Contemporary colour theory often associates white with innocence, purity, perfection, and virginity. White is unobtrusive and unaggressive. White pacifies. But there was immediately something unsettling about the tiny white table and chair that Leslie Baker chose for the set of her Edgy Women performance, Fuck you, You fucking Perv! As the house lights came up and the audience sat waiting for the coiffed, blue-curled Montréaler to begin, the white landscape of the Tangente stage became jarring, almost confrontational.

Baker’s entire thirty-minute performance, it turns out, was all about confrontation. The more obvious attempts to push the audience past the comfortable role so often afforded spectators included frantic, anxious tap-dancing accompanied by breathless off-colour jokes about dead clowns and pedophilia, the violence promised by a knife brandished by the artist as she repeatedly wiped it across her forearm, and the crashing, crying auditory breaks of shattering glass and wailing police sirens. The more effective, and perhaps more traumatic, moments in Baker’s work, however, were always subtle.

In a piece so heavily steeped in the dark side of sex, love, attachment, and relationships, what most impressed (and impressed upon) me were the gaps and silences: the moments where the audience was unsure whether to laugh or be repulsed, the moments when Baker’s next move couldn’t be predicted by traditional performance narrative, and the moments where I found myself both resisting and reflecting on my personal connection to stories about an unsolicited gaze or an unwarranted judgment. Fuck you, You fucking Perv! made me uncomfortable because instead of passively watching Baker act out her life on stage, I was continually watching my own life actively play out through her. I was reminded of what it’s like to be catcalled from a car while walking, what it’s like to be looked up and down on the metro in the morning, and why so many of the intrusions I feel subjected to as a woman are dismissed as irrational or unimportant.

\”Mental Health Hotline\” audio clip used by Baker during her Edgy Women Performance

It took awhile for me to weave together all of the different topics Baker tackled. The press kit for the Festival describes her work as: “a schizophrenic immersion into psychological damage caused by traumatic sexualization, coming at you through visual pranks, violent sounds, tap dancing, and tasteless jokes,” urging us to “enter a world that jumps back and forth through time and perspective, a world of destructive energy, surging forth in search of meaning of the irrational, a raging illogical exploration of one theme—sexual predation.” But after I had some time to work through what I’d seen, I kept coming back to the same conclusion — this can’t be reduced to one theme. There is no lowest common denominator in Baker’s work.

Fuck you, You fucking Perv! is about the ways in which we damage one another. It’s about the way we judge and joke and when taken to the extreme, the way we criminalize. It’s about the violence inherent in love, the way we struggle to care for the people around us when it seems we sometimes can’t even find a way to take care of ourselves. It’s about how we medicate with pills, confessions, and power. Fuck you, You fucking Perv! makes us uncomfortable because despite the theatricality and eccentricity of Baker’s performance, we can’t help but see our everyday reflected back through her.

Baker surprised me, and it was her voice I had resonating in my head days after the lights went down on the tiny white table and chair at Tangente.

Baker’s contribution to Edgy Women stuck with me because she’s found a way to communicate, with words and lights and actions and sound, so much of what I am unable to communicate for myself. Her work didn’t redefine mental illness or sexual trauma for me, but it certainly gave me the push I needed to start thinking about these things differently. I think this is why the emphasis on a white stage is so appropriate; white might connote purity and goodness, but it is never that simple. White is a composite of all other colours. White is complex and contradictory, just like Baker.

Fuck you, You fucking Perv! by Leslie Baker

Collaborators: Peter Cerone (sound design), Joseph Shragge (write & dramaturge) and Sue Jane Stoker (dramaturge)

Leslie Baker’s work is characterized by an interdisciplinary concept, in which she blends heightened corporal expression with image, sound, and text. Her work is articulated through a range of performance states from task-oriented to fully embodied character expression in traditional and in situ performance locations. Leslie has worked internationally as director, teacher, and performer since the 1990’s.

- – -

It starts with a mask glowing on a microphone and a single verse: “They shall see me naked.”

