Details

Autor(en) / Beteiligte

• Hyland, Nicola

Titel

Reviews: I Have Loved Me a Man: The Life and Times of Mika. By Sharon Mazer,. Auckland: Auckland University Press, 2018. Pp. 288 + 201 illus. £30/$59.95 (NZD) Hb

Ist Teil von

• Theatre Research International, 2019, Vol.44 (3), p.327-328

Ort / Verlag

Oxford: Cambridge University Press

Erscheinungsjahr

2019

Link zum Volltext

Quelle

Literature Online (LION)

Beschreibungen/Notizen

• Initially intended as a means of preserving Mika's history and extensive archives (p. vii), this is also a portrait of an evolving post-colonial place, his ‘personal journey as a mirror held up to New Zealand social history, both fabulous and revolutionary’ (p. vii). Mazer begins with Mika's childhood in the South Island port town of Timaru, exploring ‘spoof dancing’ (p. 25) in 1970s Christchurch, and a ‘serious’ turn at acting and activism in the 1980s; she traces the metamorphosis of dancer Neil Gudsell into performance artist ‘Mika’, exploring his global ventures in avant-garde guises, and the recent acts of queer youth advocacy (‘#BusyDragDad’ (p. 232)). Mazer reveals how Mika, adopted at birth by a Pākehā (New Zealander of European descent) family, would never even attempt to ‘fit’ in Timaru – a small town with a bastardized Māori name (from te maru: ‘the shelter’) and a thoroughly conservative Pākeha mentality.