Inspired by the poltics of Veleska Gert's simple yet shocking portrayals of those citizens that were rejected or thrown out by Mainstream society, this short study is a rough glimpse into Bollywood Helen as Bulldyke or Bulldyke portraying Helen in drag. Costume wasn't as glitzy and feminine as I wanted.
Password: helen
ANJ AUG UP from Post Natyam Collective on Vimeo.
Questions: 1) How does imposing masculine movements on an exotic temptress read? 2) What other ways might masculinity and gender play enter this study? 3) Other suggestions for extreme Veleska Gert inspired suggestions?
Password: helen
ANJ AUG UP from Post Natyam Collective on Vimeo.
Questions: 1) How does imposing masculine movements on an exotic temptress read? 2) What other ways might masculinity and gender play enter this study? 3) Other suggestions for extreme Veleska Gert inspired suggestions?
Questions: 1) How does imposing masculine movements on an exotic temptress read?
ReplyDeleteI perceived you as a haughty queen, or a mean upper class woman (except for a brief moment from :49-:54 where you appeared to be grooving on a contemporary dance floor and then pushing someone away). The clothing and your feminine body structure grounded the character as female to me while masculine qualities such as a broad stance and puffed out chest on top of the female appearance is what made the character appear haughty. In other words, she is female but because she is performing qualities of the opposite gender, I read her in a negative way: haughty, pushy, demanding, mean, and perhaps even evil. Perhaps I am brainwashed by societal norms.
It reminds me of a ballet rendition of sleeping beauty that I've seen where the evil fairy is played by a man, but is still supposed to be a woman. By making her more unfeminine, the choreographer was assuming that people would correlate her to being bad or evil or negative.
2) What other ways might masculinity and gender play enter this study?
It seems to me the three variables in this situation are the perceived gender of the performer, the gendered costume and the gendered movements. I wonder what it would read like, to change some of the variables. For example, what if you were dressed in male drag instead of female drag? I am reminded of Les Ballets Trockadero de Monte Carlo, where if a very masculine looking dancer dressed as a woman performs female movements it reads to me as a parody; but if it is a man whose physique and movements can pass as female, it becomes beautiful and an astonishing feat of mastery to portray the feminine movements.
3) Other suggestions for extreme Veleska Gert inspired suggestions?
Valeska Gert said: “I was dancing coitus, but I “alienated” it as people say nowadays. Art is always an alienation of reality.”
I don't know what she meant by alienating it. Perhaps she meant abstracting it? It would be interesting to play with the concept of alienation to see what might happen.
Ok I looked up alienation which gave me the idea that it might be interesting to show the process of becoming, for example the process of trying on the masculine movement, perhaps morphing into it, or the process of dressing in the feminine outfit, or a sudden shift from masculine to feminine movement.
ReplyDeleteHere is what I found on alienation:
"Influenced by the horror of World War I's human cost, by the suffering of the middle and lower classes during the postwar recessions of the 1920's and the Great Depression of the 1930's and by the teaching of Marxism, Brecht and his fellow epic theatre artists devised a set of staging and acting techniques meant to teach their audience to criticize the injustices and inequalities of modern life. Two keys to their technique are the notion of "theatricalism" and the concept of the "distancing" or "alienation" effect.
The first, theatricalism, simply means the audience aware that they are in a theatre watching a play. Brecht believed that "seducing" the audience into believing they were watching "real life" led to an uncritical acceptance of society's values. He thought that by keeping stage sets simple, showing exposed lighting instruments, breaking the action into open-ended episodes, projecting labels or photographs during scenes, or using a narrator or actors to directly address the audience, a production would allow an audience to maintain the emotional objectivity necessary to learn the truth about their society.
The second key to epic theatre, the "distancing" or "alienation" effect in acting style, has these same goals. Brecht wanted actors to strike a balance between "being" their character onstage and "showing the audience that the character is being performed." The use of "quotable gesture," (the employment of a stance, mannerism, or repeated action to sum up a character), the sudden shift from one behavior to another to put the audience off-balance, and the suggestion of the "roads not taken" in each moment of a character's decision-making are all the means to the didactic end of teaching us to criticize the society we see onstage in Epic Theatre." - http://biomechanics.vtheatre.net/doc/epic.html
Movement Description: Wearing a sleeveless light blue brocade kurta with gold trim, a black skirt, navy dupatta and gold jewelry around her forehead, she chews gum, or tobacco, chest pops disdainfully. she swaggers, torso rocking, arms wide, hands in fists. Her feet beat the ground strongly, marking and syncopating the music. She sees something with doubting disdain, tracing it with her finger in suchi, then bends gleefully, pumping her arms with her teeth showing. Pushes something away vigorously with wide flat palms. Walks away in a circle, chin lifted, and advances with rhythmic footwork and torso contracting, face rife with disgust or anger.
