mary-masked
One Bite at a Time
Published: June 4th 2018, 6:01:47 pm
If I somehow woke up with a million dollars tomorrow...I probably could put together a full scale immersive show. But I don't think I could be happy with it.
I had 100,000 to make a Halloween party a few years ago, and I did a pretty great job. But I did it for the wrong audience and so it felt like a massive failure. (The company I was working for turned out to be run by Mormons. Mormons, emphatically, do NOT want to attend the kind of Halloween parties that I do.) I spent months feeling depressed and swearing I would never do events again. I'm glad I got over that. Kinda.
I almost never rehearse my burlesque acts. And that's mostly because I'm bad at time management, but subconsciously I think it's a way of protecting myself. If the act doesn't go *perfectly* I can tell myself it went pretty well for something I'd never rehearsed. And that keeps me from declaring it a total failure and lets me try it again. It would be great if I could do that *and* rehearse. But I haven't figured out that trick yet. The only reason I did my Joker act more than once was that somebody asked me to and the second time I performed it I thought "Well, that was a little bit better, maybe I can try it again."
So, how do I start small on such a big project? How to I build up to it in such a way that it feels like steps and not a GIGANTIC ALL OR NOTHING risk? How do I makes something with my whole ass without going full Black Swan level perfectionist?
I asked myself what I'd done in the past that I had thrown my whole self into and still felt good about once it had been performed. I had to reach back to college but I got a couple examples.
The first was a design project where I had to basically write a screenplay treatment/detailed plot synopsis, for a movie in an assigned genre. Then we had to create four abstract images to give a sense of the look and feeling of the movie in four acts, and eventually tell the story using music and objects, while someone read the treatment.
It's a little hard to explain, but it felt like telling a whole story using visuals and actions and music, and almost no money at all. Even though it only took a few minutes, it felt whole and contained and emotionally effective. I put everything I could into it. I drew a pastel portrait and then, in performance, stabbed through it with a kitchen knife while screaming. I edited together the soundtrack *using cassette tapes.* I even punched toothpicks through foam-core with my bare hands because I forgot to bring something sensible to do it with.
It wasn't perfect, but I was ok with that. And still really proud of what I'd managed to do. I think I managed to work with my obsessive Aronofsky designer side and my performer Iggy Pop side in the same project.
There were other projects I did that felt similar. The sets and costumes I did for Macbeth, and the half hour dance piece I did based on Lolita. For both of those I did abstract images to map out the emotional journey, like I did with the film project from design class. It helped me look at the material in a different way, strip it down into basic feelings, and not get bogged down in the tiny details of MY PERFECT VISION.
So that's what this weird cover image is. I don't know how I managed to make the bottom right image both phallic AND yonic without even trying but...*shrug emoji* It feels like a good start and I might get more granular. When I did Macbeth, I did abstracts for every scene (Or, I meant to, I never finished.)