Friday, June 18, 2010
gaining some momentum now...taking a stand with lapstances
I was contemplating how I want to use lapdancing as a vehicle for my own views, voice, dignity, and worth. I am considering something I call 'lapstance' where the person in the chair who is awaiting a lapdance actually has to use their own corporeal agency. We will engage in a mutual standing upon one another's lap. First I discard my high heels, and gingerly make my way onto standing on their lap. This isn't as quick as it sounds, it takes some precise timing and placement in order to minimise pain and discomfort...Actually it can be quite pleasurable, like a deep tissue massage if done properly. I return then to my seat (adjacent to them) and put my heels back on. I invite the person sitting next to me to do the same and to stand upon my lap. I assure them they will not injure me, and hope that they don't.....it's a tangible sharing of the body, and of power, of pain, of pleasure...lots of things. I'm sure this will expand....In the following video clip, just imagine the pillow as a person (though it being a pillow is quite amusing in and of itself)....I will lay a cloth over the person's lap before standing...but will not put one over my legs.
Lapdance Series Rehearsal Footage 2
Interesting rehearsal yesterday with nefeli. It's difficult without a body, so Nefeli was
kind enough to lend me her body to try a few things on. A man was sitting next to us (we were at the Royal Festival Hall) and he got up and left after seeing some of the imagery. Later on he came over and asked what I was doing. He told me I looked cheap. The women that do those things have no dignity, they make money, but they have no self value and worth. He said no one likes that kind of thing, and the people that do are 'boozers'. Well, I said a lot of men may disagree with you. Also, what right does he have to place his views and words into the voices of these women whom he has had no contact with? He insisted I do something original. Obviously he didn't get the entire point of this project as trying to re-write the lapdance conventions into my own creative framing. He pretty much proved the very reason I am investigating this. I think there is a lot of controversy about the 'morality', dignity, and rights of both giver and receiver of lapdances. It's only taboo or cheap because we have learned it to be that way. Still constructing, re-constructing, de-constructing, and trying to figure out what the best context to perform this will be. Knowing how he reacted, I think perhaps I may need to discard my idea of having lapdances performed in a bar or club, I think this only feeds into the common way of seeing or experiencing them. It may actually need a theatrical venue to accomplish a new way of experiencing the lap dance. I think as this rehearsal footage shows, it can simply be fun and funny also. It's kind of a unique thing to have two bodies in such close proximity (especially when the strangeness of the situation turns into laughter)...there's a lightness that I am seeking to explore more in this work.....Enjoy.
Tuesday, June 15, 2010
Lapdance Series Rehearsal Footage 1
I have started working on a new piece/event which will include 24 lap dance experiences. I want to demonstrate that a lap dance can be more than grinding myself into your groin; it can be intimate in ways you have maybe never considered.
Sample a small taste with this first film.
Monday, June 7, 2010
Successful Performance Event! Many Pictures...
It has taken me a long time to follow up on the performance that occurred May 1, 2010 because I was so exhausted, thrilled, still processing, and excited to develop in the future. The evening could not have gone any better. People wrote amazing comments about the piece for example : 'unlike anything I have ever experienced' or 'looking forward to the next one'.... I have an entire visitor's book with comments that truly demonstrated that the point came across: performance need not happen in a stage or in a formal context to change, move, or inspire people.
I felt overly pleased after the show, and also inspired to continue working with the position and the concept. Please enjoy some of the photography documenting the event. Click on this link or just go to the new May 1st page on the right margin of this blog:
MAY 1st Photos (by Oz Owen and Graham Bradley)
I hope to have a film up shortly.
Please join us in Berlin at Schwelle 7 to perform this piece on OCT 26, 27, 28, 2010. More information to follow....If you are interested in upcoming events please let me know.
I felt overly pleased after the show, and also inspired to continue working with the position and the concept. Please enjoy some of the photography documenting the event. Click on this link or just go to the new May 1st page on the right margin of this blog:
MAY 1st Photos (by Oz Owen and Graham Bradley)
I hope to have a film up shortly.
