Glassery: 2008

Tonight at the cafe at REDCAT: bodycity XII; more tales from FUTURE MOUNTAIN

this is what they leave as clues on their blog:
labor of love: giving birth, caring for children just born and elders or invalids soon to die, gardening, cleaning house, home repair, rebuilding cities/communities after war or disaster - rugged and monetarily unrewarding work that is wholly necessary for survival. Movements that are fluid but heavy and muscular, seemingly involuntary like a heartbeat.

women (working) in war times: My Nana worked in a factory during WWII fabricating nylon parachutes. Since all of the nylon was going to the war effort, ladies stockings were very hard to find so the women in her factory drew lines up the backs of their legs to stand in place of the dark seams of actual stockings. The maintenance of American femininity in recent history is facinating behavior. In war times,this feminine identity seems to be split into a few archetypes: (1) the iconic notion of woman as the sweet sex salvation for soldiers who’ve sacrificed their minds and bodies for country, (2) the proud mother, devoid of sexuality who blindingly supports of her men in uniform by fulfilling her own duties of sustaining the labors of her home, (3) the grieving mother, wife, daughter who has lost and is made beautiful by her sense of honor. Fortunately, we can add a few more identities to this list: (4) the protester, hysterical and passionatly close to self-destruction, (5) the female soldier, a still feared anomaly who marches as unflinchingly as the next man, (6) The victims - mothers, wives, daughters who are killed or survive acts of war inflicted upon them and their families, they are characterized by shock.

Archetypes are fodder: summon up and emulate their movements but don’t go overboard with mimicry. Oblique references are always more effective than attempting literal translations - they allow your viewers to follow you along to the next idea without getting stuck in their own train of thought. For example: movement can reflect factory work by being repetitive and referencing the mechanical nature of an assembly line without literally acting it out. Also borrow from/bastardize rag time, swing, pin-up styles to F with the iconic notion of women as sweet sex salvation.

For me, this is also related to women in times of disaster. I think it is important to imagine ourselves in the actual areas of war or weather, the practice of domestic mysticism - there is something other-worldly about the raw, post-apocalyptic identity of survivors.

domestic mysticism: finding transcendence in the domestic atmosphere, locating oneness with the universe at home - I’m thinking about an embrace and glorification of domesticity - it is humorous and tongue-in-cheek: the endless and mysterious nature of refrigerator mold, seeing the future in coffee grounds, mourning the past on a reflective linoleum floor, etc. It is the belief in one’s own corporeal reality.
I think that this idea can translate into calling out our relationship with the physical structure we’re in by ‘washing/watching’ the windows - arcing arm movements, jumping with arms up, ‘sweeping’ the floor - any sweeping of limbs , ‘painting the walls’ - slow motion flailing and heavy contact…handstands that melt onto the floor and then do it again. Follow through and see how far you can develop it - can you push it so far that you hardly recognize it?