49 tongues

Here is the entire documentation for 49 tongues, an ongoing creation by me, victoria. I'm researching the stories of LGBTQ+ people around me, and discussing them in a series of performances in the Boston area.

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lol i didn’t do any choreography that night bc too stressed

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I hate that it has to be this way, but I need to postpone any performance of this project. I wanted to be able to perform on the 29th, but this is all so new and i’m currently too busy to do it justice in two weeks. My performance slot on the 29th might be a test of some of my ideas from this project, but it’s not going to be the actual project. I’ll post the artist statement that I wanted to go in the program. Hopefully I can organize a performance art event when I return from winter break in Denver. I want to have an action series going, and a more clear idea of the concept. Right now, a lot of parts in my process are changing and I think I need to dig deeper into my research before I make a presentation. I’m willing to give this research as much time as it needs. 

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the first journal video i ever made!

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Letter to my class before my first demo of the project

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in my demo/class performance of my first concept, I included this video, which engages in a lot of my process content. I projected this during my performance in alienation to my action

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sharing some thoughts on November 10th

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okay. I think I’m definitely revising the concept. It’s too much to choreograph a dance right now. I’m going to stick with interviews and create actions from those, since I’ve already started developing concepts without dancing them and I like those concepts. SO this is the first big change from my original conception of this project because now I’m using some movement, but the focus is on the action and on the content of the interview.

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jade action notes- 1st 22 mins of interview

Hand phone up

Crossed body sitting on couch

Arm geometry

Crossed hands

“Penises make me feel uncomfy” arms crossed over chest almost prayerlike

Shoulders flick out

Foot adjustment, shoe

Hand on hurt “I thought I couldn’t love”

Hands open in a joke, then close

Hand on chest, open arm “I saw her across the room...I swore to god i love this girl”

Finally got an orgasm- foot movement

For me “hands cross over heart”

Touch girls- head movement

Hands closed, holding own hand

Uncomfortable sock adjustng

Internet aesthetic hands up, twitter palms up

Knee slap, snapping

Head up “people on the internet really validate me”

Saint Petersburg- hand on chest, open posture

Hands up “fuck me up”

Open posture, criss cross applesauce

Clothing adjustments

Arm crosses

Neck angle up grab

Neck touch

That friend group”- up fingers

Friends are fingers

Clique holding space 24minsand up

Sex something to be held

Up fingers shake off

“Hand flick” from neck, holding other queers

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first 3 actions

action #1: I’m in the bathroom (hopefully the men’s room), I do the bleach thing on the black fabric

materials: bleach, glass cups, wooden beam, black sheets, tarp, projector

action #2: (women’s restroom or something-Idk the location) bleaching individual hairs from a dark lock of black hair

materials: hair bleach, tarp, black hair, projector

action #3: (idk the location- somewhere club-like tho forsure...maybe one of those back corners in the gallery part?) throw a birthday party for Jade, probably

materials: idk...party stuff, projector

the first action is the only one I know I’m doing for sure, or maybe I’ll just expand on all of these performances a lot. ahhhh I don’t know what I’m doing because I don’t want these to be just five minutes, but the way I visualize it is that people walk by it, like they’re passing a house in their dreams. I want to create distinct settings for every single one but I don’t know how to perform in all locations over the duration of the evening. Maybe I’ll email my prof and see what she says? I don’t want to intrude on other peoples’ performances by sucking attention back to whatever I’m doing in the hall.

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11/10/16 journal

Ok. So I configured the website. I’m using tumblr because it’s a web-building format I’m familiar with, and I knew I could whip something up pretty quickly. The html is ripped from some random website and I’m scrambling to fill out at least a decent chunk of this page because I need to turn in my artist statement tomorrow morning. I made a zine as an artist statement, but it’s too big. I’ll post it here in a bit. I’m nervous about keeping this page updated because there’s so much research I have yet to document online.

I think there’s something about this project that’s stressing me out, or that is scaring me, and I have yet to name it. I procrastinate the most on art when I feel unsure about how it might go for me, and it’s been three days and I haven’t worked on one interview. I’m definitely insecure about my choreographic skills and generally my dance skills. I can talk about rejecting virtuosity for hours, but I still feel the need to build paletteable choreography. I feel like if I don’t, people might not take me seriously. I don’t want to let my fellow queers down by sending the wrong message to cishets about what our story is.

I keep thinking about Anna Deveare Smith’s performance ethnography. Ethnography is different from docu-theatre because of its intention and use. Ethnography is research, docu-theatre is performance in the style of a specific genre of film. I don’t know if I could call queer research solely ethnographic research because there are queer people of every ethnicity. I don’t know what kind of research this is, and I don’t know how I’m doing it. I don’t know what to call this project, and I don’t know what it’s going to be in a couple months from now. The uncertainty drives my research, and I anticipate the information to change every day. There is no thesis. There is no shutting myself in a room every day until performance art comes out. There is sharing stories, there is learning about people who are like me and who are unlike me. Here is confusion and disorganization and procrastination and awkward moments and flops. Here is where I want to be.

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a video I took at 3am about my ideas for the performance

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welcome

My name is Victoria. I’m a student and multidisciplinary artist based in Boston, Massachusetts. I’ve begun this project to begin documenting the lives of LGBTQ+ people around me, and exploring how their experiences manifest themselves in their bodies. Right now, I’m devising True Project to be performed at MassArt on the evening of November 29th. The performance on that date is going to focus on five interviews I’ve conducted over the months of October and November.

The interviews for the MassArt performance are recorded conversations I’ve had with people in my queer circle about what it means to them to be LGBTQ+. Next, I’m going to interview a circle of people I don’t know, but to whom I’m mutually connected. Finally, I will expand my research into a circle of people who I’ve only met for the first time during the interview. The intention of this is twofold. My first intention is purely practical. I’ve never done anything like this before. I’d never interviewed anyone before this project, I’d never choreographed an entire solo for myself, and I’d never done performance art in a gallery setting. The second intention is a bit more conceptual. A big part of my research relates to how queer friendships form, and how LGBTQ+ people relate to our communities, so I’m very receptive to meeting people through their friends, and tracking the way communities form themselves and differentiate themselves.

I’m documenting every excruciating part of my process onto a blog- this blog! Truce Project, while being an experiment in body presence and queerness, is also an experiment in documentation. There is no curtain I want to hide behind while I’m making this piece. Every video I use, every song referred to in an interview, every rehearsal of the dance piece, and every personal process video is to be documented here in one place. This way, I am tracking the way the project changes as I do more research, and making my own observations available to everybody who interacts with this work. I don’t want people to feel confused about how I came to these performances. I’m choosing to present this experiment as a live performance because it is entirely dependent on how bodies exist in space and time. Because performance is ephemeral, the only evidence that grounds it both in its own space-time and past/future space-times is through documentation. This is a nonlinear process. I want you to know that.

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Demi Lovato Cool for the Summer official video

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Frankie Cosmos’s Sappho

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Diana Ross- I’m Coming Out

A queer anthem. Duh.

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Estro Jen shreds on LA’s most iconic skating spots