Please join us in Berlin at Schwelle 7 to perform this piece on OCT 26, 27, 28, 2010. More information to follow....If you are interested in upcoming events please let me know.
Friday, April 16, 2010
Getting Closer to Performance
As we approach the performance we have been trying the movement without as much clothing to see how it effects the execution of the choreography emotionally and physically. It seems to be liberating for the performers though perhaps a bit uncomfortable to outsiders who are in the studio watching our process...
Wednesday, March 24, 2010
New footage
I'm playing with the idea of choosing to be on all fours. The distinct decision to be in any position affords a certain level of power and agency. Nefeli's character in particular will choose very clearly that she wants to be on the table and she wants to play on all fours for some time. She wants to define what the position means to her rather than the position defining what/who she is. Enjoy.
Research Continues...
I wanted to share some of the responses I have gained about the position from people not directly related to the development of the piece. In addition I have added some images that I drew from in the beginning of the project. I have decided to look back at these images after not viewing them for about 6 weeks. Initially I saw them in only one perspective, but now it has become easier to see the imagery in multiple ways after assuming these positions throughout the choreographic process.
Sample of Public Responses:
1. "Animalistic (is that a word?) Ask a little kid to act like a dog, cat, bear, lion, etc... they're immediately on all fours. It's the closest way most people (dancers excluded) can emulate animals. And on a side note, being on all fours makes me hyper-aware of my core/center.... not wanting my gut to hang down like a cow. :) I do not feel sexy on all fours, but maybe thats not the case for other people." (woman)
2. "I think in many ways it's a vulnerable position. It's also very primitive and powerful at the same time!" (woman)
3. "Ditto, and because the powerful and vulnerable can exist simultaneously, also very mysterious and sexy." (man)
Sample of Performer Responses (all women):
1. "on all fours: submission."
2. "grounded, unwinding from tension, balance, steady"
3."submission, dominance, strength, hierarchy, relaxation, solid base"
For me personally, this position is still teetering between pain and pleasure.
Sample of Public Responses:
1. "Animalistic (is that a word?) Ask a little kid to act like a dog, cat, bear, lion, etc... they're immediately on all fours. It's the closest way most people (dancers excluded) can emulate animals. And on a side note, being on all fours makes me hyper-aware of my core/center.... not wanting my gut to hang down like a cow. :) I do not feel sexy on all fours, but maybe thats not the case for other people." (woman)
2. "I think in many ways it's a vulnerable position. It's also very primitive and powerful at the same time!" (woman)
3. "Ditto, and because the powerful and vulnerable can exist simultaneously, also very mysterious and sexy." (man)
Sample of Performer Responses (all women):
1. "on all fours: submission."
2. "grounded, unwinding from tension, balance, steady"
3."submission, dominance, strength, hierarchy, relaxation, solid base"
For me personally, this position is still teetering between pain and pleasure.
Monday, March 8, 2010
deepening the idea of 'on all fours'
more animalistic approach to the position. featuring nefeli tsiouti, laura cherry, marina pogiatzi
Friday, March 5, 2010
Rehearsals Continuing...
More rehearsal footage (Performers continue to develop their solos or duet through recalling and developing improvisations from being on all fours and from the notion of being consumed-literally, eaten alive.) Some important words from Emilyn Claid's book Yes?No!Maybe....Seductive Ambiguity in Dance......"Seduction in performance becomes an interactive, interchangeable, pleasureable play of multiple meanings and identites between performers and spectators-a physical action of desiring."
"submit to pleasure as a statement of power.." (171)
I begin to really refine my research now as I ask: can the woman's body be submissive and dominant on all fours?
Other questions beginning to surface: What does the position 'on all fours' mean for a woman? How is it perceived in different situations, cultures etc.? Can this position be a source of power? Can being in a submissive position be a source of power? Are images of women, therefore, their bodies, being consumed by spectators?
"submit to pleasure as a statement of power.." (171)
I begin to really refine my research now as I ask: can the woman's body be submissive and dominant on all fours?
