Wallow in the Piss, Then Fight

Cleo Rapture takes a golden hour into a former Baptist tabernacle.

In Piss Be With You, Cleo Rapture — pole dancer, comic, self-described "Pole Dance Daddy" — fills an old Baptist tabernacle with an hour of pelvic power, tragicomic romance and one very golden tube. The one-woman splash-tacular plays Eternity Playhouse for one night only as part of Sydney Fringe 2026.

Interviewed by Aubrey Naur.

Eternity Playhouse used to be a Baptist tabernacle. On 11 September, for one night only, it will host a woman in a metallic bikini distilling the "c*m" out of "decorum" from the top of a golden pole. Cleo Rapture's Piss Be With You — one hour, one show, part sermon, part strip, part group pelvic-floor workout led by a character named Dr. Christina Tang — is the sort of thing Sydney Fringe exists to house, and the sort of thing the city's shrinking queer nightlife map is currently begging for.

Rapture is Newcastle-raised and Sydney-tempered, a former stripper and current "Pole Dance Daddy" with a real obsession with religious iconography and an equally real one with eroticism. Piss Be With You is her first solo hour in a seated theatre, and she has built it as an immersive service: a rain dance, an audience-assembled pole, a couple hundred piss jokes, and a thread of hope running through the tragicomic romantic wreckage. We spoke ahead of her Eternity Playhouse night about camp religion, the closure of Divine Playhouse, and the particular anxiety of hanging three metres up by the back of your knee.

This conversation has been edited for length and clarity.

An hour of pelvic power in a former tabernacle

Eternity Playhouse was a Baptist tabernacle before it was a theatre. What did the venue tour do for the show?

"The first time I ever went in there, I saw a sold-out Rhys Nicholson comedy show on the eve of my first ever Mardi Gras parade. Rhys and I are both from Newcastle and we both got out to the big city to live our gorgeous queer lives, so it's a special place to me. When I did a walk-through in preparation for this show, a City of Sydney staff member showed me around; the old seats had been repurposed into sound cushioning in the ceilings and walls, the original woodwork restored and maintained."

"Like a lot of queer and trans people, I've experienced quite a deal of suffering at the hands of religious institutions, particularly conservative Christian factions. That's part of my source of fear and shame as a queer person, and I push back against it actively. My intention with Piss Be With You is to fill that space with an hour of pelvic power and pure queer joy and revelry. I've made the show interactive and immersive; this is my part of the service, and I've tried to make it as joyous and profoundly theatrical and pleasurable as possible."

Walk me through the service. What's made it into the show?

"There's a lot of pole dancing, yes. There's stand-up. There's a group dance I've called a rain dance — a big blush blessing, a call to release and receive the love we deserve, through a group five, six, seven, eight. There's a video segment called Kegel Corner where my character, Dr. Christina Tang, instructs the crowd through a pelvic floor exercise so we strengthen and lift everything up together. And there's autobiographical stand-up with a little queer inquiry."

"The pole features largely. First of all, it's a good opportunity to flex, for me and for the audience. I have a volunteer help me assemble the pole as part of the performance and show off their huge muscle mass, and the rest of the audience cheers them on. As queer people — and I suppose women and nonbinary folks — we're taught to really limit our bodily celebration. I've tried to push back against that and call everyone to celebrate the one person, direct from the community."

And the pole itself — as a metaphor?

"It looks like a golden tube. If that isn't a metaphor for piss leaving the tube, I don't know what is. Beyond that, it's a tool of my expression in both a tragic way and a triumphant way. The tragic way is layered with comedy, so it's yummy and digestible; I use the pole to illustrate some tragic romantic and sexual encounters I've had that turn out to be pretty universal to a lot of queer folks. And then I use it to illustrate triumph, where the pole becomes a partner and we're making a beautiful moment and making love together. She's multipurpose, that big old metal rod. Love her."

Anxiety at three metres up

I used to do pole. It's difficult up there — sometimes the pole is your enemy, sometimes your lover. Presumably you're now at a level where the safety stuff is second nature.

"I'm going to gently push back on that. I'm still full of a healthy dose of anxiety every time I'm up there, and every time I'm creating something I want to enjoy dancing in, or something I want to help tell a story with. It's the same anxiety I have when I meet a new prospective partner or go on a date with someone new: I could really make something beautiful here, or I could absolutely tank. There are a lot of factors outside my control, and we just have to show up with hope."

Part of the fun is the adrenaline. It's also that the back of your knee is the only thing keeping you off the floor.

