Hey all, here is my assignment 2. Its a continuation of Assignment 1, and I just tagged it on. I did not re-shoot to make the location consistent.
Also, it's a super rough draft.
Cabaret Babli Assignment 2 from Sandra Chatterjee on Vimeo.
password: vamp
Feedback questions:
1) Which parts are particularly interesting and worth developing more, on a movement, meaning or visual level?
2) What relationship do you see between part 1 and 2?
3) Where do you see the connections to the German Kabarett readings (besides the song)?
4) Any other thoughts, observations?
Also, it's a super rough draft.
Cabaret Babli Assignment 2 from Sandra Chatterjee on Vimeo.
password: vamp
Feedback questions:
1) Which parts are particularly interesting and worth developing more, on a movement, meaning or visual level?
2) What relationship do you see between part 1 and 2?
3) Where do you see the connections to the German Kabarett readings (besides the song)?
4) Any other thoughts, observations?
1)“The grotesque body is the open, protruding, extended, secreting body, the body of becoming, process and change. The grotesque body is opposed to the classical body, which is monumental, static, closed and sleek, corresponding to the aspirations of bourgeois individualism; the grotesque body is connected to the rest of the world.”
ReplyDelete-Mary Russo, Female Grotesques: Carnival and Theory
On a movement level, the Bahktinian contrast between grotesque and classical corporealities (see Ann Cooper Albright) is striking and could be developed and pushed further. Movements that read as grotesque include the sickling and turning in at ankles, as well as the “wild” shaking of your head (which could be even more out of control). Classical movements include the feminine, controlled circling of your feet on the ground. Given the highly female-centered nature of the lyrics and imagery, the grotesque/classical movement binary also connects to the virgin/whore binary, or to the lyrics: “I am a vamp, I am a vamp/Half woman, half beast.”
Visually, the translucent layering of fabric, light, and body grabs me, as well as the movement of the fabric in the wind. The soft sepia look of the second section contrasts with the more saturated colors (esp. green) and geometrical shapes formed by your legs in the first section. Could these be used to convey possible meaning (such as past and present)?
Meaning-wise, these images convey a complex overlay of European and Indian femininity, exoticism, animal-like primitivism, and seduction/sexuality that could be further teased out. In relation to Aditee’s notion of revealing and concealing, one of your primary choreographic strategies is that of unexpectedly transforming images: a skirt becomes a sari. A coy European femininity becomes a confrontational animal. A woman unexpectedly escapes or disappears, leaving the shell of her sari blowing in the wind.
(2) Part 2 seems like a direct extension/continuation of the narrative arc and movement investigation of Part 1.
3) You employ a similar structure to the simple dramatic arcs employed by Veleska Gert, as well as actively investigating female sexuality as many of the Kabarett artists did. In an Indian context, the leopard print and animal-like qualities remind me of Helen’s Bollywood film (Aajane jaan, Inteqaam 1969 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_C9LM8vw5X8) with the blackface man in the cage, though your performance of “primitivism” is not nearly so extreme.
4) Any other thoughts, observations?
Here are the parts that are least clear to me:
-The zoom into your chest seems like it should be sexualized, but it doesn’t have that effect on me b/c of how the fabric hides your body shape. Similarly, the circling of your leg at the end doesn’t have much impact because your legs are hidden by your billowing pants.
-I find the nuance of your gaze into the camera a little hard to read…I think it’s confrontational? You might play with moving your face closer and farther away from the lens to heighten a sense of aggression, if that is your intent.
-In general I could see animal-like and wild movements pushed to a greater extreme.
-I love the surprise of you disappearing and the image of the empty sari, but I also am not sure why you do so. Why do you disappear? What happens for you internally?
One more thought re: question (3). As I pointed out in my earlier written response, there are striking similarities between the beginning of Sandra's study and the following description of Gert's "alienated coitus": "I wiggle my hips provocatively, hoist the black, very short skirt, and for an instant show white flesh above long, black stockings, pink garters, and high-heeled shoes…Then I bend my knees slowly, spread my legs wide and sink down" (1993: 16)
ReplyDeleteThanks Sandra for a very interesting response to the assignment. I agree with Cynthia and would like to second her thoughts when she talks about "European and Indian femininity, exoticism, animal-like primitivism, and seduction/sexuality" and I too feel that those could be further surely be teased out.
