ShameNoShame: special edition!

Harvey have an "added scene" in tomorrow's show.  It is going to be quite unique, not in the sense of never-been-done-before, but in the sense of the impossibility of reiterating the scene again.  I don't know why I wouldn't tell you what is going to happen.  I kinda want to.  After all, I suppose that most of the people reading this blog (thank you so much!) are not going to be at the event, so why not break the silence now?

I am going to have my head shaved.  Not all of it, actually, because I do want to give my new dreadlocks a chance.  But I'm gonna loose a lot of hair, and its going to happen on stage.

Let me just say, first, that I am grateful for Harvey in my life.  Our relationship has been filled with a good amount of tensions and feelings recently, which makes sense if you take into account everything we are each individually dealing with.  She's a strong woman who's undertaking a great adventure: She's in the process of getting herself an artist visa, here, in Germany!  Such a goal is no easy process to achieve; I am so well able to understand her situation!  I have been there myself: Immigration kinda sucks!

I, for my part, am in the middle of my saturn return and in between two homes, hanging loosely in the middle of a gentle storm.  Thus I am also in a big transition.  It's not hard to understand how our professional relationship might be under a bit of stress.  In the work that we do together as clowns, we need to be able to trust each other deeply.  And with all the feelings involved on each side, sometimes the tension builds a little bit.

I actually appreciate the fact that my work involves feelings.  I have never been one to labor for a cause I do not support, and I come to realize that my main criteria has been "humanity", and just as being a nanny might not be a "real job", it meant the world to me because it was about love, and relationship, and deeply connecting with (an)other human beings.

But I digress. (What's new?!)

I was saying that I am about to have Harvey shave my head as part of our performance, on the night of my twenty-ninth birthday.

I was saying that I love Harvey, because I have found in her someone who's been mirroring a lot of great parts of myself… being a freak, being an artist, being queer and crazy, and being willing and able to work very hard and seriously to make the dream come true.  We have met and we have played and built this act together, and we have crossed the Atlantic ocean (acknowledged by both of us, however, was the fact that we were to be on our individual journey).

I love how we can communicate through all the steps we take together.  We go through life, and through art, needing each other for this act meanwhile each one committed to our own path.

I call that polyamory.

But I disgress again.

I have been thinking about shaving my head for some time.  In fact, I find hair to be something very... significative... and symbolic.  Hair is identity.  Sometimes it's individuality, or subculture, or nationality, often it's religious.  Throughout the ages, people have considered their hair to hold such symbolic value.  (Examples  here.)

So I've been thinking about this "urban pilgrimage" I am on.  As a clown, as a woman, as a citizen of the world… I am thinking about my role in society, and my place also.  I have been re-membered how much I love writing.  I have made a practice of it.

I have found it hard to "be a clown".  It's not that I don't think I'm a clown.  That is something so deeply philosophical and metaphysical in me; I do not doubt the overarching presence of the clown/trickster in my life.  

I'm just not sure what form it takes!

Thus the hair ritual, I guess.  That's what having [almost] all my hair shaved represents.  To me.

I have had other such rituals before.  First when I got my dreadlocks done at the Anarchist Conference, Vermont.  Later when I got them cut off.  That time, my friend Natalie had offered to make it an explicit ritual (!).  She had lit a candle, and we had talked about what it meant to cut my rastas… Since then, I have done a few more "conscious haircuts"- which basically means using the opportunity to speak about the change happening at the greater level in one's life, and then setting some intentions.

I just love the principle!

Now this time, I am doing it on stage.  I don't really know what that means, but I like the idea.  It's not something I was attached to - I would probably have shaven my head anyway… or would I have?  But I like the idea of a ritual performance.  I hope people like it.  Of course, it will be up to Harvey to read the audience and go as long with it as keeps them involved.  We'll see what happens!  But I know, that the way it is incorporated in the show,  (and for those who have seen it and know our characters, you can picture this better, should create a nice effect!

I also like the fact that it perfectly matches the unfolding of our show.  My hair is my power.  When she cuts my hair, she gets a piece of it for herself.  In the end, her character still has her resolution, and I, have been her sounding board for the journey.

I love it.