After a healthy swig of brandy and a whisper in an audience members’ ear, she puts on the glowing skeleton mask and grabs the gnome. She’s lost, and has lost her lover. And, taking it hard—in a sweet, sorrowful way—she takes another brandy, and tells another story. His last request? Her nudity. And unable to undress in time, he dies.

She’s not quite over it, and what follows this is a spiral, is cyclical, is repetition. “Wait! Wait! Wait!” she yells, struggling to unzip her dress, remover her bra. Madness building in the circles she runs around the stage. “I can do it,” she continues, later. “And fulfill my dead boyfriends wish to be naked for all of you.”

So begins a descent into naked, naked nakedness. She’s drunk and amusing. She’s engaging, sultry—but also sad. Sipping from other peoples’ drinks, she cracks crass jokes. She thinks someone has called her a snatch. And we laugh, at first, thinking that this performance might be a comedy…

“I’m going to show you my snatch,” she dares, looking us wildly in the eyes before running behind the black velvet curtain. “Are you ready?” she teasingly slurs, before exposing her vag behind the curtain like a peep show. The audience claps, laughs, smiles. She’s showing us her nakedness, and for a moment we think we should be enjoying it.

What happens next is triggered by Sam Cooke. Specifically “I’ve been loving you.” The music starts, and so does the realization that this isn’t actually funny, or charming, or seductive (though she is all of these things). Circling around the stage in various stages of undress and distress, figuratively pissing and shitting on the little gnome, she descends into despair. Her repetition, her cyclical craze, brings tears to eyes. And we realize she’s not naked and free and fulfilled—but exposing her wounds, her deep-seated grief. Her loss.

- – -

A powerful final performance for the Edgy Women Festival, Mia van Leeuwen & Ian Mozdzen’s Le Petit Mort is strong, provocative and touching. It’s a piece of theatre that looks you in the eye, and demands your heart. It’s likely—and deservingly—going to sell out tonight, so get your tickets early and don’t miss it. It will make you laugh, and cry, at loss and life and nakedness.

- – -

Watch here

<<March 30 – April 2 at 8pm @ MainLine Theatre >>

http://www.outoflinetheatre.com/Home.html

The Edgy extras this year just keep getting better. Take advantage of them, in their affordable (read: free) amazingness, tomorrow afternoon for an artists’ chat with Winnipeg-based theatre team Mia Van Leuwen and Ian Mozdzen at McGill University.

I know I’m thrilled to meet and interact with this dynamic duo—very personally as a Winnipegger, a UofW Theatre alum and HUGE fan of Claire Borody, whom she expresses gratitude for pushing her performance art (and who also influenced mine!)—and you know you’re dealing with Winnipeg theatre royalty when an artist can boast working in intimate circles with THE Guy Maddin. Gosh. (Gush)

Performing Le Petit Mort, an act “inspired by French philosopher Goerges Bataille’s L’Homme Mort, Mia van Leeuwen lets us see a woman consumed by loss and shame taking a leap into naked nakedness. And she does it like we all do: she goes on a bender. But no ordinary bender. Only Bataille could dream up this one – filled with urine, vomit, shit, and snatchey snatches. But don’t take our word for it. Go ahead, ask the gnome…”

So before they hit up the Mainline, for what sounds like a graphic series of evenings, why not start with a preview?

<< Mia Van  perform with local lovelies Nathalie Claude & Danielle Lecourtois. March 30th to April 2nd at 8 p.m. / MainLine Theatre (3997 St-Laurent) / mainlinetheatre.ca, 514-849-3378 >>

** Sorry, only available in French. **

Anti-cool + Leslie Baker + Narcissister
Tangente X 3 présente trois artistes qui explorent chacune à leur manière des univers bien différents.

Anti-cool (Japon)
« Au japon, les clients son traités comme des Dieux. Les employés doivent offrir un service à la clientèle impeccable avec le sourire et ce, même s’ils sont exténués. Cette performance à la fois comique et ironique, s’intéresse à l’écart entre le sourire et l’émotion des employés. »

Le tableau qui s’étire sur 30 minutes comporte quelques longueurs. L’idée est intéressante, mais aurait pu être davantage exploitée. La présentation souvent abstraite peut laisser croire à un sketch improvisé.

