A Mardi Gras exhibition celebrates the pioneering role of Sydney’s early gay and lesbian underground performers including Australia’s first “queen of soul” Wendy Saddington.
A Mardi Gras exhibition celebrates the pioneering role of Sydney’s early gay and lesbian underground performers including Australia’s first “queen of soul” Wendy Saddington.
Danny Abood with Sylvia and the Synthetics at Paddington Town Hall. Photograph: William Yang
Danny Abood with Sylvia and the Synthetics at Paddington Town Hall. Photograph: William Yang
They hung themselves from meat hooks, pelted their audience with offal – and blazed a trail for radical queer performance in Australia
LoCarmen
Thu 25 Feb 2021 11.30 EST
Last modified on Thu 4 Mar 2021 19.38 EST
Sylvia and the Synthetics – Australia’s audacious drag provocateurs and underground LGBTQ pioneers – burned brightly and chaotically for the short two years of their reign.
In 1972, Morris Spinetti, the group’s “founding mother”, was performing as a mime artist with Australia’s first female rock star, Wendy Saddington, when the concept was dreamt up with Paul Hock and Denis Norton.