mary-masked

Reworking my Judith act

Published: January 26th 2018, 3:00:01 pm

I'm resurrecting/reworking an act for a benefit for The Satanic Temple and I've been asking a lot of social justice questions like "is it ok for me to do this act in a cheongsam?" My thinking in the past has always been that this act has no other vaguely Asian reference and the cheongsam has no sacred value to the chinese. It's a style of dress that became popular in the 1920's and seems to have no particular meaning other than "sexy tight version of something we've been wearing for centuries."

But in a times when people use the word "Victorian" to describe everything from Baroque to Edward Gory, it's very likely that people will just think "white girl+chinese-style dress=Appropriation=Bad!" So I might want to rethink the dress.

It's also a beautiful and delicate vintage dress I've had since high school so maybe it should be retired from the rough and tumble life of burlesque anyway.

Still, it's hard to let go. The dress has the right feel for the act (tight, confining) and it's the right color for the song (I'll explain that in a minute.) I have a very similar act using my pink zipper dress and a giant fluffy skirt.

I could just do this act, but the theme is defiance and this feels more about breaking free. A subtle distinction, but still. It's an act for The Satanic Temple, I want to use the song with lyrics like "fuck your god."

I could use the pink costume with the music from the cheongsam act...but it's the wrong color. I have weird synesthetic connections with songs and this song is very clearly an iridescent blue so pink just seems wrong. Is that a really dumb reason to make more work for myself? Probably! Is it something I can get over?.......Right now my gut is saying no. But it's something I'll have to mull over.

If you're curious about what I consider to be an iridescent blue song
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rFXW6j7-0R0

And a pink song
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DE5DXUfX0cc

Fantasy could actually be a few different colors but it works with the pink. Judith is iridescent blue, purple or silver ONLY. No, I can't explain any kind of logic behind this.