The Neutral Body: Work In Progress
Solo Performance
Interdisciplinary live art piece combining visual art with body art, performed in the James Arnott Theatre, at Gilmorehill Centre 2022. Photography: Samantha Toyer, Abbie McLaren & Yuan Zhou Wang, Programme design: Thomas Imset Thorsen
‘Was there something about me that you could look at and see the truth? Was there something about my body that outed me, was it the way I walked, or talked to stood or laughed? Can you see my queerness in the curve of my spine? And if so, how do I learn to hide that, to conceal, to make safe?
Now I know, logically and practically, that they were just being shitty kids and didn’t have some kind of queer detecting x-ray vision, but reality has never been a factor in my anxiety spirals.’
Actors and performers are regularly told to make their bodies neutral, when rehearsing and performing. It is a term that is bandied about in theatre frequently but thoughtlessly. I do not believe you can make a body neutral, as there are always interpretations that will be made about a body by an audience and society, that are beyond your control.
I am going to build a statue of my body. It’s going to be imperfect, I’m going to make a mess, and I may even fail. As I do so, I am going to share autobiographical stories, and provide my counter argument to the idea of the Neutral Body.
Witness the muddled the construction of (our) identities, though an experiment in embodying the disembodied, an attempt at unmaking and making; just watch out for the splash zone from the stage.
Performed as part of [insert title here] at The University of Glasgow as a Practice As Research Project.
Programme design: Thomas Imset Thorsen
I would like to thaank my mentor Ashanti Harris, my supervisor Jenny Knotts and Tony Sweeten for technical support as Venue Manager.
Photography: Samantha Toyer
Photography: Yuan Zhou Wang
Photography: Abbie McLaren