I am not a clown, I am a lamp (2023)
Lay*Away, Victoria, BC
DATE
Presented by Lay*Away Residency show
Performance Piece

ACT 1:
It was the culminating work that rebounded my interdisciplinary practice into a new geography of “Victoria, BC”. Based in a 4 act theatrical structure, punctuated by the directions of a film Director located off stage, I worked my way across the landscape stage left to stage right with costume changes, coupled with projection pieces and stage lighting. Working from a deep place of feminist grief with loss and longing in ACT 1, I bob and dance in a giant vulva-esque covering after destroying my eyePhone, my text history from another area code and cutting up the dress with my grandmother’s shears. Dancing the song by Taylor Swift, “Lavender Haze” played by musical performers dressed in white. The song goes through the motions of someone trying to escape the binary of womanhood from the 1950s that continues to shape our society. Above the performance is a pre-programmed VJ set from my former hometown and art practice in “Ottawa, ON”. The Director calls cut to end the act, breaking the fourth wall.

ACT 2: A spotlight is illuminated and I transition from a feedback session with my director in a sequin dress affixing a clown nose, and running shoes to sing an original song call “Island Life” lamenting being trapped on an island but finding queer friends that eventually make me feel more whole again this is ACT 2, is a performance of my nu self. The motions of this ‘dance’ are exaggerated acting forms reminiscent of Marlene Dietrich and Vera-Ellen, with large black fringe gloves. At the end two ‘followers’ dressed in white, who appeared to come and make veils in the end of ACT 1, reappear with lit candles, they extinguish and stand with this singer. There are plastic fruits attached to the microphone and strewn about the stage.

ACT 3: The spotlight goes out and I reveal my face covered in inverted crosses and a black and white video begins with feminin iconography and red lettering stating “C.L.I.T” and the words Cult Leader in Training. I dance in a black leotard and sing karaoke style the song “King” by Florence and the Machine, a song about rejecting motherhood, marriage and exercising dominance as leader. Over the course of the previous month, I had stepped into the role of Cult Leader In Training, my followers my colleagues, while this was a residency joke, it played with my linage of being from a long line of spiritual healers and sacred laying of the hands energy work. Music and dancing had become my medicine over the past season as I worked through the loss of my grandmother, my former home displacement, and struggles with becoming a queer invisible parent. In the middle of the song there is a dramatic chorus at which I begin to shake my head uncontrollably and the two followers begin to cut off my leotard suit. The director yells, “Cut!” and provides more directions. While we wait for the suit to be cut off the sound of ocean tides filters through rocks as it comes across the shore. Like breath it goes out and is sucked back in. I invite the audience to breathe with me. I talk about how grief is said to live in the lungs, the corporal soul, I link breath and singing and how singing has always been something I naturally do to release.

ACT 4 : Once the catsuit is cut off to reveal a snake bathing suit, a new video comes on for ACT 4, the musicians begin to play the melody from “Country Road” by John Denver only this time the lyrics are about living on Vancouver Island. I walk into the audience and invite everyone to sing along, I begin to give as many people as a I can a hug, under the lyrics on the screen are videos from the road in my home town which turns into the country road I now take on the island to get home (weirdly I always lived on the bus route 14 and now I take hwy 14). Once the song is ending and I have returned to the stage, I climb some wooden benches and proceed to don a pair of swimming goggles. My followers help me up and I hand over the microphone as the song ends and jump into a black barrel a couple feet away. A follower dumps a bucket of red liquid over my head and the spotlight comes on as the other follower turns on my newly adorned mechanical lamp.