Other questions beginning to surface: What does the position 'on all fours' mean for a woman? How is it perceived in different situations, cultures etc.? Can this position be a source of power? Can being in a submissive position be a source of power? Are images of women, therefore, their bodies, being consumed by spectators?
Tuesday, February 23, 2010
Wednesday, February 17, 2010
Monday, February 15, 2010
Rehearsal Refinement #1
Every rehearsal I will be compiling all of the movement into the most refined moments on film.
Here is what we did so far.
Here is what we did so far.
Venue
This is the space for the dinner party, it's the banquet room at Candid Cafe near Angel.
Check out more about Candid Cafe at http://www.candidarts.com/
Thursday, February 11, 2010
Taste and Consumption
It's all about having, finding good taste. Beautiful, good, proper (with a little edge):
TaStE-----------
Taste as an aesthetic, sociological, economic and anthropological concept refers to a cultural patterns of choice and preference. While taste is often understood as a biological concept, it can also be reasonably studied as a social or cultural phenomenon. Taste is about drawing distinctions between things such as styles, manners, consumer goods and works of art. Social inquiry of taste is about the human ability to judge what is beautiful, good and proper.
Social and cultural phenomena concerning taste are closely associated to social relations and dynamics between people. The concept of social taste is therefore rarely separated from its accompanying sociological concepts. An understanding of taste as something that is expressed in actions between people helps to perceive many social phenomena, like fashion, that would otherwise be inconceivable.
Some judgements concerning taste may appear more legitimate than others, but most often there is not a single conception which would be shared by all members of society. People with their individual sensibilities are not very unique either. For instance, aesthetic preferences and attendance to various cultural events are associated with education and social origin. Different socioeconomic groups are likely to have different tastes, and it has been suggested that social class is one of the prominent factors structuring taste.
Pierre Bourdieu (1 August 1930 – 23 January 2002) was an acclaimed French sociologist.
Bourdieu pioneered investigative frameworks and terminologies such as cultural, social, and symbolic capital, and the concepts of habitus, field or location, and symbolic violence to reveal the dynamics of power relations in social life. His work emphasized the role of practice and embodiment or forms in social dynamics and worldview construction, often in opposition to universalized Western philosophical traditions. He built upon the theories of Ludwig Wittgenstein, Maurice Merleau-Ponty, Edmund Husserl, Georges Canguilhem, Karl Marx, Gaston Bachelard, Max Weber, Émile Durkheim, Erwin Panofsky, and Marcel Mauss. A notable influence on Bourdieu was Blaise Pascal, after whom Bourdieu titled his Pascalian Meditations.
He used methods drawn from a wide range of disciplines, particularly philosophy, sociology and anthropology. His best known book is Distinction: A Social Critique of the Judgment of Taste, in which he argues that judgments of taste are related to social position. His argument is put forward by an original combination of social theory and data from surveys, photographs and interviews, in an attempt to reconcile difficulties such as how to understand the subject within objective structures. In the process, he tried to reconcile the influences of both external social structures and subjective experience on the individual (see structure and agency).
TaStE-----------
Taste as an aesthetic, sociological, economic and anthropological concept refers to a cultural patterns of choice and preference. While taste is often understood as a biological concept, it can also be reasonably studied as a social or cultural phenomenon. Taste is about drawing distinctions between things such as styles, manners, consumer goods and works of art. Social inquiry of taste is about the human ability to judge what is beautiful, good and proper.
Social and cultural phenomena concerning taste are closely associated to social relations and dynamics between people. The concept of social taste is therefore rarely separated from its accompanying sociological concepts. An understanding of taste as something that is expressed in actions between people helps to perceive many social phenomena, like fashion, that would otherwise be inconceivable.
Some judgements concerning taste may appear more legitimate than others, but most often there is not a single conception which would be shared by all members of society. People with their individual sensibilities are not very unique either. For instance, aesthetic preferences and attendance to various cultural events are associated with education and social origin. Different socioeconomic groups are likely to have different tastes, and it has been suggested that social class is one of the prominent factors structuring taste.
