Meet Jonathan - producer by day and dancer by night
Jonathan chats with Midsumma about a personally influential piece that inspired their work, Jonathan has responded with the anecdote below and left us with a little boogie to this Bodyguard soundtrack.
"I remember being four years old. I was in Hong Kong at my local supermarket which also had a video rental in it. The memory is so vivid; next to the Basic Instinct VHS cover was the Bodyguard with Whitney Houston and Kevin Costner. I begged my mom and tugged on her black knee-length silk-cotton blend safari jacket if I could rent it. She did and I was hooked. This movie single-handedly exposed me to my love for R&B Music--which now includes disco--and my love for dancing around my room in my underwear.
Shortly after I got the cassette tape and in my Sailormoon backpack, I would bring the Bodyguard soundtrack everywhere! I have fond memories of lipsyncing Queen of the Night and putting on my mother’s high heel shoes...I was always a sucker for the red crocodile print.
My love for this soundtrack continues to this day. The three ballads of Run to You, I Have Nothing and I Will Always Love You were outlets for my lamentation and heartbreak through my teenage and adult years. It was almost after every ‘read’ message or teenage date gone array I came back to these songs. I would sing them at the top of my lungs, usually cry and then eat a pint of ice cream.
Fast forward through formal dance training and moving to five other countries, I finally arrive in Australia. It is 2015 and after running a large urban/hip-hop dance crew I needed to find an outlet to express my individuality and particularly to go as far from heteronormativity as possible. My dear friend Lauren Drago took me to a waacking battle at the now recently closed Boney’s and I was hooked. I saw the emotion I was feeling inside in this way that was so dramatic yet so minimal. There were other people like me, people who have grown up in Asia and have migrated as well, all-dancing out to disco tracks, funk beats and ballads. Now four years later, I am so early in my journey of being a waacker but getting to find positive outlets to express my unrequited love or emotions is something that is insurmountable.
To make this full circle here is me having a little boogie to this Bodyguard soundtrack, possibly thinking about unrequited love." - Jonathan Homsey
Jonathan is the curator of Nocturnal x Midsumma: Lunar New Year Disco as part of Queer Unsettled in the Midsumma Festival 2020 Program.
Top image by Pennie Lu
