Year of the Dragon
We’re excited to announce a new co-commission, and the beginning of a new partnership with non-profit artist-led organisation TACO!. Supported by the Outlands Network Exchange programme, Radiophrenia and TACO! present a new piece by artist Zara Joan Miller: Year of the Dragon. Year of the Dragon will be premiered live at TACO! On February 1 2025, as part of blurt – an experimental platform supporting artists to develop text-based works for live reading and performance, and synchronous live-to-air broadcast on rtm.fm. In their words – ’In this testing-site for testing text, four artists and artist-groups consider radio broadcast as an expanded form of publishing. We perform to publish, which is to say, to make public. And our moment of thinking is live on air!’ A version of Zara’s piece will be aired again during the upcoming edition of Radiophrenia, 7-20 April 2025.
Year of the Dragon. A mother draws a circle. Spins round. Pins everything but the tail on the donkey. She wants to know how the dragon makes fire, gets inside it. On the inside things slow. Written in the Year of the Dragon, Zara Joan Miller’s long poem traces fire across a year. The figure of Saint Margaret, who freed herself from the belly of a dragon, is relocated in living voices that challenge structures of oppression today. A year of feeding fire, of dousing and soft loving. A mother waits in disguise by the fire exit.
