#split britches

[crimson-femme]

From Split Britches by Eva Weiss

[crimson-femme]

Lois Weaver and Peggy Shaw, Belle Reprieve (1990)

[theatrebubble]

RUFF at the Barbican Silk Street Theatre Split Britches has had a long, fascinating and illustrious existence over the last 30 years. Their involvement in the activist movement has meant their views, once entirely anti-establishment, have now slowly become a vital part of moral and social movements causing constitutional and international change.

[helixqpn]

A Theater of Desire: Lois Weaver on Aging and Sex at La MaMa

by Megan Hanley

This month, Split Britches founder Lois Weaver is performing What Tammy Needs to Know about Getting Old and Having Sex at La MaMa. Featuring a chorus of sexy singing seniors and Weaver’s alter-ego, the country Western singer turned lesbian performance artist Tammy WhyNot, the show tackles sexuality, sex, and aging. Weaver says: “We all want to know about sex. Everybody wants to know about sex. And Tammy and I really want to know what it means to get old and have sex. What happens to the sex drive. What kind of sex do we have, do we still want to have sex, do we not want to have sex, what do we do if we don’t have sex?”

  Split Britches, one of the most celebrated feminist theatre collectives in the United States, began creating lesbian and queer theatre in 1980. Over their 34 years of work, Split Britches has, as Sue-Ellen Case writes, led the exploration of “lesbian theater, butch-femme role playing, feminist mimesis, and the spectacle of desire” onstage.  In more recent works, including Peggy Shaw’s Ruff, Split Britches’ Retro Perspective, and now What Tammy Needs to Know about Getting Old and Having Sex, the company relies upon their decades of experience queering pop culture to examine aging. Just as their early plays took as a given the importance of performing lesbian desire onstage, Split Britches’ current work tackles the invisibilization of aging, disability, and queer desire by placing their own bodies in the spotlight.

  Last week in conversation with Alisa Solomon at La MaMa’s Coffeehouse Chronicles, Weaver articulated the importance of personal narrative within her body of work. She shares: “I used performance to figure out what it meant to be a femme, and then a femme feminist, and then a resistant feminist [… We’re] using performance to understand what it is to age and to deal with failure. I like to walk onstage with the feeling of this could really fall on its face." Split Britches’ celebration of precarity allows the audience a deeply personal view of the performers, whether it is in Tammy WhyNot’s admission that she’s dropped a line or, in Ruff, the choice to fill the stage with teleprompters that help Shaw, who survived a stroke in 2011, to remember her lines. This visual choice, rather than trying to obscure the struggle inherent to the piece, highlights it.

  Weaver and Shaw shared that their company has always included mistakes, failed shticks, and total breakdowns in their pieces. Weaver describes this tactic as a way of “twisting” the dominant narrative. In so doing, they are very much practicing what Jack Halberstam calls the queer art of failure:

To live is to fail, to bungle, to disappoint, and ultimately to die; rather than searching for ways around death and disappointment, the queer art of failure involves the acceptance of the finite, the embrace of the absurd, the silly, and the hopelessly goofy… (Halberstam 186-187)

  Split Britches has embraced failure as a subversive tool in their own work, but their performances do not disappoint. What Tammy Needs to Know about Getting Old and Having Sex runs until November 23 at La MaMa Etc. Tickets are available at: http://lamama.org/what-tammy-needs-to-know-about-getting-older-and-having-sex-the-concert-tour/.

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What Tammy Needs To Know About Getting Old and Having Sex at La MaMa, November 6 - 28, 2014. Conceived and directed by Lois Weaver, written by Lois Weaver in collaboration with Peggy Shaw, performed by Lois Weaver and Special Guests.

Photo by Crista Holka 

[helixqpn]

An Afternoon with the Ballez

Interview by l.n. Hafezi with Katy Pyle, Jules Skloot, Evvie Allison, Sam Greenleaf Miller, and Lindsay Reuter

  The Ballez Company performed its premiere work, The Firebird: A Ballez in May 2013 for Danspace Project at St. Mark’s Church in the Bowery. The company, made up of a rotating cast of queer- and trans-identified (and politicized) cast members hailing from a variety of performance (and non-performance) backgrounds, followed up the three night, sold-out run that October with The Firebird: A Ballez, Reprisal.

