Boorloo’s wetness influencer Rose KB is back, baby, and ready to hydrate parched Fringe-goers. At Magazine 6000, we’ve been following the evolution of The Wetness, an immersive theatrical performance art created by Rose, initially staged in a hotel room (read more below). Since then, the performance has had many iterations and been hosted in a range of locations. This time, it’s taking over The Gold Digger in Fringe’s Pleasure Gardens for a late-night edition. We spoke to Rose all about this upcoming show, her recent Wetness residency, and taking it across the pond to the international stage.
Hey Rose, thanks for chatting with Magazine 6000! We spoke around this time last year about your show The Wetness.
At the time, you had just developed it into a 60-minute show from its initial seven-minute version. Now, a year later, you’ve performed the show in a nightclub, an office building, a gay sauna, on a boat at Dark Mofo, and most recently at Fremantle Biennale (wow!). Tell us about the evolution of the show over the last year.
Hello Wetness – thanks for having us back! We have truly been on a journey over the past year – from the clouds to the waves to the drain.
The work was inspired by Boorloo’s dry heat and our longstanding mutual seduction with the ocean and spa-side leisure (shout out Beatty Park). It debuted as a 7min workshop in my hotel room late 2024 (Ace Hotel Sydney, prod. Brand X) and very cyclically, we ended up back in a hotel room late 2025 for Fremantle Biennale’s Room Service – where I slowly poured water into a lot of thirsty people’s mouths.
Wetness will shrink and swell to whatever container it wants to flow into – boats, saunas, offices, clubs. It’s always moving, always transforming, always finding new depths.
What’s it been like working on this latest iteration of the work during your residency at PICA?
The PICA residency was such lovely timing – it gave me a space to invite new and existing collaborators into my quest to do a much more physical, surreal and dream-like Wetness. Jack Caddy (Designer) and Mish Endersbee (Director) are Wetness Day 1’s – and have been there from Summer Nights through to Fremantle Biennale, and then I worked in the studio with Ash Baroque as Dramaturg – cracking the show right open, and Briannah Davis with movement coaching, who was especially supportive when I had shoulder surgery last Dec!
The Wetness. Photography by Tülay Dinçel.
For those unfamiliar with The Wetness, what does the experience entail?
The practice of Wetness is about being in relation to the wet stuff inside and outside of you. Devote yourself to wetness, romance wetness, mourn wetness. It’s Hydrofeminist research meets collective esoteric ritual meets sensual, slippery silliness.
The activities or experience is forever changing, e.g. the workshop version was quite physical in terms of people stretching and moving around, then this version people can sit back in their seats and do more watching, listening, maybe some light sensory stuff. Overall, its about connecting to your wetness, my wetness, our wetness – and people can take it as far as they want – just know the more you put in, the more will come out..
When Jay Darroch reviewed your show, they said this is the “kind of immersive show we need more of”. What have you found audiences resonate with most when they come to experience The Wetness?
Jay also said the show was “silly and sexy” which I plan on making into a slogan wet-t-shirt and selling as merch. I think as audiences we understand the ritual of going to a theatre or a tent to see a show, and the best thing about immersive experience is feeling a little unsure of what is going to happen next and having to surrender some control/usual expectations. Even though we are in a tent at Fringe this year, we have taken some of the things we loved about the show at the Wetness Centre (the ground floor of a CBD office building we converted) such as our Aquatic Acolytes that float around and tend to the space and the people within it, and keep me topped up of course.
The Wetness. Photography by Tülay Dinçel.
In this iteration, coming to The Gold Digger at Fringe World, you’re essentially holding a midnight mass, with the show scheduled to start at 11 pm. Do you think this late-night session will bring a different vibe to the show?
Absolutely! I can’t help but re-write a whole show based on the context – it’s my toxic trait. The late-night party version is an opportunity for us to test different bits/approaches to Wetness which is a whole new fun challenge and builds the lore of Wetness as a more robust practice if we can wheel it out to the Goldie at 11pm and also run it as a one on one experience. What has eventuated is a naughtier, nuttier, more absurd version that may have been a bit confronting if it was just me and another person alone in a hotel room.
In August, you’re heading to Edinburgh, to the most iconic fringe of all (sorry, Perth). What are you looking forward to about taking this show to the UK?
I have been lucky enough to attend Edinburgh Fringe twice (2019, 2023) but never with a full show – just doing spots and seeing as much as humanly possible. And while it was very fun and beyond inspiring (especially in terms of bonkers performance art and clowning shows that often don’t make it over to Perth/Oz), I told myself I wasn’t going back without a show… Not to punish myself, but because it is just different when you have that focus on a particular show and platforming something on the international stage that you really believe in and I think Wetness is a universal concept / the one to have a whack at it with. I am also dreaming of getting through the month of shows/performer bootcamp, and then getting back to my Celtic roots and sitting by a loch listening to some watery tales.
Describe your show in five words.
Divine moisture, seize the spray!
The Wetness is on at Fringe World Feb 6-7 and 13-14.
Rose KB – Wetness Practitioner
Mish Endersbee – Director
Jack Caddy – Aquatic Acolyte/Designer
Ash Baroque – Dramaturg
Lia T – Sound Design
Briannah Davis – Movement Coach
Alex Baker – PR