Points positifs : L’utilisation du rétroprojecteur pour accentuer le rictus d’une employée épuisée a un effet à la fois hilarant et gênant.

Scènes les plus éloquentes de la représentation : Lorsque sur un tapis rouge est posé un hamburger trônant littéralement sur son carton d’emballage, l’artiste utilise un fil de pêche pour le porter à son client : l’image est évocatrice !

La scène finale conduit à une véritable réflexion sur ce travail où le sourire ne semble pas être très significatif. Après avoir ramassé les déchets jonchant sur le sol, la comédienne s’enferme dans un sac de poubelle…

Leslie Baker (Montréal)
« Nouvelle performance solo, Fuck you, You fucking Perv! est une immersion schizophénique au cœur des dommages causés par la sexualisation traumatique livrée sous forme de gags visuels, de sons violents, de danse à claquettes et de blagues de mauvais goûts. Entrez dans un monde qui recule et avance dans le temps et la perspective, un monde d’énergies destructrices, surgissant à la recherche du sens de l’irrationnel, une exploration illogique déchaînée autour du thème du harcèlement sexuel »

Leslie Baker nous entraine véritablement dans un univers complètement éclaté où le rire, l’angoisse et le malaise se côtoient tout au long de la représentation. L’effet produit est immédiat : les sons, presque douloureux, les blackouts et la performance de la comédienne qui transite d’un état à un autre plonge le public dans un état de fébrilité. Le spectateur devient perméable à toute émotion et est forcé d’explorer avec elle ce monde plus que troublant. Elle réussit avec brio à produire l’effet qu’elle s’était fixée comme objectif. Très Réussi. Bravo!

Narcissister (Brooklyn)
« Tournoyant son corps nu et masqué sur l’hymne populaire de Chaka Khan, Narcissister dépouille le strip-tease de son caractère taquin en s’appropriant sans broncher des portraits féminins à de nouvelles fins subversives. »

Difficile de percevoir (à mon humble avis) le regard que la danseuse pose sur le strip-tease, « Narcissister is Everywoman » est pourtant la performance la plus impressionnante et la plus divertissante des trois. Mêlant danse, contorsion, costumes, l’artiste se dévêtit tout le long du spectacle sans jamais se montrer complètement nue. Elle transforme son corps, dédouble ses membres nous présentant un spectacle absolument original. Drôle, inventive, brillante, Narcissister est une danseuse de talent doté d’un véritable génie créatif! Mon coup de cœur!

She puts on her cap and face for the camera. “May I help you?” she asks—almost screeching—bearing teeth, sickly smiling, eyes slightly dilated with eyebrows ticking. Punctuating the moments of physical insanity, order and loss, she returns to this screen—sometimes gasping for air—pushing her cheeks with her fingers to plump up her smile.

Reaching into the breast of her corporate-issued t-shirt, she pulls out a hamburger. Like a heart, she exposes the pathetic contents of the bun before offering it up to a bewildered member of the audience. Later she’s pacing back and forth, sucking back on an extra-large carton of cola. Breathing, suffocating, breathing through the straw. Then she rolls out the red carpet for us—smoke, screen, white gloves, hamburger. Finally she’s picking up the wrappers, the straws, the lids before eventually getting inside the garbage bag herself.

“[The performance is] spontaneous; the basics are there, but each night it’s slightly different,” says the woman called anti-cool after the show. She explained that she has—and knows very well—the fast food serving experience. Instead of setting tables and chairs, elements she assert are too straight forward, she takes the physicality of the job to a less-obvious level.

Pushing the realms of humanity in industry, professionalism and the loss of personality, the meaning of the performance—entitled Role Model for a Store Clerk—is literal, but layered. The gestures, the moments of exhaustion or defeat are what make this piece believable, with it’s dehumanizing, highly-personal and empathetic struggle.