  Director Katy Pyle is currently an Artist in Residence at BAX/Brooklyn Arts Exchange, where she and her collaborators are constructing a new work: Sleeping Beauty and the Beast. The work-in-process will have its first showing at BAX, June 13th-15th.

  After having performed in The Firebird for its premiere and revival iterations, I visited a run-through performance of the new material in rehearsal and spoke with some cast members about process, shame, capitalism, fantasy, sex, and why this work is not “Ballgay” -- the usual for an afternoon with the kids of the Ballez.

  _______________________________ l.n. Hafezi: Can you talk about some of the references that you’re working with? The Firebird is very specifically a canonical ballet, and while this latest work-in-process does come from the ballet canon, there are other things going on, too. Katy Pyle: Yeah, so it’s Sleeping Beauty and the Beast, which is Sleeping Beauty and Beauty and the Beast combined together. So I was looking at -- and we’ve all been looking at -- Sleeping Beauty as the ballet that [Marius] Petipa choreographed, that Tchaikovsky made music for, and the first performance was in 1890.

  I’m especially interested in [recreating] these variations that happen in the third act [of Sleeping Beauty, the ballet]. There are four original duets: Bluebirds, Cinderella and Prince Charming, Little Red Riding Hood and the Grey Wolf, and Puss & Boots and the White Cat. Puss & Boots and the White Cat are not in this version, but that was an original intention, to re-create all of those duets, but in a different way. To really change them up, but have that template and that reference point. And then the other reference point is [legendary feminist theater troupe] Split Britches, [which] did Beauty and the Beast in 1983. There are specific references [from that show], with Peggy Shaw in this feminine, old lady drag. That’s an image reference. LNH: And, with both your work and with Split Britches, it’s a given that the lesbian, or the queer body, is always already on stage, where not even necessarily the body playing some character, but the character, too, could already be a queer/ed body without having to announce or prove that this is a queer/ed body on the stage. KP: Yeah -- I feel like I got permission from [Split Britches] in my imaginary mentorship. Because they don’t know me at all. But I feel like the way that they reinterpreted and played with and fucked with Beauty and the Beast was super inspirational and permissive. And I feel like everybody in that show is just having an awesome time, and just finding each other in something. LNH: To jump a little bit: In addition to seeing a ballet vocabulary, or a [Martha] Graham vocabulary in Sleeping Beauty and the Beast, we see these different identifiably queer bodies. There is a time jump in the work, where the bodies move from 1893 to a club space in 1993. After that jump [and a costume change], I was seeing the character of the leather daddy, and others, so there’s also a BDSM thing going on. And specific people will be able to name and point to those codes in ways that some other audience members might not. There’s another vocabulary happening. Sam Greenleaf Miller: We’ve been talking a lot about 1993 and [legendary lesbian party] the Clit Club, and imagining what we might find there. Katy and I watched Go Fish, which came out in 1994 and was probably filmed in 1993. And especially for Lindsay’s and my duet, [we were] developing a style and an attitude in relationship to a queer gender that is less present in today’s queer communities, [or at least not] that we are familiar with. We’re playing with that and loving that. With my relationship to my own character and our duet, it feels like a very sweet, honoring of a kind of relationship to gender and queer bodies, to codes that are gone. Codes that are actually not a part of my world anymore. Jules Skloot: You were talking about ballet vocabulary, and there’s also an interesting thing happening where, mixed in with these characters as they’re developing, or “coming out” on the stage, there’s also a lot of contact improv vocabulary and sort of modern dance release vocabulary, which also feels very of-the-90s. Or very of the time when I was coming up and learning dance techniques. So there’s something about that as part of the form through which these characters speak and interact that also feels very significant. LNH: That makes me think of how important the partnering is. I knew before coming in today how significant partnering is to how Ballez is distinct from ballet. I’m hoping you can talk about how partnering acts differently in Ballez, in addition to how it affects the vocabularies, the characters -- what it does to fuck shit up. Evvie Allison: I’d like to speak to that, actually. Katy and I had a good conversation after rehearsal a couple of weeks ago. I, not having come up in contact improv at all, having come from a really classical ballet background, and being younger than a lot of the rest of the cast, I had a really different relationship to partnering. Neither Katy nor I, in our ballet pasts, ever partnered with anybody that we would be partnered with in real life. And so, in my partnering with Will, who’s a trans guy who plays Prince Charming to my Cinderella (It’s a foot fetish thing.), I’m sort of playing out this fantasy, Will’s fantasy. And in it, I’m sort of the dominant one in the partnership. And in addition to that, it’s really a sexy duet; I’m sorry you didn’t get to see it today, but it’s a really sexy duet. And it feels really real on stage, and also really grounded in a way that ballet doesn’t feel. And I literally mount Will on the stage. Like, I sit on his feet, and he pushes me up into the air, and I give him my foot to kiss. In this fantasy context, it’s actually a relationship that reads as super queer, and grounded in the present in a way that ballet has never felt for me. JS: Another significant thing about the partnering in Ballez -- or what feels uniquely “Ballez-y” about it -- is utilizing the forms of ballet partnering, or contact improv, or weight sharing in modern dance, for these stories and scenarios and characters to shine through, and letting these stories and scenarios affect and change the partnering. The form isn’t this thing that needs to be kept or preserved in any way. It gets to change and be morphed and affected by the stories that we’re telling. The people in the relationships are what’s prioritized, and then it makes the form change. A lot of modern dance and contact improv gets done with these stony faces and checked out eyes. So in Ballez, it’s like breathing different characters and life into it, and seeing those things changing. LNH: In the run through, in addition to thinking about affect thematically, I was seeing some choreography that was dealing directly with shame. There’s a moment early in the work where we see the character of Princess Aurora dealing with a sort of sexual awakening, and then she immediately enacts choreographies that read as ashamed. Can you all talk about how shame operates in the work as well as in process?

