Still, where the libidinal meets the intellectual, that's where I strive. That's what I'm doing right now. Writing, analyzing, the phenomenon of "HE: a genderstranged clown duo"... What does it mean!?
It means that I would never have thought I'd be wearing fish nets and pink high heels. I never imagined I'd be wearing a lipstick the color of which is "geisha's kiss". As much as I have grown exponentially since delving into this new character, Magda, and as much as I sometimes wonder if I'm not just playing a secret part of myself (duh!), she is still very much a character. Well, maybe, an alter ego. It's all so fascinating.
This clown character is an exploration of power. And since my body and image is of the feminine, it also has to be part of it. (The truth shall set us free.)
There are different aspects to Magda's power. She has that authoritarian edge, for one thing. This is something I'm not done processing. But there's also the sexy part...
Magda is "sexy", because she is sexual and civilized at the same time. She gets off when she likes something. She feels ecstatic passion for small things she finds. The world is erotic, all around.
Yesterday Harvey and I did a shoot in Golden Gate Park, with a friend photographer. (Harvey had found this spot on a walk a couple of weeks ago: an equestrian range, a sandy, circular, fenced up course, somewhere hidden around 40th Avenue.) We did ourselves up, put our full costumes on, and played in the sunlight for about an hour while Liz took photos.
Being in character in the middle of nature was a new experience. I found it absolutely surreal and fabulous, as well as liberating. Magda got to climb and balance on fences, she got to point to a bunch of nails planted in a majestuous eucalyptus tree (culture meets/wounds nature). She got so turned on being outside, she wanted to be real wild. Of course, she wore high heels that sank in the sand at every step, and there were moments when all this dirt and these obstacles actually suddenly annoyed and disgusted her. She wanted to keep her status and her looks!!
What a complex deal...
I do feel that I am still figuring things out... but that's a good sign.
I've wanted to write this blog about burlesque for the past couple of weeks, ever since I randomly found a book entitled "Actresses and Whores" at the Main Public Library. Of course, it's certainly (is that redundant?) that same place, inside of me that is, which allured me to this book "Actresses and Whores", and who's at the core of Magda's emergence.
I'm integrating my feminine power, my own way.
It's true I've never really imagined myself in a corset before. But I have been pondering the darker aspects of the feminine for some time. It's in my name after all. Or rather, in my counterpart's name: Lilith.
P.S. I feel that I have so much more to explore in relationship to this "burlesque" thing. Part of me is revolted, to see such a display. I mean, these women are pretty much completely naked on stage! It blows my mind. How much power lies in that decision to wear one's denuded body and entertain others? (Though I should reassert that the term "entertain" is already in itself a concept I am ambivalent about.)
I don't know that I would go that far myself. But then again. If I'm gonna embody and parody my power, and if I am to identify as a woman (with a mustache), then I must acknowledge that [in regard to the masculine, as well as fundamentally] there is such a magical power in a woman's body. Therefore I must be honnest with my audience and play it. There is power in having a feminine image. ( I could get all deep psychology on you now.. but that too will have to be for another day!) There is power in sexuality.
I'm just a clown.
"Like the first generation of English actresses, the first generation of female burlesque performers" (1868, see Lydia Thompson and The British Blondes) "instigated public debate over the proper display of female sexuality and forever changed the face of [US-American] theater." p.93
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