Antony HegartyTell me about the creative process behind Swanlights, which premiers later this month.
The initial impulse was to create a space that felt like the inside of a crystal cave. What I kept saying to people was, If you think of how luminous a piece of quartz is, isn’t it ironic that you have to dig into the blackest region of a mountain to find that glowing luminosity? I wanted to try and illustrate that invisible, inverse light of a crystal.
In recent years, have you become more aware of how sound and light interacts?
Attending to the notion of light comes naturally to me because of my interest in photography and theater, and theater tends to be more articulate in its choices about light than rock concerts. With rock concerts, the light kind of spills everywhere; you get a big “wham bam” mash-up. It was actually Marina Abramović who said to me, ‘The music is so beautiful, why don’t you do something that evolves over the course of the evening at a totally different tempo than one would expect from a rock concert?’ It was the beginning of a sense of permission that I developed, to dream of a concert as more of a performance piece.
You seem deeply connected to your audience. Who do you write and perform for?
It’s really hard to say. As a performer, my challenge is always to try to be as present and attentive as I can be to the creative reality of the space, to try to step into that and manifest in a way that feels meaningful. With the audience, there’s obviously an element of witnessing. They feed the energy with their presence, with their kind intentions and their willingness for something to transpire. A lot of positive intention is directed towards what unravels onto the stage. It really is a kind of strange collaboration.
Do you recall a time when all those elements perfectly aligned?
Usually what happens is you get fleeting glimpses of something wonderful, and it can be very, very rewarding as a performer. In that moment, you feel like a star in the sky. I used to call it a perfect moment, and I would have one every three or four months, or six months, or every two years. You can kind of count them on your hand.
There’s so much that is fundamentally strange about performing. It’s very, very embarrassing – you are standing in front of all these people, revealing yourself in a way that in pedestrian circumstances would be considered inappropriate. Everyone is taking a flight of fancy, suspending his or her disbelief for a minute. In a way, I wish everyone could do it more actively.
How do you overcome that embarrassment?
I haven’t. I’ve always been tremendously embarrassed after I do a show. I mean, who in their right mind would do something like that? I get really nervous before, and then I get really embarrassed afterwards.
You once said, When the forests are all cleared, there will be no more space to dream. Do you consider yourself a champion of the environment?
Increasingly, as a transgender person, I can’t separate my experiences from the experience of ecology, or the experience and subjugation of transgender people from the experience and subjugation of women. And I can’t separate the subjugation of women from the experience - and destruction - of ecology. I can’t really separate myself from it anymore, even to say that I’m a champion of it. Only to say that as an artist, it’s become a kind of bottom line for me. What are other artists going to be saying in one 100 years when the ocean is over 30 feet higher? How will they look back on us? They’ll say, ‘What were we thinking, why weren’t we fighting? Why weren’t we participating and using every resource and platform at our disposable to talk about what seems so imminent and so catastrophic?’
This moral obligation reminds me of what you’ve said you admire most about your biggest idol, Nina Simone.
Yes, definitely. Nina Simone has been a huge power of example to me. Her courage and her moral authority, her willingness to name a poison that was lacing society and to spit out the truth. It’s become rare—you just don’t see it anywhere.
Hegarty performingYou’ve collaborated with some big names in the fashion industry, like Prada and Givenchy. Is there someone you’re working with now?
The wonderful designers Ohne Titel are designing my costume for the concert in January. Their work is so subtle and inspiring, they have such a beautiful sense of line and color. It’s just right up my alley. I also love Creatures of the Wind. I wear a lot of stuff that they’ve custom made for me.
You’re an extremely visual person. If you could draw a picture of your music, of your world, what would it look like?
It would look a little bit like that part in Superman when he’s born in that weird crystal cavern. I’m very preoccupied with minerals. For a long time, I was afraid of the anonymity of minerals and their seemingly static position, but in recent years, I’ve come to think of minerals as internally dancing. They have a unique spiritual life of their own—it’s very resonant and they last a long time.
People often describe you as otherworldly. Do you agree?
I really feel so much a part of this world and that my voice is a reflection it. I think it’s so surprising that people say I’m otherworldly—I really feel quite bound to this world. When I die, I never thought I’d be anywhere but here.
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Portraits: courtesy of MoMA
