Dana       
McMillan

Solo Projects

Current Work: 
objects in the mirror are (not) what they appear. Sprint Festival, Camden People’s Theatre, 2023 (Performer and Devisor)

"Today, we’re looking at looking. Today, at me specifically. So, welcome... If you want to come in, we’ll get started."
Dana has spent a lot of time looking into reflections over the last couple years, in screens, mirrors, pools of water. She’s strangely fascinated and she can’t look away, but she’s also been having a hard time reconciling the person looking back at her as herself. So, she's gone away and hit the books, done the research and enlisted the assistance of an Ancient Greek, Narcissus, who’s already been there to help her unravel what it means to really look at the self.
But the more she looks, the further she sinks into the image and she can’t help but want it to disappear. Dana becomes increasingly drawn to the lovesick nymph following Narcissus, Echo, disappearing from sight and appearing in sound – a dis-appearance. Could  the voice that lingers 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. 

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.