Dance

I have been dancing as long as I can remember but have only recently realised what only a few years ago I could have only dreamed of, namely dancing on stages in front of audiences.

Coming from a background of gymnastics and martial arts I started dancing (properly as it were) when I was 18, when I moved to London. I went to classes at my university's dance society and after my first year I started running it. I performed in, and put on, shows there for 4 years until I finished my Master's degree.

(click on image to enlarge)

"Gender Violence"

Instead of going to a dance school after finally realising I was not cut out for 'working life', I started my PhD. Before deciding to return to academia, I auditioned at a few dance schools with a piece that I choreographed in response to what I saw as the aesthetisation (if that is a word) of violence in popular culture at the time. Responding to the images brought to us by films like the Matrix (which was considered beautiful and uncontroversial) and Fight Club (which was considered ugly and very controversial) I chose to comment on the ways in which violence was being shown to be balletic and graceful and without physical consequence. The piece moves from highly choreographed, tight, graceful movement into ever degrading mess, until it is just bloody and crass.

It got me in to a school. Which I was happy about, but I decided for a couple of reasons that I would not go the dance route and headed back to academia, hoping that maybe I would be able to integrate my feelings, my academia and my politics into my dance there.

A few years later I got my chance when I performed (very nervously) at Club Wotever a piece tenuously based on my audition piece, about how it is to be subject to violence as a gendered person (specifically a trans-gendered person in my case, but I don't limit the interpretation).

[More photos coming soon! Especially ones by my friend Verena]

I felt exalted when people responded positively and since I have expanded the piece that is presented broadly in three parts. My responses to violence and how it has made me feel. I don't want to describe what it looks like per se but it is designed to be intense, disturbing at some points and hopefully a bit uplifting. It is a dance piece but is also designed to be accessible and open.

In the year that has followed that first time in Club Wotever I have performed the piece on a number of occasions in some very different spaces. The pictures here are from when I traveled to Stockholm. This was the first time I had performed on a full stage. I gave it my all and I got so much back from the audience that as I write about it and think about I can't help but think of it as one of the most magical moments of my life.

[More photos on the way including some by my friend Del]

(click on images to enlarge)

I recently took the piece to Warsaw, another incredible experience, performing infront of over 600 people. Just prior to arriving a courtcase had just been heard about the murder of a trans woman in which the perpetrators received a drastically reduced sentence because "they didn't mean to kill her, just really really hurt her". The politics is being heatedly contested. The people I met were hardworking, brilliant, committed and incredibly warm and generous.

[More of Kash's photos to come from the Warsaw event and I will load up a drawing I made of our time there... eventually... watch this space]

The day after coming back from Warsaw I performed the piece at my university, for the same dance group that I had run 8 years prior. I performed in front of 300 people, predominantly straight, and again I was terrified. I had a very good reception and it made me feel positive that material like this can cross borders and boundaries of all kinds and people can relate to oppression in all its forms from their own experiences.

I continue to work on the piece. I will be performing it again soon in a big West End theatre, I am talking about it in Zem Moffet's upcoming documentary on gender and performance, and I am currently talking to other artists about realising the piece in different mediums.

"The Look"

I am working on more dance work at the moment, based on 'image' and 'body'. Again, like the piece on violence I hope this will be accessible, and relevant to a wide spectrum of experience. I think this a common experience, a common feeling that is hard to realise in words and I hope through dance I can get something across that we don't or can't talk about. I performed it for the first time at Smack! in April. It felt good and the audience seemed to respond well. I am looking forward to working on it more and performing it again soon.

[Ingo took some beautiful photos of the piece and I will load those up asap]

"Gender Stripping"

This is a short little piece that explores (quite personally) trans-sexuality and gender-performance. It's a gender-fuck striptease performance. Perfromed to Leonard Cohen's "I'm Your Man" it is supposed to be fun, sexy and also a mind-job in terms of gendered sexuality and performance. It's still being gestated but it went over very well at Wotever Stockholm and I have been asked to perform it again at Club Sade in Stockholm in November 2005 for their 30th Anniversary party. I look forward to tinkering with this idea in the coming months. Watch this space for more details.