Miss America - Crowning Glory

Split Britches Lesbian Feminist Theatre Company was founded in 1980 by Peggy Shaw, Lois Weaver and Deb Margolin. Since then they have transformed the landscape of queer performance with their vaudevillian satirical gender-bending performance.

Split Britches is performing Miss America at the Great Hall of the People’s Palace 21st - 23rd March, Mile End Road, London. E1 4NS

£10 (£6 concessions) Free to Staff and Students of Queen Mary, University of London.

Please reserve tickets by calling 020 7882 5196 or email R.Sharp@qmul.ac.uk giving your details.
You will be asked to pay on arrival for the performance.

Split Britches has sustained it’s reputation for 30 years, how have you managed to do that?
We were part of Spiderwoman Theatre which began in 1975. Split Britches formed in 1980 and we have never been funded as a company and we don’t depend on funding to survive. We make the work and then get paid for the performances like the old vaudeville artistes. Vaudeville was the working class performance scene that came to prominence in the USA from the early 1880s until the early 1930s and it inspires much of what we do both practically and aesthetically. We have always had other jobs. Lois is now Professor of Contemporary Performance Practice at Queen Mary University and Peggy teaches independently. We also run workshops and residencies.

Even though we are a lesbian feminist performance company we never made work about coming out stories. From the beginning, lesbianism was a given in our work and from that given we explored what was happening in our communities and the wider world. We believe artists should be alert to what is happening in the wider world and not just in our personal lives. Split Britches was very fortunate that our work was embraced by the academy and part of that interest and critique has also contributed to our survival.

Split Britches is a lesbian feminist performance company. How does it feel to make work in an allegedly “post-feminist” world?
We called ourselves a lesbian feminist company because identity was important and we didn’t want people to assume a heterosexual focus from the kind of work we did. And in the post-feminism era we held on to the name because because we were just plain ornery! We are aware however, that the label has kept people away from our performances, because they think they know what we do. However when they turn up they are pleasantly surprised. We never want to deny the community we came from even though we are not dealing with community specific issues. In terms of access to funding, our lesbian feminism has never hindered us because we have a strong track record and have forged our own style.

We created what we called a “broken aesthetic”. Quoting a songwriter friend of ours we are “caught between polish and no polish at all.” For instance, we are not great singers and dancers but make a point of singing and dancing in our shows. We are inspired by our time with Spiderwoman Theatre that was named after Spider Woman, the Hopi Native American goddess of weaving and pottery. She always left a flaw in the design so that the spirit could be free to come and go. We are interested in the flaws.

How did the idea for the show Miss America come about and how does it deal with the American Dream?
The idea for Miss America came about because Peggy had a dream about being an 80 year old butch woman wearing a bikini who was crowned Miss America and she was very happy. When she told anyone about the dream, they laughed. We thought this contradiction was worth exploring. So part of the show deals with gender equality, beauty and freakishness and a critique of the nostalgic view of womanhood that was an essential part of the 1950’s American Dream.

Lois wanted to explore what it meant to miss America. She was aghast when Katrina hit New Orleans and we were watching people dying and the government did nothing. The flood polticised many mainstream privileged reporters like Anderson Cooper who were shocked at the slowness of the response. Katrina was a wake up call. So Lois plays a reporter and Peggy is crowned Miss America in a beauty pageant that takes place in a storm.

Now that Obama is president, the American Dream has to be reconfigured. It was based on a “me and mine” culture now perhaps we need to be less individualistc and local and more communal and global.

Miss America integrates video into the performance. What inspired you to do this?
We project YouTube videos that we found online. We chose YouTube videos because they have a homemade quality. You will see the YouTube frame around the images on the screen. We wanted to show both the trauma of severe weather and the pervasiveness of ‘weather as news’ as well as use the storm as a backdrop to Lois as the news reporter.

What advice would you give a performance artist starting out now?