ReplyDelete(1) I’m not sure I read you as an exotic temptress, but it creates a fascinating tension to see this kind of movement on a female South Asian body in feminine Indian clothing. The movement reads to me as either working class female (“crass” rather than “refined”) or as somewhat masculine.
(2) I am really interested in your description of this study as “Bollywood Helen as Bulldyke or Bulldyke portraying Helen in drag” (which one is it?). I would love to see you tease out the intersections between gender, race, class, and culture more clearly on the level of gendered movement and clothing, which of course differs between the African-American and Indian contexts referenced in this study. Some questions that might be helpful:
a. How does Helen perform race, culture, gender, and desire? How does she move? What does she wear? Whose gaze does she perform for?
b. How does a BD woman perform race, culture, gender, and desire? How does she move, and what does she wear? Who does she perform for?
c. How do these two characters intersect? Is it Helen playing a bull dyke, or a bull dyke playing Helen? Why is this character taking on aspects of the other?
(3) From the descriptions of Veleska Gert’s performances, they often seem to follow a dramatic arc: the performance of coitus to the moment of orgasm, or of the arrival of death. Your study feels more like a snapshot of a character rather than a dramatic conflict and resolution – perhaps you could play with dramatic arc? This could also offer a way to embody some of the range of possibilities suggested in (2). Gert’s performances also seemed to be super provocative, really pushing the edge of respectability, so if you like you could explore this as well. Another idea to make the connection to Gert clearer on an aesthetic level - what if you were to play with adding a splash of German Expressionism or Tanz-Theater, a la Wigman or Bausch, to your piece?
(4) I appreciate how you're weaving together the different aspects of our collective research, including your own initial interests and inspiration from other people.
Thank you very much for this Anjali. I think this work throws up a lot of interesting questions. Here I would like to reiterate some of the questions that Cynthia has brought out.
ReplyDeleteI think it will be very interesting to see how Helen would perform race, culture, gender and desire. Also, what is she made to represent? Her fair skin has seldom been treated or coloured to be made darker. She has always put in contrast with the dark skinned people and the whiteness of her skin has always been highlighted. In fact she has been made to wear blue contact lenses on several occasions to portray the 'perfect dream girl' image, who obviously for the Indian audiences is caucasian when it come to skin and eye colour. I don't think anyone every paid attention to her very south asian facial features.
If I remember correctly, the only time that Helen performed in drag, she wore a male costume, to perform a comic song. The costume was that of a Punjabi male. So she actually wore a lungi (skirt like garment), a tight fitted kurta which clearly highlighted the silhouette of her body and a dupatta tied on her head. I have been trying to find the film and song but have not found it yet, but will update as soon as I find it. So somewhere to me it seems that Hindi Cinema never really wanted to see her in any way other than the exotic(for Indian audiences) fair skinned temptress who oozed sensuality and was the perfect manifestation of Indian male fantasy. She was the 'right' blend of femininity and wildness, of knowing just about when to stop revealing so that she could leave her audiences asking for more.
I would be greatly interested to see how you also look at the intersection of bull dyke and Helen. What would they borrow from each other? And when they do, how would this intersection change them? Would they still remain who they are or would they become complete opposite of what they present and represent?
FROM SANDRA:
ReplyDelete1) How does imposing masculine movements on an exotic temptress read?
TO me it does not read as exotic temptress. It reads as woman in charge. I LOVE The chewing—I think its even audible at some points? I love the strong, sparse gestures and rather “crass” look on your face. It’s not a contrast to the lehenga. TO me it almost can seem like one of the older courtesans in charge of a kotha, as portrayed in films. The chewing adds to this, as in chewing pan J
2) What other ways might masculinity and gender play enter this study?
As I dais to me it reads more woman in charge, strong, than masculinity. That said, the pulsation in the chest, the way you carry your shoulders/chest, and the way the rhythms translate into the chest read maybe as strong in a “masculine” sense. Also your walks. The most strongly “masculine”moment is the “suchi” moment to me, though that is more “looking at” and I do not want to conflate that gaze with masculinity. But it could read that way-
3) Other suggestions for extreme Veleska Gert inspired suggestions?
Asymmetrical body shapes.
More extreme grotesque facial expressions.
I think this direction of your study is really a potentially fruitful one. I am excited!
And I agree with Cyn’s question: Is it BD performing Helen, or vice versa???