Jason Forrest

Jason Forrest has spent 30 years working as a performing artist and educator across a variety of sectors internationally, interstate and locally. Prior to completing a Bachelor of Educational Theatre and a Graduate Diploma in Education in Adelaide, Jason was a member of touring acapella choir Before You Were Blonde and featured in several theatre productions including Caryl Churchill’s Cloud 9. During this time, Jason also worked as a freelance dancer, touring shows locally and interstate.

As an experienced Drama and Media Studies teacher and educational leader, Jason has worked with primary and secondary school students in Adelaide, Melbourne, Japan, China, and United Kingdom to develop their expressive skills as performers and cultivate their aesthetic as emerging artists in film and theatre.

Jason has directed and produced numerous theatrical productions and events with young people and their respective communities for a wide range of purposes. Most recently, Jason completed his Graduate Certificate in Journalism and has continued to explore his interest in media studies through the completion of various radio, film and podcasting courses.

Jason’s long and storied career in the Arts is testament to his creative drive, versatility and commitment to all aspects of theatre and filmmaking.

Hans Christian Andersen’s 1845 folktale The Red Shoes examines the cost of following one’s true desire and what it means to “dance a different dance.” Set against oppressive Christianity, it pits an orphan’s passion for a pair of sinful red shoes against a world demanding obedience and conformity; a clash between a rigid establishment that says “conform” and a counterculture that says “rebel”. Yet the tale is also about resilience and recovery of self, suggesting that our wounds can become our strength. In this adaptation by Emma Rice and Anna Maria Murphy, the play moves toward hope, proposing that “you make your own fortune when you dance your own dance.”

Thus, it is this story’s unyielding pursuit of authenticity and self in the face of adversity that resonates with the queer experience. At a time when queer stories are censored and LGBTQIA+ rights rolled back, this production uses a familiar tale for visibility, conversation and hope, bringing queer narratives directly to audiences when access is restricted. Our reimagining centres on an orphan boy whose red shoes ignite his queer feelings and desires, shifting the narrative toward LGBTQIA+ experiences of identity, acceptance, oppression and liberation.

The work draws inspiration from Vaslav Nijinsky, the groundbreaking early twentieth-century male ballet dancer whose life fused radical artistic freedom, queerness and profound mental distress. Bullied as a boy for his talent and looks, Nijinsky became the star of Sergei Diaghilev’s company and his lover, pushing ballet into scandalous, boundary-breaking territory; his choice to dance in tights for the Imperial Ballet in 1911 and his controversial choreographies marked him as a revolutionary artist. His diaries, written amid schizophrenia, reveal delusions, disorganised language, and references to his homosexuality and fear of institutionalisation. Nijinsky’s story part informed the decision to change Andersen’s orphan GIRL into a BOY whose homosexuality, desire to “dance a different dance,” and delusions add weight and urgency to the tale, illuminating the historic and ongoing persecution of LGBTQIA+ people whose rights are denied because of who they love.

For the orphan boy, the red shoes symbolise his longing to live differently and a glimpse of a celebratory, liberated self. The church, townspeople and butcher collectively represent social forces that police happiness, freedoms and rights. In contrast, the relationship between the soldier and the boy offers a tender spark of hope, where attraction is drawn to the boy’s confidence and spirit rather than gender alone. His wild, uncontrollable dancing—echoing Nijinsky’s final improvised solo—reveals his true nature and brief flashes of freedom.

The story is framed by a travelling troupe of players and their magical storybook caravan, underscoring storytelling as resistance and a way to preserve queer histories in the face of erasure and silence.

Our reimagining of Andersen’s tale was also inspired by my experience as a young gay man growing up in suburban Australia in the late 1980s and early 1990s. I remember the profound impact it had on me witnessing queer figures and stories on stage, on screen and queer artists in pop music. It hinted at a brighter, more hopeful path ahead and I no longer felt alone.

My personal experience coupled with Nijinsky’s courageous life and the on-going censorship and erasure of queer stories and the erosion of LGBTQIA+ rights underpins our reimagining of The Red Shoes as a vital queer story for today, reframing the orphan as male to spark conversation, action and debate about LGBTQIA+ rights worldwide.

My hope is that an audience member might feel seen, less alone, and inspired to dare to “dance a different dance” after experiencing The Red Shoes.

– Jason Forrest

TBA

This production includes depictions of violent illusions and simulated bodily separations. Some scenes may be distressing for audience members. Viewer discretion is advised. Subject to change in the development of the production.