• Make your own work
• Get a gig and do it as often as you can
• Don’t wait for the grant
• If you don’t have a venue take one or make one in a city square or empty store front
• Find people to collaborate with

Split Britches Links
Website
Blog
Facebook
MySpace
Flickr

Bird La Bird is the brains behind Bird Club. Bird Club is a performance space which puts queer femininity in centre stage irrespective of gender, sexual orientation or body appendages. You can live the Bird Club experience monthly every second Thursday at the Bethnal Green Working Men’s Club. Friction interviews Bird La Bird the curator and performance artist behind Bird Club

What is the Bird Club story?
Bird Club has morphed several times since we hatched in 2006. Bird Club started as a comedy act with Maria Rosa Young (Dyke Marilyn) and myself. We created Birdie characters to both subvert the stereotypes of Femmes but also to send ourselves up. We didn’t want to take ourselves or debates over identity politics too seriously.

I want to use Bird Club as a vehicle to bring together and promote artists, performers and designers. The fifth rule of Bird Club is “Anyone can be a Bird”. Wearing frilly knickers should not be dependent on what’s in them.  When I hear the word “real” before any category of person whether it’s woman, lesbian or femme I head for the hills. If you’ve ever been told you’re not “real” you’ll probably like Bird Club.

What makes Bird Club different to all the other burlesque acts out there?
What I do as Bird la Bird draws on music hall, punk, film and comedy rather than Burlesque.

Burlesque is an art form that’s been useful for many Femme performers as a way to break the drag king/masculine dominance of the queer stage. However the Burlesque scene tends to be very white. Why not have a retro scene that celebrates Rocksteady as well as Rockabilly? How about 50s Bollywood as well as Hollywood? Oh and the class snobbery really gets on my titties as well.

Bird Club is post-femme and post burlesque. However I do  hope that many of the more challenging neo-burlesque performers will come and join us on the perch.

Isn’t femininity over-represented in queer and straight worlds?
What’s interesting to examine which femininity is acceptable and which isn’t. This isn’t just about gender and sexuality it’s also about class, race and disability. I’m interested in how femininity is both demonized and highly prized.

There’s a lot of anxiety within feminism, queer and gender queer culture about expressing binary genders. While we’re right to challenge repression and enforcement of gender norms we also seem to have created a fear of being “normal”.  This can leave many femmes, transwomen, straight feminine feminists and lady transvestites feeling like we’re puppets of the Patriarchy by doing what feels good for us. Yet again it is putting politics before pleasure and that’s not very helpful to anyone.

How do you create something truly British in terms of language around gender and performance?
I want Bird Club to have a British flavour like Fish ‘n’ Chips.

I love slang, old fashioned gender nouns that are outside man / woman / male /female. Some people are perplexed by Bird Club and some of the language I use. I love it. So what if things aren’t instantly knowable and recognizable.  It’s good to have a bit of mystery. The debate round identity is way too earnest. Slang can mess it all up and bring a bit of irreverence, camp and cheekiness.

I also think colloquial words around gender that are white and working class are often assumed to be sexist and racist. The word Bird is definitely used in a derogatory way, but it’s not the whole story. I’m fascinated that birds and women are linked in language. I can’t think of another creature I’d rather be compared to than one with the power of flight.

What is your take on merchandising/branding the feminine?
This is something that’s very dear to me cos I do graphics as well as performance art. I love playing with imagery inspired by celebrity magazines, perfume, aftershave ads and fashion magazines.

Bird Club features lots of Birds of different species. I love the Bird Club banner which was a collaboration with textile artist Lucas McKenna. I want to get away from the pink for Femme/Black for Butch division. We need to move beyond this and find more interesting ways of expressing gender play visually. I love the work that the Butch is Beautiful crew are doing in Paris. They have the most interesting butch graphics I’ve seen in a long time.

To me style is at the heart of butch femme expression, so butch femme design work should reflect that deeply aesthetic and stylized sensibility, anything less is a disservice.

What has Bird Club got to say about Butch/Femme that hasn’t been said before?
I’m interested in post Butch/Femme and what happens when players themselves question and rewrite the roles.

I find the hostile reaction many non-players have towards butch/femme enthusiasts fascinating. I can’t think of another consensual sexual activity that has so much scorn and derision poured on it. I’m fascinated why many people find it so threatening and I’d like to see if that anxiety can be played with.