The humour and ridiculousness of her smiling face on screen, with her small, pathetic gestures, punctuate the power relations and highlight the absurdity. Why and how do clients and industry make people feel like garbage for a fucking hamburger?!?

<< Check out anti-cool, with Leslie Baker and Narcissister for Tangente 3x TONIGHT at 19h30 or Sunday, March 27 at 16h00 >>

The dregs of a Montreal March are long, lightless, beige days punctuated by Daylight Savings Time, which forces us to exchange a precious extra hour of weekend sleep for the promise of brighter mornings and longer evenings, every year. The last few weeks of the month confuse our bodies and our wardrobes as glimpses of warmer weather quickly turn over and revert to blasting winds and a week’s worth of sub-zero temperatures. March in this city can be dull, demanding, and dreary enough to replace our spring smiles with those all-to-familiar winter woes.

Despite all the tedium, we trudge on with fingers crossed, waiting for la belle île to slip out of its winter wraps into something greener, brighter, and more vibrant. At some point, we might even find ourselves glancing over in the metro to smile at someone else who we recognize feels as antagonized and exhausted by the tease of snow flurries and sunshine and we do.

There is, as they say, a feeling in the air.

Edgy Women performer anti-cool might just be the answer for the strain of tax season and end of semester. Performing as part of TANGENTE X 3 on March 24, 25, 26 and 27, the interdisciplinary Japanese artist promises to shed some light on the gap we so often maintain between how we feel and how we act. Role Model for a Store Clerk takes the confused, muddied, and fatigued winter malaise of Montreal and translates it into a piece that centers on the decorous relationship of Japanese store clerks and their clients.

Bound by custom and expectation, the ‘ideal’ Japanese store clerk will push back their own feelings and ignore the strain of the job, all in the name of superior customer service. anti-cool wants us to explore the gap—the process—between affect and etiquette, and I can’t think of a better time or place to stress the boundaries of inside/out than Montreal in late-March; at this time of year, I think we all feel a little bit like the store clerk, smiling and laughing despite having been on our feet for eight hours, trying to make a sale.

As though anti-cool’s performance weren’t enough, she is extending her work with communication, relationships, and emotion at the Festival with a workshop, Feel Invisible Things. The workshop urges participants to “experience unexpected feelings and ways of thinking,” using a variety of interactive forms. Again, anti-cool is asking us to consider how we relate, to one another, to our surroundings, and maybe, like the Japanese store clerk, how we survive by denying ourselves these opportunities for expression. March 25 is the final day of the workshop, but I look forward to hearing from those lucky enough to have a snagged a spot about the experience.

So, if you find yourself worn down by winter’s refusal to move over for spring and a terrassed 5-à-7, don’t bottle that up. Bring yourself and that desire down to 840 Cherrier East this weekend and show anti-cool how you’re really feeling.

If you can’t wait that long, here is a little release in the form of collaboration anti-cool did with Montreal musicians Duchess Says titled: Lone Orchestra (select link).

Performing at this year’s Edgy Women Festival alongside Narcissister and Leslie Baker as part of TANGENTE X 3, anti-cool can be seen performing Role Model for a Store Clerk March 24, 25, and 26th at 19:30 and March 27 at 16:00.  For more information, check out the Edgy Women website.

** Sorry, only available in French. **

Andréane arrive à 10 h tapantes dans un café-resto rue Bernard. Elle est souriante, affable et prête à parler de son travail. Née à Gatineau, la québécoise de 27 ans a rejoint le monde du cirque à 9 ans. Formée par l’École nationale de Cirque, elle fera plus tard une tournée avec le cirque Éloize. Puis, elle prendra la route vers la Suisse pour jouer dans des cirques traditionnels et travaillera trois ans en Allemagne dans les cabarets. C’est après lui avoir demandé pourquoi elle a décidé de retourner au Québec pour entamer des études à l’UQÀM en théâtre que la conversation prend une tournure presque philosophique. Andréane m’explique qu’elle veut dépasser l’aspect spectaculaire de la contorsion. Elle perçoit son corps comme un lieu de passage. Il est son matériel artistique au même titre que le peintre a ses pinceaux, l’écrivain sa plume ou le jazzman sa trompette. « Pendant 10 ans de ta vie, ton travail consiste à prendre soin de toi et à montrer ce que tu sais faire avec ton corps. Je veux que mon art soit évocateur et je veux pouvoir dépasser le simple aspect spectaculaire », m’explique t-elle en souriant.

