The Herald Blog – NOTES FROM AN ITINERANT ARTIST –
29 APRIL 2008 –
BODY EARTH
One of my ex’s once asked if I had ever “had” a flat stomach.
How does one HAVE a flat stomach? Certainly the organ itself is not, nor should be, flat. And if alternatively one is referring to the area in the “mid-section”, where is the flatness supposed to begin and where end?
I mean can you really refer to ‘owning’ or ‘not owning’ something that is entirely contained within your WHOLE system? And at what stage of the ritual attainment of ‘la stomach’ are you transformed to the desired flatage?
It is a strange thing this commodification of the body. All the desires and interpretations in the world defined in so many ways wherein we are put on the defense within our physical selves.
In High School I always felt I was not thin or blonde enough. I channeled all the perceived strangeness of my dark hair, long nose and full hips into an ideal I could buy and own.
Consider our fascination with youth. We do everything in our power to preserve something whose magic is contained in it’s blooming.
It is interesting to consider that the original meaning of the word ‘virgin’ was not a female who abstained from sex but rather a woman who “was one with herself”, meaning she owned her sexuality to do what she liked.
I consider one of my first self initiated performance tours with 50 pounds cash and a one way plane ticket to Prague. I called it my “Butterfly Tour”, but the subtitle could have been “The Sexual Adventures of Kate E. Deeming”. With every work of art I created I was making love. Taking many lovers on my own terms was a way of re-claiming my body and demystifying my sex from attitudes contained within my Catholic upbringing. And it was loving, pure and erotic all. What a gift.
Six years on (and still striving to be virginal in the original sense) my sexual focus has changed. One lover is lovely. My stomach, as it turns out, is not flat. But I am still fascinated by our society’s need to buy and sell therein that illusion that we are in control of nature, our natural selves.
And so I create “Body Earth – Mother Earth in our reflection” as an installation/performance/film.
It is Saturday night, in the neon glow of Shibuya Crossing SHE comes. Crawling, belly heavy with new life, her black eye throbbing, hairy and wild in her red slip, making her way through the feet of the rushing passerbys. She crawls knees dirty, slowly and measured over the white lines, the green man flashes, she is unaware. The men and women in their Saturday night glad rags, stillettos and shined shoes, stumbling with the drink to the next club, in the shadow of the advertisements above, the messages blaring in the ears and she continues. This the busiest crossing in the world, industry and man in communion, in the order of their moment– and her. It is Body Earth, nature, making her way through our feet abused but unhindered she continues.
On the 26th April 2008 The Body of Mother Earth crawls across the busiest scramble crossing in the world, weaving in between the feet of rushing passerbys she is undaunted… so begins the installation/performance/film of
“(the) Body (of) Earth –
Mother Earth in Our Reflection”.
In April 2008 Kate E. Deeming created the character “Body Earth”, as a physical representation of Mother Earth. She then crawled on hands and knees in Shibuya Crossing, Tokyo (the busiest crossing in the world) in between the pedestrians as a way of drawing attention to the missing consideration of the physical human dimension in all of our chats about “this environmental crisis”. Martine Cotton, photographer and Richard Grehan , filmmaker, joined her on this exploration to document the ‘performance’. The images and documentation were not staged but taken documentary style over the course of the Saturday evening. They serve as a potent reminder to our personal responsibility towards the nurturance of the planet.
Herald Blog – NOTES FROM AN ITINERANT ARTIST –
21 APRIL 2008 –
DRUMMING
She was what you might consider whorish. Beat up. Sexy. Earthy. Black eye. Bruising on her arms, collar bones. Heavily pregnant. Dressed in a red slip her black Jackie O sunglasses barely contain her makeup stained and bruised face. Walking through the thick crowd she draws immediate attention. Is she drunk?
Unpredictable.
It was Drum Cow at the performance venue “The Pink Cow” and I was the Body of Mother Earth in honour of Earth Day (The piece was a Triptych – Body, Heart, Soul). Well that was the idea. I was thinking Kali, Durga; the Mother who takes as well as gives life. It DID seem like a really good idea when I started and in my mind it made a lot of sense, but I think in the Japanese environment I ended up looking like a loony.
Story of my life.
Not that it was what you might consider “typical” to Japan. The venue – FULL of Japanese HIPPIES.
Honestly.
More dreads and Indian beadage then you can shake a stick at.
And incredible drummers. There was a Taiko drummer (traditional Japanese drum), shirtless and relentless as he exploded onto the massive instrument in front of him sweat pouring from his sinewy muscles. A slew of African djembe drummers and various other styles and vibes of percussion wailing on the skins like a Japanese earthquake.
