| on the other side of the glass plate, she wore nothing |
| artists | video + sound | contact + specs |
|
When the doors open, the show begins.
The stage is scattered with wooden dowels and pvc fittings, but "performers" are absent. Three FOH Ladies in pretty dresses talk of clothing and whimsically burst into tiny ensemble dances. They generate a friendly mood, guiding viewers to become a single entity. Before the starting ritual is done, the audience – now a group – has built the set: two human scale boxes out of modular sections (ingeniously designed by Shana McKay Burns to play with the viewer’s visual perception of physical boundary). The Group fulfills a moment of choreography as they play together to decipher the correct construction method, and bring a new level of attention to the “stage” where the “performers” belong. When those performers, Amiti Perry and Esther m Palmer, do finally “take” the stage, Esther inhabiting one box and Amiti steadily circling the other, David Morneau’s live-mixed sound score immediately establishes the environment for the tale, with music created from clothing elements – fabric, buckles, scissors – and lecture excerpts from evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins. The text directs the audience to see the image onstage and in their actions in the language of different worlds, and the sonic landscape eases the journey. The Women on stage travel through a ritual: take the boxes apart, put them back together, take them apart to discard them, and return again to rebuild. Similarly they put on and take off, pick up and discard T-shirts with questions and claims sewn on to them. The costumes, designed and created by Elle Chyun, create a rhythmic action for the Women. Amiti treads through repetition and gradual change, building an image of who she might be. Every action is a careful choice and Esther watches patiently, waiting for a shift and a discovery. on the other side of the glass plate, she wore nothing has traveled from an intimately personal dilemma to one that is shared across societies. Research has revealed it to be a short journey, as they are the same problem – “…’how I look or feel’ turns out to be anything but merely a personal and free exploration of the self”. In the world of fashion and clothing, sociological and anthropological determinations shape our choices and our options, guiding us to remain ever communicative through sartorial maps. Inside these channels, however, “bodies are potentially disruptive. Conventions of dress attempt to transform flesh into something recognizable and meaningful to a culture”. We are pinned into our languages – of body, clothing, and culture – and the ways in which they collide. other side explores this process of communication and narrative through methods borrowed from comics and graphic novels. With help from Scott McCloud’s instructive Understanding Comics: The Invisible Art, I found a connection point with comics’s “simple” images and complex spaces where time is constructed uniquely through each reader’s experience. Not only did comics illuminate a new take on perception in this piece, but it proved a good match for the clothing. Comics make stories of symbols and icons; fashion functions as symbols and icons. And then the language of both moves beyond easily formulated structures into the messy embodied realm. When I put on a T-shirt – sure the shirt may be saying something, but my body talks back; it has something to say too. But to whom is it talking? Me? Or the Group? Ultimately, that’s a question for the audience.
|
||||||||||||
on the other side of the glass plate, she wore nothing |
 |