Bite Me is an innovative work that is ready to tour created by a team of five women. The poetry and lyrics are written by Sarah Ward, and the songs are composed and arranged by Sarah Ward and the band, Bec Matthews, Ania Reynolds and Frances Evans. Bite Me is directed by Anni Davey, and the show was devised by the entire team.

The content of the show is challenging and refreshingly unapologetic.

Feminist views are presented in a original and comic style that allows popular access to the politics.

An audience is not obliged to take note of the strong feminist politics – the two blokes with me were reduced to tears of hilarity – impressively hidden within a maze of acerbic monologue and slapstick humour, but if you do then you can only applaud the skill with which this team say what they are saying.

Bite Me plays with the traditional Cabaret form, a series of songs, poems and interludes which illuminate the central concerns of the show; dysfunctionality, codependence, the pitfalls of solipsism.

The comedy emerges as Yana Alana strives to hold onto the form, the pretence, the grandeur.

The show slowly descends into chaos as Yana is revealed as less than the Diva that she imagines herself to be.

Of course the work both points referentially to and jokes with the Berlin theatre and cabaret form. Yana’s dramatic nature is both a nod to and prod at the great divas of the era.

The show incorporates elements of stand-up comedy, clowning, characterization, eccentric dance, story telling and theatre.

The songs and poetry cover a large and sometimes unconventional range of genres including rock, traditional and contemporary jazz and classical, gypsy, funk, blues and soul. Yana’s repertoire also includes innovative and original arrangements of well-known songs such as ’Don’t Let Me Be Misunderstood’, Shirley Bassey’s ‘History Repeating” and the Beatles’ ‘Strawberry Fields’.

Yana Alana And Tha Paranas recently won the Best Cabaret Artiste and Anni Davey Best Director – Cabaret at consecutive Green Room Awards presentations.

The team received a total of 11 nominations for Green Room Awards over 2008 and 2009.

They were also awarded the Melbourne Fringe Best Cabaret 2007 and have received rave reviews over a number of sell out seasons.

The work is culturally pertinent, with brave and ambitious content presented in a popular and accessible format.