So I was a little bit of an anomaly to say the least. Not that that is bad, necessarily, but in this case I think I missed the mark kinda but I didn’t know why.
That’s the risk with live performance, you never know until you’re there.
The next day I head to Kamakura the ancient capital of Japan, full of shrines and temples. Housed at Hasedera Temple is the largest wooden statue in all of Japan. At over 30 feet Kannon Do, or the Goddess of Mercy, is impressive with her eleven heads sprouting from her crown. Standing in her glow I am breathless. It is the largest statue of a female I have seen. There is a magic, something extraordinary there.
Years ago a good friend, and a former priest, told me that it was important for people to use God and Goddess interchangeably. He said that if we cannot refer to that “Universal energy” as male and female both we would be unable to recognize the divine in ourselves.
Suddenly that made sense to me. In all my belabouring about being too big, in EVERY way I was undermining myself and my gifts. I am a big kinda gal. That’s just the way it goes. And who am I to be less?
The other thing I realized, Mother Earth is not a victim. She grows trees on the sides of buildings for goodness sakes. Flowers grow from Volcanic ash. But what about us? We are only destroying ourselves.
I need to communicate THAT through my performance.
So I have decided I am not finished with this Body Mother expression. I plan to take it to the streets of Tokyo.
The beats of the drums like the heartbeat of us all, has awakened a new sense in me.
OMIGAWD I was so DOZY. A week had passed seamlessly and I felt as though I was stoned.
Maybe it was something in the water.
Another Japanese efficiency to keep the population content? Heated toilet seats and opiates in the tap water.
Hm.
Daytimes I’d wake stumble down to the local French boulangerie for my pain au chocolat and expresso before heading to some local shrines for my morning meditations.
Tucked into various *hoods* these temples ARE (most obviously) the embodiment of ZEN. Unlike the Christian, Muslim or Hindu counterparts that announce I AM HERE, these shrines blend calmly into the landscape. (*note: that is not a criticism*). Carefully manicured trees gracefully bow to the slope of the wooden roofs, stone paths leading to the organic entrances. I’d bow clap to the various Buddhas, throw some coins in his general direction for blessings, fortune and happy feet and then it was lunch.
I considered I may be the only Westerner to leave Japan fat(ter) and full of the tox. I certainly still felt like a very large anomaly in this ordered landscape despite the sight of the Japanese man playing “Auld Lang Syne” on his bagpipes in Ueno Park rather energetically.
Friday morning I go to Sensoji temple which is dominated by the rattling of “fortune boxes”. You rattle the box and a stick pops out with a number that corresponds with a fortune. If you get a bad fortune you can tie it onto a tree, therefore leaving bad fortune behind. I rattle the box for four bad goes, before number 93 pops up “Good Fortune”!
“If there is no water in the pond, so many fish will die in it”.
Riiiiigghhht…..something for me to consider….
Sunday night I create my first performance at the Pink Cow in Shibuya.
As the lights dim SHE emerges shyly, hopefully. Wrapped over-tightly in her red kimono, her Geisha hair perching precariously on her head, red lips stretched wide she totters to the front of the stage where she tries to make good with the audience. They laugh at her hopeless antics before she begins to unravel, revealing 2 lengths of red sari. In silence she stands bare.
So begins my performance “I’m not Sari” blending elements of clowning, burlesque, Odissi (2000 year old Indian temple dance), Kalbelia (Northern Indian Gypsy dance) Western contemporary dance and, of course, a little bit of rock and roll.
Somehow after this creative expression I feel better, stronger, lighter. I feel ME. Walking down through Shibuya crossing in my newly purchased yellow shoes, ipod in ear, notebook in hand I feel absolute freedom to bounce about to the Bollywood tunes in the midst of it all. All these wonderful and considerate and orderly folks who make my life so easy here- how can I not dance in such beauty?
My brother thinks I am probably being followed by the police for my playful antics, but I think I’ll risk it.
HERALD BLOG – NOTES FROM AN ITINERANT ARTIST -
8 APRIL 2008
RED MEN ZEN
Sitting at my laptop, the rain drums a familiar beat against the grey pane, outside of an occasional quiet hum of an automobile, all else is silence. Standing at the street corner, I huddle under my polka dotted umbrella whilst the drops like silver dollars come in every direction and still there is not a sound. On the Metro, business blues shift in and out seamlessly or doze seated on the periphery, as rocking, standing in the centre, I leak rain. Starbucks coffee chains blink in hope from every corner.
People are everywhere, every corner, every place and yet
I am alone.
