Refusing Performance - The Attitudes
Dear friends and valued colleagues,
I would like to invite you to a showing of my performance investigation….
Refusing Performance - The Attitudes
Vogelmorn Bowling Club
93 Mornington Rd
Friday 17 November 6.30 pm
I try to explore in my body and voice different modes of white resistance to challenges about power and privilege.
This showing is inspired by the eighteenth century's original voguer Lady Emma Hamilton and her "Attitudes". These static, non speaking performances/tableaux vivant were a form of 'mime art', a cross between postures, dance, and acting. Performed to the European elite of the day as a form of popular entertainment the subject matter was based on specific historical and mythological characters.
This is part of a work I live with which explores ‘unhappy performatives’, ‘acts of impossible necessity’, ‘unmoored maneuvers’, and ‘when giving is taking’.
I have been creating work on these themes since the late 80’s but this particular piece is a part of a series under construction since 2007. Jade Eriksen, Jo Randerson and the wider Magdalena Aotearoa network have been invaluable supporters of the work over that time.
I have performed The Attitudes in pop up /guerrilla fashion in:
- Auckland - Festival of Uncertainty
- Wellington - part of Barbarian’s Incubator Project and Spring Uprising and at various times at Toi Whakaari: NZ Drama School
- Denmark - in Transit 8 Festival 2016 - BEAUTY AS A WEAPON Theatre-Women-Conflict at Odin Teatret, Holstebro
Jade and I would like to develop this work further and we are particularly interested in the different contexts in which it can exist both inside and outside a formal theatre setting.
This showing and your part in it as audience and respondents is part of that development. We would like to share with you the question…..How might this work contribute most effectively to courageous conversations about race, whiteness, power and colonial fall out?
25 minute performance and up to one hour discussion
……….snacks and drinks………..
It would be wonderful to have your presence!