Yesterday I picked up copies of photos taken at the Rolling Stage event 'Broken.' I was interested to see them, as I had produced new work in record speed for the night, and didn't find the time to document it before-hand.
I was pleased to see that some of the images from the projection looked quite monumental - like a billboard - behind me (see the one of Marylin).
I have to thank the ladies who organised the night -Jude, Tilly and Annelise for this, as their stage set up was faultless. The 'curtain' style screen allowed for acts like mine or Katapulto's to have a full scale projection behind them, and when pulled back provided a cosy proscenium for acts such as Eyes for Gertrude and Soup du Jour. For attention to detail such as this, the entire Rolling Stage crew were a joy to work with.
Overall I felt happier with the projections, opposed to the props I had used at The Closet and the Plank. I was able to use images of the things that were referenced within the song. Hopefully this contributes to a clearer reading of the performance, considering how difficult it is to pick the words out of a song on first listen! 
As always, a costume change between songs involved the transformation from sunglasses, black roll neck and trousers (in the style of Andy Warhol), to a sparkly bunny mask and a white jersey tube dress hand painted with Abstract Expressionist style cherry bakewells over the bosom and a black cartoon bunny stencil in the 'lower bikini' area. You can see in the last photo that I am handing out Cherry Bakewells to the audience. I love to phyisically give something in return for the audience's attention to me while I perform!
The video was cut to the two tracks I wrote for the performance (instrumental in collaboration with Wayne Powell): Oh! Andy and Take Care of the Little Ones'. For the first track, I used a selection of found images, and my own photos. I included images from the shoot with Tilly May, which were used to advertise the event. We had great fun covering the studio in tin foil for this, in the style of 'The Factory'. In my choice of found images, I wanted to make reference to the Scum Manifesto written by Valerie Solanas. I felt it was relevant to include this, as the lyrics run:
I love Marilyn Monroe, I love Kylie Minogue, Andy Warhol's in control
I was thinking primarily of the links to consumerism in Warhol's work, but the coincidence with these lyrics and Solanas' quoted reason for shooting Warhol was one I could not ignore. It is of great concern to me that feminists are often portrayed as mad, man hating, irrational women - and of course Solanas played into the hands of those that choose to believe this. Infact Solanas was the victim of sexual abuse, and suffered mental illness. Although shooting is deplorable and I do not agree with it in any way, I have to ask the question: what kind of a society allows a woman who has suffered sexual abuse and mental illness to go unnoticed? And what is the potential cost of this for all?
You can watch the full video of the background projections and listen to the tracks by following this link:
