The Hags
A Cinematic Sideshow of Feminist Force
Created by Erin M McCuskey
It is only in the smudgy dark that we have a sense of possibility, that we feel the big picture. And it is age that gives us the wisdom to see our place in it. Do you dare witness the crones, dowagers and fallen queens of old? Will you hear their whispered stories, delight in their tall tales? Can you accept their challenges and enact their siren call? A hag is a wise old woman of legend who appears in many guises. Perhaps your ancestory holds one, maybe you are one. Their stories may help you understand the world, even though it challenges you. We dare you!
The Hags is a live digital performance work that invites audiences into a strange and beautiful reckoning with feminine power.
In the centre of a darkened room stands a tall dollhouse, its windows flicker a light that beckons. Getting closer we see each room has a projected fairytale inside, while outside we see a dancers.
Five digital hags flicker to life in projection: the Night Hag, Cailleach, Baba Yaga, Spider Grandmother, and Gaia—each within her red-velvet cabinet of power. They are presided over by Madame Yum, a live dancing hag and joyful disruptor.
Using the language of the sideshow and the poetry of myth, The Hags reclaims the archetype of the older woman as a source of creative resistance, embodied memory, and unapologetic power.
“Not quaint. Not quiet.
These are truths too old to be denied.”
Blending pre-recorded narration with live performance and digital projection mapping, the piece invites audiences to encounter their own transformation—to gaze behind the curtain, to meet the inner hag, and to dance every day.
Credits
Concept, Direction & Performance: Erin M McCuskey
Film & Projection Design: Yum Studio
Cast: Deborah Wood, Robyn Sedgwick, Kylie Supski, Erin M McCuskey, Louise Sherrard
Crew: Gabi Erin, Sophia Livitsanis, Dulcie Corbett, Cody Winward, Megan Finlayson, Bryan Putt
Tech: Yandell Watson, Spencer Harrison, Bryce Carter
Props: Erin M McCuskey, Paddy Caulfield
Costume: Erin M McCuskey, Clare McEldew, Linda Franklin
Performance Photography & Video: Christine Hickson, Fagyn Gwyther-McCuskey, Meda Designs, Andy C
Presented at: Hidden Festival, Ballaarat, on Wadawurrung Country
Commissioned by: City of Ballarat – Anindita Banerjee, Justin Weyers, Jesse Lubitz
Commissioned Artists: Annelise Belladonna, Spencer Harrison, Erin M McCuskey, Christine McFetridge, Diana Paez, Stefanie Petrik, Kirrily Urquhart and Daniel Williams.
Mentor: Yandell Watson from the Centre for Projection Art.
About the Artist
Erin M McCuskey is a moving image artist working across experimental cinema, feminist myth, and live performance. Her work blends archival, found, and filmed footage into poetic moving images shaped by her experience of hyperopia and research into cinematic hauntological. She often works with muses, joy as resistance, and the politics of dance as cultural expression.
McCuskey is the co-founder of Yum Studio and a devoted researcher of fragmented Irish ancestral apparitions. Her cinematic works have been described as “one of Australia’s great unknown pleasures” (Bill Mousoulis).