Is Bird Club art or activism?
It’s art, but art as in artiste rather than artist. Activism sometimes, but with a very heavy dose of humour, camp and surrealism. The most activist event Bird Club has organized was Bird Pride. That brought lots of the ladies together on the streets which hadn’t happened in London before.

A lot of activism revolves around consensus and community building. While this is essential to furthering many political causes they don’t necessarily make a good environment for making art or expressing very individualistic opinions.

I want the club to be a space where radical ladies can express themselves. There’s no reason why it can’t move between the street and the stage or dancefloor.

Lisa Gornick is the only out lesbian filmmaker in the UK who has been consistently making feature films dealing with lesbian life experiences. Her work goes beyond the coming out stories and deals with the complex and contradictory feelings women have for each when sustaining long term lesbian relationships.

You started out as a stand up and actress why the move behind the camera?
Before I got into performing, I was making things up with drawing and words. It was only by the good chance to find a great Saturday drama class that I began to perform too. As a teenager, I was shy and a little frustrated by things so the spontaneity of improvisation was such an amazing release.

I’d always loved going to the cinema more than the theatre in a way - even though I acted mainly on stage - so, I did some studying of video at Battersea adult institute and then went to Bristol University’s post graduate course to study filmmaking - but with the advent of digital filmmaking I really began to take risks and to think maybe I liked this move behind the camera.

You have a ‘just do it’ attitude to filmmaking and you have made 2 features using guerilla filmmaking tactics. Why this route and not the more formal one?
With the low cost of digital and the fact that I had a camera and a computer with editing software, I thought why wait for the green lights of external approval in making a film. I have to say I was feeling pretty depressed about things and it did seem the only was up, to quote Yazz, in terms of just starting to shoot a film.

I saw Festen and was amazed by the potential beauty of shooting on a Sony PD100 - the same camera I had and still have.

Acting to me seemed about waiting. I didn’t want that to happen to  me again. I also realised that once I started and had people, like Campbell, who did camera in both films - give me not only practical help in terms of shooting but also encouragement in terms of the production of the film and getting on with it. I thought to go for it.

I never really explored the formal way because in the early days of making my films, I wanted to do it, not spend ages talking about what I was about to do. I’m now ready to attempt the pitch and I think now I am intrigued to explore the more formal route in terms of waiting at the red light for it to turn green in terms of getting funding.

How would you describe your filmmaking style?
In terms of Do I Love You? and Tick Tock Lullaby my two features I’d describe my filmmaking style as using film/comedy/performance to work out something that is troubling or worrying me. My first desire is not STORY. Everywhere I go that is the sacred filmmaking mantra - what is the story? For so so long, I used to get bored when people asked that. I’d make up a story just to please them with an answer and realised as I was speaking that it wasn’t working.

I’m more interested in using film to explore human dilemmas. Both my films so far have centred around questions around female sexuality - if I want to really give it a label which I know my instincts resist.

I would start by getting up early and writing dialogues around the subject. Then when I get hooked on various characters, I would begin to dream up scenarios and build a certain trajectory for them to follow. So I can’t totally rule out narrative elements.

When I felt I had enough dialogues, or more I was getting lonely, I decided to find the actors. I would say that my films tend to be performer focussed. I am more excited by the actors than I am by smooth and perfected camera moves or exquisite set design. It’s what comes naturally to me and I find it the most compelling part of the filmmaking process.

Where do you draw your influences from?
We are drawing influences all the time. The majority are from friends and family members who often remain unheralded in this type of question as filmmakers tend to trot out Chantal Akerman, Jane Campion, Dorothy Arzner, Jean Luc Godard, Woody Allen and John Cassavetes - all of whom I have watched over the years and been hooked into (as well as countless others).

So many other filmmakers, playwrights and writers have found their way into my pscyhe. You look at how they work and see if this fits with you. But they are the named ones. There are masses of influences from comments friends and family say. Or a picture in a gallery. Or something briefly seen on the internet or television. Or a moment in the street that influences me greatly.

Why do you do the risky thing of mining your personal life for your films?
I’m sure so much goes back to those early improvisation classes as a teenager. The sense of focus that I seemed to get when asked to improvise around my own experience was so intense that it stayed with me as a creative source.