Apprendre dans l’environnement rigoureux du cirque lui a certes permis de développer ses capacités, mais elle est convaincue qu’à un certain moment un cadre trop rigide empêche de dépasser ses limites et élimine le côté purement créatif. « Je veux savoir quels messages, quelles émotions et quelles réactions suscitent mon corps en action », poursuit Andréane.

De plus, la femme-serpent veut comprendre un aspect de son métier qui lui a toujours échappé. Quelle place donner à la sexualité à travers cet art où le seul moyen d’expression est le corps? « Pour un grand nombre de personnes, être contorsionniste a une connotation sexuelle. Pourtant, ce n’est pas ce que le cirque cherche à mettre de l’avant. J’adore la femme et la sensualité; je veux l’explorer davantage » C’est ainsi que samedi dernier Andréane a décidé de performer nue sur la scène de la Sala Rossa pour ouvrir le Festival Edgy Women.

« C’est grâce en partie à la scène « underground » montréalaise que je trouve aujourd’hui les moyens de me questionner sur ce rapport qui nous lie à la sexualité en tant que contorsionniste. Mais, étonnamment, en dansant nue personne ne m’a parlé de l’aspect érotique. C’est peut-être par gêne, mais c’est l’impression que j’ai reçue du public », ajoute-t-elle.

Elle semble encore au stade de l’exploration et de la découverte, mais une chose est sûre, Andréane n’a pas fini de se questionner sur cet art fascinant. Elle y consacre même un mémoire de maîtrise qui s’intitule : « La Prouesse comme technique évocatrice de sens ». Avec ce désir ardent de comprendre ce qu’elle fait, cette volonté de pousser ses limites et celle de son art, Andréane est certainement une « Edgy Woman » et a été la candidate idéale pour ouvrir le festival qui porte ce nom.

I wrote to Narcissister a few weeks ago. As I anxiously composed a short email, introducing myself and telling her how excited I was to be attending TANGENTE X 3, I found myself confessing: “I am not a performance artist or an artist of any kind, really, but I love to talk about sex and bodies and audiences and feminism and kink.”

I was reaching, trying to find some way to appeal electronically to the masked, consistently naked, and always glamorously challenging persona I had been researching. Aside from her website (www.narcissister.com), the many copy-and-paste bios scattering my Google search, and the odd magazine article featuring the neo-burlesque beauty, I didn’t have a lot to work with.

Before tapping out my plea, I’d spent some time perusing Narcissister’s online persona. If you aren’t sure what to expect on the evenings of March 24, 25, and 26 at this year’s Edgy Women Festival, consider her website an amazing resource for uninitiated.

A couple of themes emerge, but the mainstay here is that Narcissister keeps her performance intimidating and in-your-face by purposefully concealing her own. Whether you are watching her sway, seduce, and sartorially skew the traditional striptease to the strains of Chaka Khan’s “I’m Every Woman,” or bump-and-grind her way through a punishingly pleasurable ride atop an exercise bike, the performing isn’t obscured by the performer; it’s strategic, and it’s effective.

Her work extends from live performance and video to creative mixed media, each piece pushing any comfortable conception of femininity to the side of the stage and crushing it beneath the toe of glossy stiletto heel. Described as a subversive spectacle, a neo-burlesque Dada-esque creative force, a naughty nude performer, and self-described as a “post-modern, post-feminist sex artist,” Narcissister is clearly pushing her own boundaries as an artist. What is remarkable about watching her, however, is that she demands the same of her audience.