Pierre Bourdieu (1 August 1930 – 23 January 2002) was an acclaimed French sociologist.
Bourdieu pioneered investigative frameworks and terminologies such as cultural, social, and symbolic capital, and the concepts of habitus, field or location, and symbolic violence to reveal the dynamics of power relations in social life. His work emphasized the role of practice and embodiment or forms in social dynamics and worldview construction, often in opposition to universalized Western philosophical traditions. He built upon the theories of Ludwig Wittgenstein, Maurice Merleau-Ponty, Edmund Husserl, Georges Canguilhem, Karl Marx, Gaston Bachelard, Max Weber, Émile Durkheim, Erwin Panofsky, and Marcel Mauss. A notable influence on Bourdieu was Blaise Pascal, after whom Bourdieu titled his Pascalian Meditations.
He used methods drawn from a wide range of disciplines, particularly philosophy, sociology and anthropology. His best known book is Distinction: A Social Critique of the Judgment of Taste, in which he argues that judgments of taste are related to social position. His argument is put forward by an original combination of social theory and data from surveys, photographs and interviews, in an attempt to reconcile difficulties such as how to understand the subject within objective structures. In the process, he tried to reconcile the influences of both external social structures and subjective experience on the individual (see structure and agency).
Tuesday, February 9, 2010
Tabledancing woman
I'm considering covering more parts of the body than I anticipated, maybe the food just needs to be presented around the body, with only certain foods as decoration on the body to give an overall impression from the beginning of the dinner party.
Monday, February 8, 2010
Friday, February 5, 2010
A Research Scheme
Idea: Rework dinner and a show into interdependent entities rather than separate but related events.
Methodology:
Play in the studio and film in the studio with creating evocative movements in the smallest amount of space beginning in the 'table' position. Creating passionate and interesting movement that will draw people in as they engage in a highly socialised environment. Experiment on tables.
Interview potential audience members and create short pieces to try out the idea on several groups of people.
Attend Cabaret, Burlesque, and other typically performance/food or drink related events in London and other cities. For example, Afternoon Tease! is the original burlesque afternoon tea party. You sit down to a full spread of afternoon tea and are interrupted in the nicest possible way by stunning burlesque and cabaret performances. I hope to interview performers and audience members on their reactions, what draws them to these events.
Research nyotaimori, a Japanese tradition that refers to "female body presentation", often referred to as "body sushi," is the practice of serving sashimi or sushi from the body of a woman, typically naked...Interview people in this field about what the clientele is like and how they approach the body.
Work with a fashion designer to create costumes appropriate for placing food upon, while retaining a level of sensuality and mobility for the performers.
Engage with the pre-performance ritual of cleaning the body and preparing for long levels of stillness, perhaps through film.
Find collaborators in the catering business and a proper venue space.
Methodology:
Play in the studio and film in the studio with creating evocative movements in the smallest amount of space beginning in the 'table' position. Creating passionate and interesting movement that will draw people in as they engage in a highly socialised environment. Experiment on tables.
Interview potential audience members and create short pieces to try out the idea on several groups of people.
Attend Cabaret, Burlesque, and other typically performance/food or drink related events in London and other cities. For example, Afternoon Tease! is the original burlesque afternoon tea party. You sit down to a full spread of afternoon tea and are interrupted in the nicest possible way by stunning burlesque and cabaret performances. I hope to interview performers and audience members on their reactions, what draws them to these events.
Research nyotaimori, a Japanese tradition that refers to "female body presentation", often referred to as "body sushi," is the practice of serving sashimi or sushi from the body of a woman, typically naked...Interview people in this field about what the clientele is like and how they approach the body.
Work with a fashion designer to create costumes appropriate for placing food upon, while retaining a level of sensuality and mobility for the performers.
Engage with the pre-performance ritual of cleaning the body and preparing for long levels of stillness, perhaps through film.
Find collaborators in the catering business and a proper venue space.
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