I have always loved the honesty of the writer. The first person writing of cartoonists, authors and filmmakers. A lot of them were men, worrying about the women in their lives. I would still relate to them even though they were often skinny yet macho heterosexual men. A slight irritation as they described their antics was overcome by an intense wonder at their honesty.

I suppose the biggest risk is the fact that it seems to be reality. Once your own personal dilemmas have been routed through into a creative act/performance - they really aren’t objective realism. They are portraits not photographs. There is always a fictional coating on it.

Who is the intended audience for your work?
I don’t work in the way that funders and the market analysers say you should work - that is know who your audience is. If I said my audience was women from the age of 18 to 45 lets say. Then what about the 75 year old heterosexual couple that came to see Tick Tock Lullaby with Obama badges, or the sixteen year old Korean boys or the 22 year old men in Johannesburg who came up to me after my film.

I don’t like targetting audiences. Let people find you and relate to the film however they want to. I love it that teenage boys who are always fed guns and rushing and shouting want to see a group of thirty something women worrying about whether to be a mother or not.

What was the response to your last film Tick Tock Lullabuy?
The producer in me just wants to mention the good moments - those teenage boys who loved the film, the women that came up to me and said keep making films and the young girls who loved the honesty in the films.

There are retractors (don’t worry I hear you) - I presume some tend to worry about my organic process of filmmaking - it’s not a conventional STORY - with beautiful people doing beautiful things and being ecstatically happy about it. Or in terms of the lesbian characters in the film, they are rounded people, women who question things in their lives including their past and present feelings about men. Some lesbians are a bit disturbed by that, but it’s my honest expression. We are none of us perfect.

What are you working on at the moment?
I am working on two new features and also writing some episodic ideas. I soon will start talking about these on the web. The most I can say is that if anyone is interested come to my MySpace page,  I’ll keep you hooked in with my new projects. It will be really lovely to have you there.

Links
Tick Tock Lullaby MySpace page
Valliant Doll
Valliant Doll YouTube

Still from Legacy GB 2006

I went to see a show done by people of colour and came away very disappointed. The performances were moribund, the art direction was so-so. I never walk out of things because I am aware of the graft that goes into such work, even though it may not come up to scratch.

The following day I woke up to the strains of some music on the radio. I thought to myself this is wonderful. Not what I usually expect from Sunday morning on Radio 4. I waited for the announcement to come on and it was composed by Vaughn Williams. Excellent music from a Dead White Male.

There are many Black and queer artists who are brilliant too, but my point is how do we know this when every artistic effort seems to be lauded by the minority press. I include myself in this and have used the still from Legacy my award-winning film in this post. Did it win awards because it is good or because it fulfills a minority remit?

How can we truly judge our work when most of it is villified or ignored by the mainstream press. Why does the mainstream press only love us when we uphold Eurocentric heternormative values or when we diss our own people? Why does Sarah Maple get picked up and seen as a hot talent when the HUGELY talented Donald Rodney remains largely invisible. Why does Steve McQueen get feted for making a film about the 1981 IRA hunger strike while John Akomfrah is not accorded the same respect.

Is the only alternative to ‘big up’ ourselves? How can we create critiques that are not based on the patriarchal Eurocentric gaze, but also be demanding and rigorous? How do we know what we create is great not just good enough because ‘not many of us are doing it, and we are just grateful that it is there’?

I saw Toni Morrison speak and she said she chose to tell stories from an Afrocentric standpoint but made sure she wrote them well. She used the comparison with music of African origin like jazz, soul, rap. Everyone feels it and imitates it even though the rhythms originated outside of Europe.

I found this particular point inspiring. Is she a great writer? Does she pass the tests of rigour? I think so but many don’t. What do you think?

Del LaGrace Volcano is important to us at Friction because he is a visual artist who has consistently produced challenging works for queer people and straight people alike. From the initially controversial Love Bites to the mainstream adoption of  his work in Sex and the City television series,  Del has remained attached to his feminist and queer politics. He has recently published Femmes of Power an exploration of queer femininity in collaboration Ulrika Dahl, femme activist and academic.

Why did you choose photography as your medium?
When I was a teenager I had no idea I would be interested in using photography as a medium for political activism or self expression. In 1976 I hitch-hiked around Europe for 6 months with my best friend Stacey, who had an old Rolliflex camera and I was impressed.