While I may not have the lithe vocabulary that comes with a fluency in the performing arts, I can appreciate what Narcissister is bringing to the table. There is a lot to work through, with sex and bodies and audiences and feminism and kink all being a part of it.

And who doesn’t love to talk about that?

Performing at this year’s Edgy Women Festival alongside anti-cool and Leslie Baker as part of TANGENTE X 3, Narcissister can be seen performing an expanded version of her seminal piece Every Woman March 24, 25, and 26th at 19:30 and March 27 at 16:00.

For more information, check out the Edgy Women website, and for a sneak peak of her work, check out the video section of Narcissister’s website. ]]> http://www.edgywomen.ca/en/blog/everywoman/feed/ 2 http://www.edgywomen.ca/en/blog/sex-clinic/ http://www.edgywomen.ca/en/blog/sex-clinic/#comments Mon, 21 Mar 2011 00:07:11 +0000 Laura Beeston http://www.edgywomen.ca/?p=609

The Edgy Women Festival is pleased to present a Free Sidewalk Sex Clinic for all your sex inquiries…

Hosted by radical sex educators and artists Annie Sprinkle & Elizabeth Stephens—who certainly pleased the sold-out crowd at La Sala Rossa Saturday—this event is both a public service and an interventionist art event.

“There are really no expectations,” Elizabeth Stephens explained to Edgy. “It’s another way of opening up space for certain kinds of discussions that aren’t ordinarily discussed in public. We’ve gotten a lot of different questions [in the past]. A huge range of questions from people who have felt isolated or afraid, and maybe had shame about sex. People also just want to come and talk about their own expertise.”

“And people come and want to teach us about stuff, too, which is fine,” giggled Sprinkle.

“But the beauty of sex,” explained Stephens, “is that you can always learn more.”

Bring your sexy questions to the Powerhouse Gallerie La Centrale (4296 St. Laurent Blvd.) TOMORROW, Monday March 21 from 11h30 – 14h!

“There is a completely unpredictable element on ice. There are other people skating, little kids sliding, someone could fall, could crash, anything can happen—who knows what could happen? And there’s a nervousness about this unknown element, but that’s part of the thrill, isn’t it? Otherwise, you would just go and see a movie…”

Singles, doubles and families skated around the ice at the Arena St-Louis on Saturday afternoon, suddenly and unknowingly participating in Slippery—the Edgy Women Festival’s first performance of the season.

Created by choreographer Karen Sherman during her 10-day residency in Montreal, Slippery is a group feature on skates, in public and with the community, intent on pushing the boundaries between performance art and sport, participation and portrayal.

Creating what Sherman described as “visceral empathy” with the audience, Slippery is a physical commentary about the representation of women’s hockey, roller derby and female-driven sport on ice—specifically exploring relationships between femininity and athleticism through non-traditional dance form.

As a dancer and composer who doesn’t skate herself, Slippery was influenced by a piece Sherman did a couple of years back that involved roller skates and was performed in a theatre.

“[Slippery] is an inverse of that project,” she explained to Edgy. “Before, it was hockey and roller derby vernacular in the theatre, and this was theatre in the hockey arena.”

Initially interested in “the big patterns” the ice time provided, Sherman said she was unexpectedly challenged by the Slippery project due to the scale of it.  Though she anticipated more bodies to lace-up, she explained “it was almost more interesting to work with the smaller things we could do [on ice]. It became less spectacle-oriented, and becomes these much smaller moments.”

When asked about this piece and it’s place in the Edgy lineup, Sherman encouraged people to discover it for themselves and join the live experience.

“It’s about being in the same room as it’s happening and there’s only one way to do that,” she said. “Be there. Just be there. That is why I work in this particular field. There are a lot of other things I could do in my life, but the shared experience in real time, in one world is just thrilling for me. That’s why I do this.”

<< The next (and final) presentation of Slippery takes place Sunday, March 20 at 3 p.m. at the Arena Père-Marquette (1600 Drucourt). Cover is FREE, with open skating from 2 – 4 p.m.  >>