Laneikka Denne
Interview with Anwyn Brook-Evans
Laneikka Denne is a wonderful queer writer, actor and director who has spent their career amplifying and creating authentic works with inspiring, relatable and passionate stories at the core. I had the pleasure to have a chat with Laneikka about their work, artistic journey, ethos and what they love about the Sydney creative and queer scene.
Shot by Stella Sciberras
What drew you into film and theatre?
I think it's because I write or act or create something out of anger, which is wild. I just get angry or annoyed that things don't exist. Like I would be reading for something in an audition and I would go, I don't want to play this person. And this person isn't a real person. Especially with the AFAB experience. A lot of the roles written are cisgender, cis women and they are usually characters that are sidekicks to other people. So I was like, “Well, why don't I just write it myself?”
How has writing these stories helped evolve your queer identity?
Yeah, I think it definitely evolves identity. I got asked a question the other day, which was, “Do you write from your own experience?”, and I find that question paff. I was like, no I don’t write from my experience, but we write important things that were said to us or said around us, or we said to other people, especially within queer issues that rarely get out and shown. And I think a lot of the time I write it down and discuss issues that have surrounded queerness. After that I can look and think about what applies to me or what doesn't apply to me, or why I’m having tension within myself about this part that I'm creating.
So what do you feel like is your starting point when you are first devising a piece then?
It's usually that I'm obsessed with something. Because yes, you have to stay with a piece of art for so long, so you've got to find something that you care about. Like with Feminazi, the thing I was fascinated with, which then led to that journey of gender questioning, was actually that I watched The Social Network. I hate The Social Network, but I was fascinated that they could have a protagonist like Mark Zuckerberg, and how little that man feels anything in that film, and is someone who works in logic rather than emotion. I was like, AFAB people are always pinned in this hole where we are told that we only have emotional reactions and emotional conclusions to things. And I was like, oh, I want to write an antihero that works in logic the same way. I started with that. And then people kept asking me like, what's the emotional journey? And I'm like, there's not, it's a political journey.
I thought something really cool about Feminazi was the use of multimedia. Do you find that using multimedia elevates different perspectives?
I'm really interested in the blend between cinema and theatre, because theatre in its form is white, elite, cis and inaccessible and film can definitely also be those things, but I feel like film can be more accessible. So I've been trying to merge the two because I think that actually makes people that don't normally come to the theatre come to the theatre. I just wanted to feel like it's a fucking rave party, whatever is fun.
Shot by Stella Sciberras
How important to you is collaboration with other Sydney theatre makers and filmmakers? I saw Claud Bailey’s “Stories from the Heart,” which you were a mentor for!
100% entirely. It's the entire point that you create anything! Because I think that queerness and art go so well - hand in hand - because art is a forum or a platform to create community. And queerness is based on community and chosen family. I have no time for “my story is most important.” I only have time for “what stories can we create that don’t exist.” Because it's about the audience, It's about what people get out of it, and I think that's so important. And I like working with people who think like that, too.
In terms of queer venues and spaces in Sydney, what are some of your favorites?
Hmmm, It makes me sad that there aren’t lesbian venues - whatever way you want to take lesbian - it makes me upset that I feel like we don't have them, like Birdcage or whatever. That is not enough. I'm trying and thinking really hard about this and how maybe I could somehow help someone else do that.
If we all crowdfund it haha
Yes we could do it. I just hang out in Newtown. I don't often go outside of that area because I don't want to be hate crimed and I don't want to deal with the world. So just that little bubble and anywhere in there to me is inherently queer, even King Street.
I know, even ‘Clems.’ Every food shop.
Okay. No, actually, can you make this the quote for this question. “Clems chicken shop on King Street... is inherently queer.”
Awesome. So good... So how important to you is it for your film to be capturing these spaces around you in Sydney?
It's very important. Whenever I write, I write specific locations because I get bored of generalizations. I think if you're gonna write that it's in a park, what park is it? And what are you wanting to capture within that? What does it mean to be in a park in Ashfield, versus a park in like Richmond Penrith where I grew up? It's two very different experiences and very different characters.
Top three theatres in Sydney?
1. 25A at Belvoir St Theatre
2. KXT on Broadway
3. Griffin Theatre Company
Who do you think is the most exciting young & emerging creative in Sydney?
Claud Bailey
@cloudiabailey