When I returned to my small town in California I enrolled at my local community college and took every photography and film class that was going and had the good fortune to find two excellent teachers who mentored me and nurtured my talent and enthusiasm. I quickly got jobs in photography and as I was entirely self supporting I needed to be able to do something I liked, was good at, and, could make money with as well. I became totally obsessed with photographic alchemy and history.

Photography as a medium is perfect for my personality and temperament. It allows me an excuse to develop relationships with all kinds of people and is something I can do alone, at my own pace, in my own way.

When you started to show your photos publicly how was your work received?
I started to exhibit from the early 80’s at one-night-only lesbian only events receiving positive feedback.   However in 1989 I was asked to curate an exhibition called The Lesbian Gaze at the Young Unknowns Gallery in London. I exhibited  (“The Ceremony”) my series of very romantic series of images. And because there was a bit of leather, rubber, a wedding veil, two tits and a Muir cap some of the more politically correct lesbians declined to exhibit with me. There seemed to be a real fear that these images which reflected the lives and sexual politics of myself and my friends would contaminate the larger lesbian social fabric.

My first book, LOVEBITES was banned by Sisterwrite, Gays the Word and Silvermoon bookstores, as well as by US Customs (for two weeks), but that only made people more curious enough to buy the book!

I have shown with some big names in many group exhibitions in museums and galleries around the world:Cindy Sherman; Robert Mapplethorpe; Gilbert & George; Paul McCarthy; John Coplans; Andy Warhol…you get the picture, right. Even thought it has given me another line in my CV, it doesn’t translate into sales. In these big shows only the ‘blue chip’ artists are written about or promoted or sold. Artists like myself give the exhibition ‘street cred’.

How has that committment to ‘otherness’ affected your access to funds?
My theory is that because I refuse to be (an)”other” victim and instead present both my self, my life story and the people who allow me to re-present them as heroes; to be admired, and desired, rather than ‘tolerated’ or ‘assimilated’ I don’t get funded or feted.

I have no respect for the way in which the mainstream media, the funding bodies and society in general treat those of us who are ‘other’. Let’s face it. Most people who are successful artists come from upper middle-class white backgrounds and it’s a closed shop.

Exceptions do occur and those exceptions make the members of the dominant class feel better about themselves. If they can have an Issac Julian or Jean-Michel Basquiat on their books then they feel themselves to be immune from charges of racism or elitism. Where are the queer women of colour in the mainstream art world? Where are the gender queer artists?

Why have you continued to work in the queer world when other peers have left it behind?
There’s a common perception that working from a subcultural position is reductive. That it is a (lesser) choice that no one would make if they could have popular, mainstream recognition. It’s certainly true that most of my peers who have become ‘famous’ and financially successful seem to have left the queer world behind them.

I remember working with Jeannette Winterson when she was coordinating September in the Pink, the first queer arts festival in London in 1984. She was quite politicized back then, in terms of both sexuality and class. But as she moved up the class ladder she pulled it up behind her.

If you’re white and rich it’s no longer important (to say) if you are a lesbian or not.  Annie Leibowitz, the celebrity photographer is a case in point.  To politicize either your gender or your sexuality is seen as passé and crass in the upper echelons of society. It seems that full human membership only exists for those who have the luxury of being classless (read: super rich), and colour blind (read: white)

First and foremost I am a political person. I refuse to allow my work to be commodified or to appeal to the lowest common denominator, lesbian or otherwise, in order to achieve financial success. But then again, I haven’t been tested. No corporate powers or fancy curators have come knocking on my door and for the most part I am still being asked to work for free. THAT is something I would like to see change in the queer world! We owe it to ourselves to be paid whenever possible and at the same time it’s important to give back to the communities that support us.

How has your gender and name change altered your relationship to the queer world and your subjects?
The name thing has always  been something that is a bit complicated but also fun and meaningful to me. I’ve had a number of names, legal and social, in my (ohmygod) five decades! And they’ve all felt right at the time.

