Cabaret Assignment 3: Gender money version from Shyamala Moorty on Vimeo.
Password: money
I added money (inspired by working with Meena Murugesan on her show "we used to see this"
I added gendered costuming (inspired by Victor Victoria, Cynthia's Cabaret assignments, and that some folks at Dance Conversations thought my Ruwaxi Character looked transgendered on film!)
Also, I changed the sound score based on Cyn's suggestions to add music instead of footstamping. I think the new one above is better but have a version of the old one below as well. If you'd like to see it, here it is. Let me know if you prefer it for some reason.
Cabaret assignment 3: Gender version from Shyamala Moorty on Vimeo.
Password: money
1. What is your experience like watching this?
2. What interests you most and least about it and why?
3. Any thoughts about the sound and how it relates to the video?
4. Any suggestions to improve or expand the piece?
1. Intrigued, drawn in, delighted, surprised as gendered and cultural representations intersect and reveal themselves in a layered but clear political statement. Excited to see the different elements of your multiple studies (and our shared research) come together.
ReplyDelete2. I like all of it! Moments that grab me especially: the revealing of the moustache from behind the veil at 0:32; the visual confusion of hands crossing from 0:46-0:54 culminating in the eye peering through fingers, which I take as indicative of a confusion of the gender binary. With your new additions I feel like your piece now clearly embodies a cabaret aesthetic in an exciting way. What is most exciting is that the aesthetic and content feel very transnational, rooted in our multiple research interests and locations: in addition to the German Kabarett texts, I read the moustache as very “Berlin,” while the song and the jazz hands situate it in an American context, and of course there is all the Orientalist imagery complicated by the money (sex and exoticism sell!), with your alapadma hands and racialized appearance creating a connection to India/S. Asia.
My only critique is technical – there are moments where your image appears fuzzy or out of focus, with colors less vibrant, such as around 1:02 and at the very end. Might it be possible to reshoot with a camera-person helping you out? Also, perhaps the actual moment of revealing the moustache, which is the first major disruption, could be emphasized more.
3. I prefer the version with the song because of its reference to American film (about German cabaret) and because the melody carries me emotionally in a way that the text/footwork sound-score does not. The intersection of text and image now supports each other in a way that I did not see in your last study. The “money money” song is constantly supported by the images of pennies and jingling coins, which also provides a lens on your aggressively seductive stance -- “whores and procuresses.” Words such as “tuxedos and monocles” connect to your moustache and masculine outfits. And for some reason, for me “alienation” now reads partially in relation to a subversion of the gender binary and denaturalizing the equation of anatomical sex to gender expression.
4. I want to see more! I am curious what your costume/s look like full-bodied, and what a more full-bodied version of this character’s dance might look like. Perhaps, like Aditee suggested for my previous study, this is a prelude to or video version of a full out dance?
This makes me think of David’s idea (as Babli mentioned) of a group item number where B.D. Helen, gender-nonconforming blues-kathak dancer, your character, and Babli’s Euro-Indian femme-animal all dance together. What a crazy combination of gender, racialized, and cultural identities that would be!
1) My experience: I feel intrigued by the money and the bells--almost a middle eastern harem feeling as you reveal your face behind the veil with made-up eyes. Not sure about the mustache, but then begin to see as we see your clothed as a male. I'd have to listen /view again as I'm intrigued by the voiceover, but didn't catch all what you were saying.
ReplyDelete2) I think the set-up is most exciting. I'd love to see how it develops and who this character is. Where he/she performs, what context and why
3) I love the sound---see #1 about the voiceover. Like the money and the jingling. I'd love to see how this character performs, where.---before the show and after.