"Yeah. You get it."

From ensemble to solo hour

You previously performed The Rapture at Village Green in 2024. Going from an ensemble variety show to a solo hour in a seated theatre — has that changed how you build the repertoire?

"When I do an ensemble piece like The Rapture, I'm sending all the emails, filling the spreadsheets, setting up the big thing. It's almost like building a rollercoaster: you're creating the circuit for the crew to come on and enjoy. We all have each other, and that's beautiful."

"For this piece, it's not that I don't love the people I've worked with before — they're fantastic. But I wanted the audience to be the support network, without degrading or mocking them: getting them into the conversation of, I've had this difficulty, can you relate, give me a little something. It's a nice way to bring solidarity into the performance. That's been the most remarkable thing I've experienced doing this show for the past year — solidarity in the struggle, and collective hope for a better romantic future for queer and trans people."

What are the threads you refuse to sacrifice?

"I have a real obsession with religion and religious iconography and the ritualistic elements, particularly satirising it and parodying it for queer audiences to enjoy or revel in. That's my jam. Maybe it won't be one day; it's just where I'm at now. And always an obsession with eroticism — deep, authentic eroticism. As someone who's been a sex worker and a stripper, it's very important to me that sexuality is safe and celebrated. That thread is the core of this piece, and it'll be in the threads of everything else I do."

Sexuality can't be safe until it's visible — that's the thread a lot of my friends in sex work pull on. It's hard to make something safe when repressed Australian culture won't talk about it in the first place.

Betty Grumble, the divine, and the closure of Divine Playhouse

Betty Grumble's work is about reclamation, refusal of decorum, the body as text. Where does your practice sit inside that conversation, and where does it diverge?

"I'm deeply moved by Betty's call to reclamation. There's so much power in reclaiming your body, reclaiming your surrounds, creating a collective, creating a language, creating a movement. If aliens came down from outer space, they'd think she's a different species — she's so of her own. That own is truly being in touch with her intuition and calling on others to listen to themselves and act on what they hear. That's God's work. That's the divine, as far as I'm concerned."

"I obviously don't copy-paste her work — there's no recreating her magic. But that call to listen and respond, to get people back to their bodies, is something I hope to accomplish through the show, through the hundred, two hundred piss jokes. I hope somewhere people start listening to themselves."

And Divine Playhouse — the church-turned-nightclub that briefly seemed like a hope, before religious backlash forced its closure. How does that sit with you?

"I turned 18 around the same time same-sex marriage was legalised in Australia. So I entered the adult queer world at the same time our marriage was legal and recognised, and naively I believed I was headed for utopia. Green pastures forward, particularly in metropolitan Australia. I'm from regional New South Wales, Newcastle — working-class, old mining town, now the biggest coal exporter in the world. Not a lot of queer culture, but the little pockets enriched me."

"When I moved from Newcastle to Sydney, I thought it would just keep getting better; I'd be innately welcomed. That delusion was fiercely, fiercely pumped. It turns out this is an experience a lot of regional queer and trans people have. Yes, metropolitan areas give us better health and life and social outcomes — but we are nowhere near the level of liberation we deserve."

"I can see that in the Divine Playhouse closure. As far as I'm aware, Kat Dopper dotted every i and crossed every t she was told to, legally, with the grants, working with council and government. And still — she must have thought, great, I've created a utopia for my whole community. Then the way that fantasy was destroyed by some antisocial Christofascists? That's heartbreaking. And it resonates with me as someone who works in events, but also as a queer person who thought things were better than they are."

Sometimes queer people are told we can just fall in line with the bureaucracy and get by. Then you do, and you realise that's not how the world actually works.

"If we want to put a cutesy little bow on it: I'm proud of Kat Dopper's pushback and her fight, the way she's picking up and bringing the community together, seeking legal action, programming more events, continuing the fight she's always done. Maybe she feels she has no choice. In some ways, I feel the same — because if we just sit and sook, I fear things will only continue to fester. So we've gotta let it out. We've gotta express ourselves, wallow in the piss for a bit, and then we've gotta pick up and go back out and fight."

Who is mother? Lineage from Newcastle to Sky Sirens

Who is mother? What's the pole lineage you come from?

"It's a cliché, but I stand on the shoulders of giants, and there are many of them. I started dancing casually and recreationally with my girlfriend at the time, at a small studio in Newcastle. When we split, I kept going and moved to another Newcastle studio, D'vine Dance. D'vine, of course — where else would I go. I really got my technique underway there with Dolly D'vine, and would come to Sydney for casual classes. Bobbi's Pole. Sydney Pole. Sky Sirens. I learned from some of the best in the world in those studios."

