Kate Gilmore

The Pink song reminds me, in a roundabout way, of the video/performance artist Kate Gilmore. Her works have a game-like quality to them (although they are usually solo games). For example, in With Open Arms, Gilmore tries to keep a cheesy smile on her face while someone offscreen pelts her with tomatoes. Most of her work includes sculptural or architectural elements--drywall that she kicks through with pink high heels, a perforated floor that she tries to walk on with spiky heels and ends up destroying, a bucket of plaster encasing her foot. I am reminded of the old 80s show Double Dare. Check out http://www.kategilmore.com/stills/index.html .

Another vision

In keeping with Heather's pop culture ideas I have been really digging the Pink song "Sober." It's got the dramatic strings and full bellied yowling. Can we fit it in somewhere? 

I thought maybe we could sing it to chocolate while we're in chocolate eating chocolate.  I think there might need to be a ladder or two and I think some kind of Hershey's syrup maybe...

The song is all about denial and looking for yourself and being some kind of girl but not "that" girl--the one who's always up drunk and partying.  It's also got some nice "ooohooo oo oo oo's" in the high register that I think are funny.  

And, there's something to that late eighties/early nineties video quality--Def Leppard, crappy Jefferson Starship, and the shitty Heart stuff (my favs are Heart and Def Leppard--Love Bites being a personal preference) wandering through sets with dry ice and laser lights and people rigged for a cheap fly. Any way, I kind of see it in a big hair, glitter, sliding on plastic in the chocolate syrup way. Can we get some smoke and laser lights? 

Maybe it was the boca burger...

Here are the lyrics: 

I don't wanna be the girl who laughs the loudest
Or the girl who never wants to be alone
I don't wanna be that call at four o'clock in the mornin'
'Cause I'm the only one you know in the world that won't be home

Ah, the sun is blindin'
I stayed up again
Oh, I am findin'
That's not the way I want my story to end

I'm safe up high, nothing can touch me
But why do I feel this party's over?
No pain inside, you're my protection
But how do I feel this good sober?

I don't wanna be the girl that has to fill the silence
The quiet scares me 'cause it screams the truth
Please don't tell me that we had that conversation
'Cause I won't remember, save your breath
'Cause what's the use?

Ah, the night is callin'
And it whispers to me softly, "Come and play"
But I, I am fallin'
And if I let myself go I'm the only one to blame

I'm safe up high, nothing can touch me
But why do I feel this party's over?
No pain inside, you're like perfection
But how do I feel this good sober?

Comin' down, comin' down, comin' down
Spinnin' 'round, spinnin' 'round, spinnin' 'round
I'm lookin' for myself, sober

Comin' down, comin' down, comin' down
Spinnin' 'round, spinnin' 'round, spinnin' 'round
Lookin' for myself, sober

When it's good, then it's good, it's so good 'til it goes bad
'Til you're trying to find the you that you once had
I have heard myself cry 'never again'
Broken down in agony, just tryin' find a friend, oh, oh

I'm safe up high, nothing can touch me
But why do I feel this party's over?
No pain inside, you're like perfection
But how do I feel this good sober?

I'm safe up high, nothing can touch me
But why do I feel this party's over?
No pain inside, you're like perfection
But how do I feel this good sober?

I had a vision, and it involved high heels

Hi Peeps. I had a vision, and I don't know if it belongs here or in one of my performance art pieces.

Imagine: a line of men and women, all in high heels, all very sincerely singing Extreme's "More Than Words," all doing slo-mo and controlled, macho, crotch-grabbing gestures (a la Michael Jackson) at the same time. Everybody is standing and singing and gesturing except for the person on the end, who is singing AND running on a coin-operated treadmill. The audience has to put a quarter in the treadmill for the piece to proceed. After the performers get to the end of the song, they wait for someone to put another quarter in and then all shift down by 1 position, so a new person is on the treadmill. The "game" begins again.

Past e-mail, additional thoughts

Ok folks. Here is what I said in e-mail and can qualify here.

As far as history on the cakewalk, I assisted and then co-taught a class (at University of Illinois) called Dancing Black/Popular Culture (I know, I know--little white me) so I have some background on that as well as texts that illuminate historical elements. Happy to share or collaborate there. Still up for this and we can look at it given diversity of student and any emphasis on race. 

I almost feel like the cakewalk idea could be one of humilation--meaning that there would be some prize (cakes) but in order to get it you have to do your best Al Jolson, mammy, legs UP cakewalk to get it. If you're not over the top enough or minstrel enough, you get a gong (and maybe the booby prize of a crappy canned beer?).  This could be a ying-yang component with your "Let Them Eat Cake" so you either have to be beautiful, sylph-like and perfect (ballet) to get the cake or the other image. Maybe we could even flip genders so guys have to do ballet and women have to cakewalk...It sticks with the binary ideas you have set up and illustrates how both cliches are cruel and limiting. I like it as a metaphor for all groups who have to conform to a stereotype to get "somewhere" though there are some loaded racial images with the minstrel stuff (but I'd love to see white, middle class chicks really trying to get their legs high for a cake)...this would be for choreography for students and us and not random audience members because Seth is right, we don't want to humiliate strangers. Only each other and the people we know and with whom we are comfortable. There should be a smiley face icon after that. 

Here also might be a place for a teacher/student or master/apprentice binary. I can't find it on YouTube but Mark Morris' "Tamil Film Songs in Stereo" pas de deux is an excellent example of this thought. 

Comments like this are mainly notes to myself where I am so generous that I tell everyone else along with myself. I tend towards the didactic sometimes so it is essentially me saying to myself: Hey self! Stay on task. You can't change the world tomorrow or by talking at people even though your misdirected desire to be a preacher takes you there. 

I think that things should stay as physical as possible. It is easy to espouse the theory behind the games/dance/work without actually physically committing to them so that is my area of interest and practice. I also want to take a look at how general the theme of "other" is right now and see if we can personalize or rarify it in some way. Though it is necessary and relevant, as a selling point, some folks might be put off by a "versus" situation unless we can package it in a witty, clever way with a hook (which I think your "theme" taps). I am enough of an ego-maniac to call myself a teacher. Even so, I like teaching when I can trick people into learning either by charm, seduction, humor or all three. When something is funny, I am disarmed and open to accepting it. 

People are very anti-intellectual right now and don't want to feel "talked at" about difficult gender and race issues so it is always interesting to me to find a funny, ironic take on something. I am wondering how we can do that and I think right now the gaming aspect suits it well. What is the greater "game" and how can we package it as something that is intriguing, wry, and intelligent without feeling  condescending to anyone? Is it a tacky game show with a nutty, exaggerated name? Is it like a "Battle of the Network Stars" idea and can we get some interesting "guest artists" in the community to debase themselves publicly for entertainment value (I LOVED that show when I was a kid--really dating myself here)?

Battle of the Network stars in my childhood was watching people like Ron (Richie) Howard and Henry (Fonzie) Winkler compete with Penny Marshall (Laverne) and Scott Baio in an egg-toss-ladder-over-a-pond-then-shetland-pony-race kind of ridiculous competition. All were inept. All were humiliated and fell into the pond and fell off the pony. Even so they were still TV stars ...

I hope qualifying the thoughts helps make them seem less personal...