Just submitted this proposal to my colleagues in the Performance Matters research project who will be editing a special issue of Dance Theatre Journal. Hope I get selected and that I can make this happen...
How To Be Sexy: Cosey Fanni Tutti and Mouse on The O Show
My research explores the relationship between different generations of women who I would define as ‘feminist performance artists’, looking to their work as examples for how to be a happy woman. This entails grappling with the ways in which both feminist art and self-help respectively (and perhaps in collaboration) can create a “sense of belonging” and “refusal[s] or creative contravention[s] to feminine normativity”.[1] Following on from theorist Lauren Berlant’s statement that “the woman who was adequate to [women’s culture industry’s] version of normal femininity was as powerful as a feminist would aspire to be”, my question is: What relationship to power and/or happiness can I achieve by simultaneously embodying avant-garde and popular models for female agency?[2]
One outlet for this practice-based research is my new web-TV series The O Show which mimics the tropes of daytime television by incorporating interviews, how-to advice and makeovers, combining genuine storytelling with comical send-ups of the self-help industry. The chat-show format provides a framework in which to genuinely investigate questions at the heart of my doctoral research as well as to both critique and champion popular modes of knowledge dissemination and the confessional. For one episode I plan to interview performance artist Cosey Fanni Tutti and club performer Mouse, focusing on their respective experiences in the sex industry. The transcript and stills from the episode will form my contribution to the journal. Having these two artists on the show is an opportunity to explore the complexity of sex-positive feminism, specifically in light of the phenomenon of the prostitute-performance artist as well as to celebrate the legacy of historical figures such as Tutti and their impact on a contemporary generation of performers.