award Most Innovative Use of Form (Burlesque Hour) Winner 2004 Green Room Award Most Best Design (Burlesque Hour)
Reviews
“The best theater is always provocative. No need to go back to the feast of Dionysus: when Alfred Jarry premiered his celebrated Ubu King, and more than a spectator fled in terror from the room. When Ionesco staged The Bald Soprano , there were many critics who savaged the Romanian author. Not to mention the confusion that attended Waiting for Godot, the great work of Samuel Beckett. If the theater is not part of a powerful conflict , if it cannot get us out of our daily routines , if it does not have the tools to reveal other realities, it’s not theater. Moreover it is not art . It’s pure entertainment, respectable, indeed. Artaud said it clearly : “The theater is like the plague, a scourge avenger, redeeming epidemic “. Without going any further , one of the most successful shows of which were presented at the International Theatre Festival of Buenos Aires (FIBA ) was The Glory Box of Finucane & Smith . And not just for the exotic routines that unfolded on the stage of La Trastienda from the extraordinary Moira Finucane, head of a tribe as unclassifiable as talented, but also by their look, sometimes bitter, but full of vitality, with which she knows to describe some aspects of contemporary world.”
LA NACION (THE NATION), ARGENTINA
“Arousing strong expectation, Glory Box takes hold of acrobatics, circus, nudity, disco, punk, and sharply unique aesthetics, cabaret, burlesque and the characteristic of grande guignol. Every number exists on the border; Moira Finucane is the superdiva, beautiful bodies are displayed without silicon or plastics, gender is shaken, this is a permanent provocation, and the public is invited to share the wildness and acid-dry humour. Somehow the Glory Box shakes up an sense of normal culture! And we get it!”
CLARIN NEWS ARGENTINA
“Real women, actual sensuality , no silicone and all of provocation. The show is brash and exotic. Moira Finucane is The Empress, Beauty Queen of the Damned, Macabre Lover. Her stage presence is simply inexplicable , the audience is stunned, laughs , does not understand it , they enjoy it. The show is a succession of scenes that explode, each different from the next, each completely surprising. The Glory Box is something that is the most incredible thing I saw in a long time, and has to do with the way the public understands it . Just see how they love her, because she’s great! Bloody orgasmic performance , hula hula with hundreds of rings, balance on a ball , hip hop, pop hits like I Touch Myself and milk (yes, I said milk ) , Glory Box seems to last a sigh . The entire show sitting on the edge of my chair , unable to believe what these women live, wanting to get on the stage just loved them . They promise to return to Buenos Aires so stay tuned , because they also promise to change the world.”
REVISTACURENDERA ARGENTINA
“I’ve run out of passionate adjectives to shout about how damn amazing this work continues to be … the ninth year of Moira Finucane and Jackie Smith’s subversive and celebratory burlesque where the passion is as potent as any cocktail and unrealistic expectations are turned into exquisite beauty. These are women who are sexual but are never sexualised. And this may be why every act is greeted with cheers. And there’s Moira. There’s no one like her. As an artist she creates work that is so from her heart and self that no one will ever be able to recreate it. It’s gutsy and lusty and masculine and feminine and refuses to be anything that isn’t Moira Finucane.”
AUS. THEATRE
“On the barometric scale that arcs from feminine to feminist to female, The Burlesque Hour is so far off-the-chart, the needle is pointing to meteor… there’s a storm front approaching. The Burlesque Hour is a series of set pieces…by an unholy trinity of fatale feministas: Moira Finucane, beauty queen of the damned; Yumi Umiumare, an Asian tiger in a China doll shop; and Azaria Universe, the perfect blend of form and function. The Burlesque Hour is eye-popping, balloon-popping, cork-popping theatre. It’s the kind of show you need a cigarette after… and several months of psychoanalysis.”
HERALD SUN
“The perfect fusion of vaudeville tradition with the experience of postmodernity. To enter the Glory Box is to start a journey on the exotic road of more traditional forms of theater, burlesque to vaudeville, circus to cabaret, side by side with the very great artists that merge with pop, classical, tribal, and rock music. In The Glory Box all emotions have their place, the sensations occur, overlap: from the most visceral horror to laughter, amazement empathy, tragedy to romance, and always talent, pure talent, talent and art. Within the space of this cabaret, the fetish of slave bodies is subverted and turned into delight, into free bodies, into newfound femininity, into the expression of art. Moira and Jackie set out to create a place that was amazing, magical, underground, unforgettable, seductive and revolutionary, provocative, glorious. They did. Oh, how they did it.”
★★★★★ FARSA MAGAZINE BUENOS AIRES
Feature
Glory Box triumps in cuba
In October 2015, Finucane & Smith’s Glory Box became the fist Australian work ever to be presented at the Havana International Theatre Festival. It was a triumph of tears, standing ovations and passion. Havana lined up from 2pm to get a ticket. The show was discussed avidly in cafes, on streets, in lifts and behind coffee machines. Finucane’s Soup was voted “The Moment” of the Festival. Finucane was invited to address artists, academics, critics and playwrights in the hallowed halls of the National Writers Union, where she spoke about humanity, human rights, art and imagination, access, seduction and subversion, gender and power, and her belief that art can change culture and change lives. She was received with tears and a standing ovation. We met artists, poets, film-makers, writers, waiters, chambermaids, drag queens, students … people. They all came to see Glory Box, and we talked to them all. Total Art. Total Love. Total Freedom. We will return.
“The Glory of Total Art . In the constant pursuit of magnificence, never artistic perfection, as perfection is not human and art is the most exquisite creation of being …. The irreverent lavishness of each intervention of the star and co-director Moira Finucane dazzled from the power of dialogue and great performance; while the beautiful and sensual Holly Durant, dancing, gave poetic illusions. We could appreciate the magic of Azaria Universe, Rockie Stone’s strength and grace; the angelic voices of the beautiful Clare St Clare and divine Mama Alto, and the magnificent hands of Miss Chief on the piano… the vitality of the show exceeded the limits of theatricality and spectacle… Glory Box changed all that before were fears, taboos and restrictions on the personal or artistic into “total art, total love and total freedom.”
“A wild sensitivity” Daily Diary of Cuba
“The last show that we discuss is one that undoubtedly has mobilized the public, the media habanero and visitors to the premises of Copa Room of Hotel Riviera: Glory Box, The Revolution, Finucane & Smith of Australia. …Glory Box breaks the mold of habit, and brings a performance art unknown, something that always stirs the curiosity. Forget the drama and theater, this is an interactive show for fun, to explore, to learn something different and to live it intensely since we enter the atmosphere of burlesque erotic charge. We gratefully applaud the capacity of these Australian artists to make us see that there are no limits or boundaries in art.”
GRANMA National daily paper
of Cuba, 29 Oct