If I had remained Della Grace (and relatively gender normative) would I have had a different trajectory into the ‘high art’ world? Is that something I even want?  We all face hundreds and thousands of life altering choices and what might have been or even what you think should have been is what it is now, because of those choices.

I could have been Debby Would,  a suburban mid-western Mormon housewife with grandkids already. I’m kind of happy about the way I’ve constructed my life.

What was the difference in working on Femmes of Power compared to The Drag King Book?
From a technical point of view it was easier to work on Femmes of Power than The Drag King Book simply because I was using a digital camera. This meant it was cheaper and lighter to transport the equipment around. On a personal level there was the challenge of my ‘masculine’ persona. Of course everyone I worked with knows me as a “herm” rather than a man or even a transman, BUT there are still levels on which we are all programmed to respond to masculinity, the voice, the visual cues and so with people who never knew me as “Della Grace” I had to work a bit harder to make sure that the dynamics between us weren’t re-creating the power imbalances that often exist between a ‘male’ photographer and female subject.

There were a couple of instances in the three years of making work that I felt these dynamics were present, usually in contexts where it wasn’t possible to spend time with people in the way I usually need to. I believe that those images don’t have the level of intimacy and engagement that I feel are important and consequently those images did not make it into the book.

When I worked with younger, queer femmes of colour, I became aware of myself as being not only more ‘male’ but more ‘white’. The history of colonialization , slavery and sexual violence means that a whole lotta baggage comes into the mix. If and when I am perceived as an older white male photographer making images of young, femme women of colour I do whatever I can to acknowledge, disrupt and disown the power vested in me through institutionalized cultural racism and sexism.

Although working this way does take a lot of time and energy it feels important to engage with the people I work with in as deep a way as each encounter will allow. And this is something I try to do with everyone I work with, not only queers of colour!

How do the images in Femmes of Power challenge how society views femininity?
If you look at the vast majority of images of women in the mainstream and lesbian and gay media what you see are images of women performing gender normativity. I call it the “skinny white chicks” syndrome. In this kind of image if a woman is looking back at the spectator (usually assumed to be a white male) it is to make sure he knows she’s available for immediate consumption. It’s true that there are now more women who are active in images rather than always passive, and that’s a good thing, but it’s still not happening enough.

I would also say that it is not the purpose of an individual photograph in Femmes of Power to challenge dominant images of femininity but one has to look at the book as a whole. One has to look at the collaborative process with the subjects, Ulrika (my collaborator)  and  the designer, Elina.

The process of creation of the images challenges conventional and sexist notions of what it means to be femme-ninist and queer. I’m a big fan of the back story and process is key in feminist pedagogy.

Symbolically and literally the images take up a lot of space. Filling public space with femme magnificence, be that making a trans-femme-nist political intervention in the corridors of a Swedish hospital  with Andy Candy or on a pool table in Decatur, Alabama with the Femme Mafia is not something nice girls were taught to do!

What’s next for you?
I’m in the research and development phase of a project that is about home, belonging, gender, immigration, identity and creating community across cultures. Can’t say more than that right now though! Stay tuned!

Links

Del LaGrace Volcano main website
Del LaGrace Volcano MySpace
Del LaGrace Volcano Facebook
Femmes of Power MySpace
Femmes of Power Facebook Group
Femmes of Power at Serpents Tail
Femmes of Power at Amazon

Killer of Sheep is one of the best films I have seen. I laughed, I cried, I was fed beautiful images.

The story is based on the lives of Black people who live in a lower middle class neighborhood, Watts in Los Angeles in the 1970’s. The central character works in a slaughterhouse - killing sheep.

if you are looking for a shoot em up gangster stylee ghetto film forget it. This film is heavily influenced by French New wave filmmakers. It is based more on the emotions generated, and amazing visuals. What you get is the community spirit of ordinary Black folks, the way children play and how someone can keep a relationship and raise a family when earning a pittance at a miserable job. He does not revert to crime to subsidise his income even when invited to do so by friends.

What I loved about this film is that it did not problematise poor black people. They were not dysfunctional and criminal. The pace of the film was languid giving one time to get into the mood of the neighborhood and the relationship between the people.
it was shot for only $10,000 and is even more remarkable for that.

It deserves it’s place as a National Treasure in the Library of Congress