sister“You can still be a feminist and like getting cum on your face,” says Amy Cade, a porn actress, escort and sex worker based in Berlin. Her sister, Rosana, is a shaven-headed lesbian. They are both, we are told, feminists.

In Sister they present a bold and unflinching examination of themselves: their family bonds, shared experiences, and the differing paths their lives have taken. It reveals itself as a piece about choice and the centrality of that notion to the lives of these two women.

We enter what looks more like a strip club than a room in the former Royal School of Veterinary Studies, with Summerhall’s Old Lab decked out with red neon lights and a pole assembled at its centre. Around it, Rosana dances. If you look closely you can see that her arm pits are hairy. Later, she tells us that she chooses not to care about that. But first, a lap dance.

Sister sees Amy and Rosana strip off, perform lap dances on agreeable audience members and exchange, in graphic detail, their personal sexual preferences. But it also details how both women have forged ideals and identities which reflect their personal-political ideological disposition and how those agendas fit within the wider cohort of contemporary feminism.

Much of the early part of the piece sees Amy attempt to normalise some of the complexities of her profession as a sex worker. She explains how entering the profession was a considered choice for her and her conviction that there can be a positive place for sex work in a functioning society. Rosana, on the other hand, articulates her particular understanding of gender politics and attempts to undo some of the mythology surround female objectification.

There’s some challenging stage imagery, with the piece regularly layering some of the more progressive material with home video footage from their childhood. The effect is unsettling, but it serves to illustrate that Amy and Rosana are just two ordinary women living their lives as best they can. They have made different choices, but Sister suggests that you can support another woman’s idea of empowerment without wanting to be part of it. After all, that’s what sisters are for.

Sister is at Summerhall on the following dates 3-4, 6-11, 13-18, 20-24 August. For more information and tickets visit the EdFringe website.