Lindsay Reuter: I’ve realized shames that I’ve unlearned in Ballez class that I don’t even think I was aware I was holding in myself. Just ways that I would hide my body. I was talking to Sam before you guys came out here about how I used to suck my cheeks in when I danced, because someone told I had big cheeks. Just the little body patterns that I had. Even knowing I was going to a certain class where body hair wasn’t so accepted, so I’d wear a long sleeve shirt and long pants. I feel like Ballez rehearsals and Ballez classes are a lot about unlearning shame.

SGM: I want to speak to our “1893 outfits.” I have to say, I don’t think I’ve worn a skirt in probably seventeen years. We all wear these [floor length] skirts. And I put mine on and I felt so shitty. It’s a very, very intense thing. It’s an intense feeling to have that outfit on. And I like it, I think it’s cool, and I think it’s really interesting. One of the directions we received from Katy was, “Let your gender be and shine through this outfit.” And thinking about people in other times, where potentially it would be unsafe [to dress in a gender non-conforming way], you could be arrested, you could be, whatever, killed, for wearing other things. So it’s been a cool and hard thing to play with that, [though it] does bring up yucky shame feelings. And in the piece, in the structure of the piece, we get to go to sleep, [and wake up,] and celebrate the fact that we get to take these clothes off, in exchange for clothing that we feel comfortable in.

JS: I’m glad you brought that up, because I was thinking about the threads of shame in these characters in their different times, but also in the reality of being the Ballez group, the Ballez company performing this, and the different ways in which the process and the performance can catch on us in different ways, because of our internalized oppression and our experiences in the world. And how that’s gonna continue to show up now as we continue to invite different audiences. It’s interesting to think about shame and humiliation and what we’re doing with it. When I reflect back on working with Katy over the past five years, it feels like thinking about about fantasy and desire and shame and embarrassment have been threads all along the way in some process of healing and getting to reclaim ourselves or make comfort where there is discomfort. Or just show people what’s happening.

I was thinking about a moment from before it was called “Ballez,” and we were starting to talk about it. I remember having some guests at my house for dinner, and I was talking about it, and I said the word. And there were a couple of men, I think gay cisgender men, at the table. And they said, “Well why don’t you just call it Ballgay?”

