You know the sorts of people who carry a spark, the ones who walk into a room and before you know they’ve lit it up? Well today’s guest is one of those people.

Simone O’Brien is a physical theatre performer, a feminist, a firecracker of a woman and a bloody great storyteller. 

Simone grew up on the edge of a National Park with five brothers, and learned toughness the hard way, discovering early on in life that the world wasn’t going to hand her anything, so she went out and built her own world instead.

She’s done so much in the 60 odd years she's been on this earthly plane. Well, much of it has been spent flying high above audiences on a trapeze! She's also toured the globe with a queer aerial troupe, survived a damaging fall, battled illness, confronted her father in a moment of radical forgiveness, and rebuilt herself, body and soul, to emerge as the person you’re about to get to know a whole lot better.

Simone lived inside the wild beating heart of Sydney’s 90s arts scene, she's marched through the waves of feminism, explored sexuality with honesty and now, in her sixties, she’s navigating menopause, hormone therapy, and the politics of women’s health with the same fierce intelligence she brings to everything, including her post-menopausal post punk cabaret band Mutton, alongside fellow band mate and WOW Ep.4 guest Gabrielle Griffin.

Simone is a brilliant storyteller, a woman who won’t be silenced, who continues to be seen, and who invites us to see ourselves more clearly in the process.

Today on Belly you’ll be hearing the final episode in the CBF grant funded project WOW: Wise Older Women. That means we’re taking a deep dive into Simone’s life: complete with triumphs, trauma, art, politics, the body, the healing, and the burning fire that never went out.

This is a story about feminism brought about by family dynamics, and the power of performance, something Simone was born to own.

FYI: Due to Simone's incredible gift of storytelling, our original interview went for 2 hours and 45 minutes. Great in podcast version, not so great if you’re trying to fit it into a two-hour radio show! 

In lieu of this, and the fact I simply refuse to edit any more from its rich context, and descriptive depths, you'll hear only the first half on the show today.

Part 2 next week!

This project was made possible with the support from the Community Broadcasting Foundation CBF.org.

The WOW2 podcast version of the series will be available in July and broadcast nationally via the Community Radio Network (CRN) later in the year.