ReplyDeleteBut what I find most intriguing about this work is the use of the saree. The journey it makes from being a garment to a purdah(curtain/veil) is very interesting. They way it has been used, to me it looks like a skin being shed by a reptile (though close to being a leopard print), it looks like serpent shedding her skin. It also looks every bit the traditional saree, a cloth that wraps a female body and also as a veil or curtain behind which this body is put. How the body comes out from behind this garment is again noteworthy.
I also find the concept of using a sheer saree is very interesting. I love how a garment that has forever been projected as a vastra that covers the female body, contains within it a woman's sexuality/ sexual desire, actually becomes a garment that is doing exactly the opposite. Connecting it back to my research I feel it is amazing how just by changing it's handling, the garment becomes the garment of a vamp instead of being the garb of the projected image of the ideal Indian woman. Also for me now that vamp becomes the woman who has a voice, agency and an opinion rather than a home-wrecker, an alcoholic and the sexual partner or spy for an underworld don (as projected in Hindi cinema). It further forces me to think whether the vamp was actually the emancipated woman being maligned and othered just because she chose to breakaway from the conformity that society also wants women to live within? And so she was a problem not so much on moralistic grounds (fallen woman etc.) but because she thought she could lead her life on her own terms?
I think continuing to work with this garment can lead us to an interesting direction where the covered and uncovered female body and it's positioning in different cultural contexts and the whole idea of a costume, it nature and use in a cabaret performance could be further looked at.
I’m not following your questions here, just want to get you my thoughts quickly so you have one more perspective before continuing your assignment:
ReplyDeleteThe new section, because of the sepia tones and softness of the camera, makes it simultaneously feel a bit dreamy but also more intimate to me. When the colors change and the shot changes, I feel like I’m in the sari with you instead of looking at it and you from the outside. It is almost like we are caught in the confines of the sari together…just looking at each other. Whether it is a purposeful escape into a small space together or a prison, I’m not sure, but because of the animal baring of your teeth that came before, I read it a bit like a prison or cate that you then rise out of and step out of. Like Cynthia, it also reminds me of Helen’s Bollywood dance number with the man in the cage (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_C9LM8vw5X8), except in this case you are simultaneously the enchantress (the one to be desired) and the animal in the cage (the one desiring). I find this interesting, because rather then seeing your performing body as desirable (except in the beginning with the legs which are a bit teasing at the chair) I feel I am more experiencing with you the suppression of your desire, your struggle with it, and then your claiming of that desire.
I read the trajectory like this: European woman’s legs are proper but full angst. They start to spread open until the woman herself drops into her “primitive” nature (because of leopard print and baring teeth) of desire and ecstasy (the moments where you lean back your head). The woman drops back into a dream or “oriental” fantasy of herself as the “other” in a veil and harem pants. The donning of this other is what allows her to step outside her own reality (perhaps Victorian values?) and the freedom that she imagines the “other” has.
If this is the case…I wonder what happens when she wakes up? Or is the complicated reality of the “other” ever revealed to her?
Other parts of the readings I am reminded of are the Salome dancers and how the use of the story of Salome gave them an excuse to stage nude dances. I am also reminded of Anita Berber’s writings including one called “Ecstasy”. And just like Cynthia I am also reminded of the description of Valeska Gert’s portrayal of the prostitute.
My final thought is about the sari as a character, as Aditee is asking us to do with costume in the next assignment. I am wondering what the character could be or represent…a leopard? Our outer animal shell or skin? A prison? A means to freedom? Desire? Ecstasy? Power? Of course it could take on different meanings at different points, but it might be interesting to think through what it already means to you and see what else you would like it to mean…
Also the new harem costume at the end could be explored. After you step up and out of the frame, where do you then go and do we get to see a glimpse of that world?
Can’t wait till the next part!