Dana       
McMillan

Solo Projects

objects in the mirror are (not) what they appear 


Melbourne Fringe Festival
Festival Hub: Trades Hall - The Square
Sept 30th-Oct 4th
Wed-Sat: 9:15pm, Sun 8:15pm
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"Today, we’re looking at looking. Today, at me specifically. So, welcome... If you want to come in and take a seat, we’ll get started."

Dana has spent a lot of time looking into reflections over the last five years, in screens, mirrors and pools of water. She can’t look away. She's fascinated by the sight in front of her...but she’s also having a hard time reconciling the person looking back as herself.
To unravel what it means to look at the self and to find out who this person really is, she's gone away and done the research. She's hit the books and enlisted the assistance of an Ancient Greek, Narcissus, to help figure it out..
The more she looks and the more she digs, the further she seems to sink into the image. Becoming increasingly drawn to the lovesick nymph Echo who follows Narcissus - who disappears from sight and appears in sound - Dana starts to crave a dis-appearance of her own. Perhaps the voice that lingers, might be a more complete reflection of the self?
Part performance lecture, part live streaming nightmare, Dana talks, dances and photographs her way around the self-gaze, dissecting her subjectivity for your viewing (and listening) pleasure.

Created for the MFA in Advanced Theatre Practice at The Royal Central School of Speech and Drama. 

Previous Seasons: 
Sprint Festival, Camden People’s Theatre, 2023


Past Work: 
This is Not About Lee Miller, VCA, Developmental Showing, 2019
This is Not About Lee Miller is a devised solo performance, presented at VCA for my BFA (Honours) in Theatre Practice. The performance uses Dana’s relationship (or obsession) to photographer, model and muse Lee Miller in order to explore the nature of queer feminine desire and the specifics of how this gaze operates in theatre. It seeks to challenge the traditional male gaze by using models of feminist psychoanalysis and feminine aesthetics to create a queer feminine dramaturgy for performance making.
The performance incorporates live streaming with physical performance, verbatim text and poetry to explore the relationship between the self and other in a queer feminine relationship, which not only desires but is also able to see oneself within the object of desire.