"Then lockdown happened. I was teaching myself through online tutorials. Being alone with yourself and forcing yourself to dance so you don't go insane really builds you up. That period was very formative — figuring out what I actually enjoy, what feels nourishing, what I don't like in my dancing. I came to realise I really enjoy old school, inspired by the stripper pioneers here in Sydney — Jamilla DeVille, Suzie Q, the BIPOC strippers in the clubs around here — and then athletic tricks from international showgirls like Estefania, Kitty Velour, Medusa Mamii from the Southern US. My style is old-school showgirl with some banging tricks and splits."

On Sky Sirens specifically — you weren't teaching, but you performed there. What did their influence do to the space?

"I did casual classes when I could, and worked as part of their performances — their Heartstopper showcase, and I think one of their Nightcap performances. A lot of my peers and personal friends are former students and staff there, and their influence on the dance and sex work space is unmistakable. You can still see their style of movement in the way some of Sydney's most successful dancers move. They raised this generation — Mama Medusa, Bella Baby Doll, Billie Brooklyn, Arizona, so many others — and the way they centred BIPOC performers and dancers and students, and advocated for them, really changed the dance space in Sydney and potentially Australia."

Newcastle vs. Sydney: raise the roof, then think about it

Is being from Newcastle significant? How does it show up in the work?

"That's like asking sweet or savoury, my darling. It depends what you're after. I'd consider myself kind of rough around the edges, and people pick up on that quickly. I'm intentional with my words, but I wouldn't say I'm delicate. That's a Newcastle thing. Newcastle performance, particularly in the queer scene, insists you absolutely must have a good time. If the audience thinks and if they learn, great; but foremost, your job is to raise the roof."

"Sydney has world-class performance and an incredible art scene, with more focus on the informative aspects — the storytelling. Having those two schools polishing up my practice has made for this big She-Hulk show babe who comes out blasting, insisting we all have a good time and are safe and sexy together. But underneath there's deep heart and a gentle narrative that we're all human and we're all in it together. It's difficult to see yourself from the outside."

"Newcastle also made me very practical and resourceful, because the arts infrastructure just isn't there in the same way. In Sydney, when I started, you could get burlesque on every corner. In Newcastle, you had to make it happen. In some cases, I had to make the space — set up the theatre, the seating, the actual stage. The pole? I had to check where it would go. Turns out it goes everywhere: bars, train stations, nightclubs. Nursing homes. Newcastle's very bring the performance and goddamn make it good. Sydney has a little more space for cerebral action. Both are invaluable."

Golden gay time in a bleak season

Anything you wished I'd asked?

"In preparing for this show and for Melbourne Fringe in October, I've been making it funnier. There's a stack more piss and puss jokes, so people can look forward to that. Also, the process of trying to find partnership and romantic and sexual compatibility is ongoing — even if you have a long-term partner, because you're constantly changing and so are they. Since the last time I performed "Piss: at Mardi Gras, I've evolved personally, and the show has evolved with me."

"The intention for personal and collective reclamation is really strong for me this season, particularly with events like Divine Playhouse being closed or forced to close, Ching-A-Lings closing, the increase of bar raids along Oxford Street. With the uptick in queer and trans violence and marginalisation, I really am hell-bent on delivering an hour of golden gay time."

It's bleak. What does anyone even do in Sydney anymore?

"Yeah. Everyone has their craft circles, they all DJ on the side. But nobody's able to actually do things. We're all surviving, being forced into these degrading positions of living. It's horrible."

"One final thing. I've had a couple of 78ers come and see the show, which has been extremely touching. Their feedback has been similar to what you've just said: we're in the same situation they had decades ago. They thought, we had this covered, we were more progressed, we were evolved — and they're still struggling. Hopefully the struggle ends soon and I don't have to do the show anymore."

Piss Be With You — a one-woman splash-tacular of pole, comedy and queer inquiry from Cleo Rapture. Eternity Playhouse, 11 September 2026, as part of Sydney Fringe.

Written and performed by: Cleo Rapture

Interviewed by Aubrey Naur.

Eternity Playhouse — Off Broadway Hub, 39 Burton Street, Darlinghurst 2010 (Gadigal Country).

Tickets and info: sydneyfringe.com/events/piss-be-with-you

Follow: @cleo_rapture

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