I must wait for the green man to cross the intersection.
Roads stretching calming in every direction,
empty
but nothing moves until it is time.
Perched precariously on the fourth level of the famous Kabuki-za Theatre in Ginza I am treated to my first Japanese performance. The male ensemble relates the story “Honcho Nijushiko”. The virtuous hero and heroine risk and sacrifice all for honour. Honour for love, honour for family. Highly ritualized and stylized I strain to understand the English translations from the headset mashed into my ear as well as the extraordinary and strange vocals streaming from the actors. It is beautiful, like a perfectly structured painting, precise and still. Not a sound is heard from the thousands of Japanese who have purchased 100 pound (200 dollars) tickets for the 4 hour experience – save the occasional cheer when the hero enters.
Walking along my road on my way home I catch a *serious* business man taking a picture of cherry blossoms with his camera phone and then hurrying along.
Suddenly it dawns on me! I have been missing the “Red Men Zen”.
And what precisely IS “THE RED MEN ZEN”??? That Zen (OHM SHANTI) time when you are forced to wait at the intersection for the Green Man to say GO GO GO. That time when the universe (or God, Goddess or, as I like to call her, Louise) says HOLD UP pay attention. You see it is easy for me to feel lonely in this Tokyo landscape of quiet stillness. Moving as I do and often and quickly and with my feet scarcely touching the ground. Happiest when I am spinning. Of moving whenever possible, and in this often losing the beauty of stillness. It is a mistake many performers (heck, people) make when creating work (life), the idea that you have to speak or move in order for the experience to be real and meaningful. It indicates our discomfort, MY discomfort with the intimacy that comes from silence. The intimacy with others, with environment and with self. After the abundance and sensuality of India this intimacy that is presented to me is MASSIVE indeed.
I am creating a couple of new pieces of work whilst I am here. Let’s see if the RED ZEN makes it’s way in……
DEEMING DREAMING – NOTES FROM AN ITINERANT ARTIST – KATE E. DEEMING
1 APRIL 2008 – BLOG 8
DANCE PARTY JAPAN
When one is an artist, cultural experience takes on SO MANY forms. Take me for example. I arrived in cosmopolitan Tokyo on Saturday morning and since I have led a dance party merging Odissi, Martha Graham and Michael Jackson inspired choreography (with a wee bit of “Strip the Willow” thrown in for good measure) AS WELL AS performing complete makeovers bringing gypsy Rajasthani styled textiles together with Cinderella fairy tale design. My audience, oh yes, of course, is supremely excited about my creations. They are BEGGING for more. Cannae get enough. And I have only been here for four days. An artists dream.
Making my plan to come to Tokyo partially led by academic pursuits (I am speaking at the prestigious Temple University on my experimental approaches to filmmaking and art) and the desire to study the abundant performance forms – Kabuki, Noh, Butoh and Karaoke, I am also leaving myself open to make new work and to experience the many and varied artistic experiences that present themselves to me. And to eat a lot of sushi. I must admit I was a bit intimidated by the country, existing as it does pristine, quiet, and ordered, qualities I do not hold in abundance. Ok qualities I do not hold AT ALL.
Walking down the streets of Tokyo is not so different to Paris, the men and women are so perfectly manicured in their muted tones, cherry blossoms dripping prettily above, and men scrubbing the subway gutters till they shine. And then there is me, the colourful Amazon like Hobo, bumbling along, layered in a mix of outrageously bright Indian fabrics, towering, looming above the Japanese at a massive 5 feet 7 inches and 10 stone (140 pounds). I am surprised the sidewalks don’t heave as I pass.
But in Minato, the area where I stay and home to 49 international embassies, none of this makes a difference. My audience is thrilled for my largess, my merging of cultures and ideas. My “EXTREME-dancing” is something to watch and copy. My bright Odissi tunic becomes a point of interest for them to follow as we discover and explore new shapes, merging the various forms. They are uninhibited by the seeming messiness of it all.
Through this, I make very important discoveries about new ways of doing things.
Isn’t is wonderful when in the face of adversity someone opens a door? When you have an overwhelming desire to express yourself and you are given a platform to do so? When it feels like everything you ARE is wrong and then someone says YES? Oh this is one of most sublime experiences ever, like a little wink from heaven. My audience reminds me of this.
And who exactly are my artistic devotees? They are my nieces, five year old Quinn and two year old Ruby, and the best kind of participant. They are unaffected by what is “proper”, they do what is interesting to them. I give them a suggestion and then they feed it back to me, what a grand game really. And what amazing things we are creating! They will undoubtedly give me new material to work with….
Where am I?
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