[All sigh.] JS: And I was like “OOH! That’s why! Fuck you!” You know? So I just think about what it means to invite a bunch of people while we work through shame. And you know, here we are in our various genders in floor-length skirts. And then we’re miming eating each other out. [All laugh.] LNH: Changing gears dramatically--One major parallel between ballet and Ballez is the role of music and sound as a character in a work. Can you talk about the music, and how sound is operating in this work? KP: There’s a lot of things that are interesting to me about that music. It is a character, and it is a way to frame everything inside of apparent heteronormativity, actually-- SGM: The Tchaikovsky? KP: Yeah, the classical music. Also, it’s complicated because most people think that Tchaikovsky was also gay. And this music, when I hear it, is super romantic and complicated. There’s a complex gender in the music. You hear that stuff in car commercials. You’ve seen it in TV shows. Maybe you’ve seen the ballet itself. The music is recognizable. It’s a marker; it’s a stamp of proper White heteronormative establishment. It’s classical music. It’s really “clean,” it’s really “pure.” We use it as a place holder. It’s a frame, and we put ourselves inside of it and on top of it, and we can be what we are. It’s a relief. And also a relation. And now we have new music. JD [Samson] is making house music. SGM: The other thing that’s happening with the Tchaikovsky which is really interesting is that, to me, classical music is really classed. And then it’s being used to show pretty much the inside of a factory.  JS: I think about that every time! I’m glad you’re saying that! LNH: Some of you have mentioned how capital and labor might manifest thematically within the work. I’m thinking about how the work happens with this cognizance we have about the market place and the precarious labor conditions that we’re in. And Ballez, by design, has an unusually large cast of minoritarian bodies in downtown dance where there’s already no money. Despite these conditions, I experienced really excellent, fair labor practices during the ten months I worked on Ballez. Can you all speak to that?

SGM: We are not making this particularly cool-school, “cutting edge” thing. It’s not “Ballgay.” It’s not. It’s this thing that’s not that cool and popular. A lot of presenters, a lot of people in the positions to fund these sorts of things, they feel it’s “risky.” So that’s a big question: how to actually make it happen. And also then, that brings up questions of what does get funded, and who, and why.

  LNH: And we know what, and who, and why…

KP: I have had the pleasure of working with a series of artists, in processes with alternative economies that have allowed their work to happen. I’ve learned a lot from those people. I’m thinking of Jennifer Monson. And making work with people that I care about, over time. I really want everyone involved to be really invested in it. It’s more like the “co-op” with worker-owners. Especially with this process, it’s really fun. We’re building all of these duets together, and material is coming out of people’s bodies and experiences. 

And I feel like there’s more shared investment in what the product is. All of these shared fantasies and imaginations coming together. It’s not found in a vocabulary, like “tambe, pas de bouret, glissade pas de chat” -- there’s not a set of terms to fill in. Everything’s being built from the people that are in it. And none of this matters to me without that. I sometimes have real freak-outs about it. Like. “What’s going on?” Or, “Why are we doing this?” It doesn’t matter to me if there’s a product. It is very much about having a container and a way of connecting to people, and playing with people, and being with people that I want to spend time with. At the end of the process there’s “the thing,” but it’s about the shared investment that’s beyond any one person’s vision. Which also involves whatever community is going to help us to put the show on! It’s a shared investment and a shared vision that’s outside of financial gain. That’s just not what it’s about.

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Sleeping Beauty and the Beast at BAX/Brooklyn Arts Exchange, June 13 – 15, 2014. Directed by Katy Pyle, Choreographed by Katy Pyle and Jules Skloot with the Ballez, Performers: Katy Pyle, Jules Skloot, Evvie Allison, Will Davis, Ariel Federow, Sam Greenleaf Miller, Lindsay Reuter, Janet Werther

[countessgeschwitz]

Split Britches, Dress Suits to Hire, 2008. Courtesy of the artists. Photo: Eva Weiss. [x]

[helixqpn]

Check out Peggy Shaw's "Ruff" at La MaMa, January 9th through 26th!  Use the code "SQUIRTS" to get $12 discount tickets!

[forthegothicheroine]

morethanprinceofcats said: I’m curious, though hesitant to ask, but what was the deal with your play?

So, we had to pick a revolutionary theater group and write a play inspired by them.  I picked Split Britches, a really cool feminist theater collective, who had a play called Lesbians Who Kill that used film noir tropes to tell the story of lesbian serial killers driven to murder by the abuse they've suffered, and another about Louisa May Alcott and the division between her desire to write sex-filled gothic novels and her "moral duty" to write educational fiction for young ladies.

I was doing a lot of feminist exploration at that time, especially of the so-called "feminist sex wars", and of second-wave feminists who thought third-wavers were selling out, while third wavers felt they were being slut-shamed.  So I tried to use gothic horror tropes to write a short play about two vampire lovers, one a commanding woman in a Lugosi-style tuxedo and one a stereotypical "vamp", having a fight about their choice of meals and loyalty or lack thereof.  They didn't come to an agreement, but did end the play in a romantic embrace.

My teacher gave me a B+, saying it was clever but a bit judgmental.  In retrospect, she was probably right.