place the audience in the uncomfortable position of laughing and partying alongside people who are suddenly capable of participating in inane or downright terrifying acts of chauvinism. Theirs is a system of exploitation and objectification, though perhaps the ultimate exploitive act of the evening is its very encapsulation as an art project. I find this levelling of the playing field, alongside its blatant fetishistic undertones, all create rather intriguing extra-textual tensions.
While conceiving the piece, I was fascinated both by the fetishiziation of frat culture in gay pornography and the inherent dichotomy between homophobia and homoeroticism in the subculture. Furthermore, I was drawn to how the subculture existed as a Petri-dish of contemporary masculine identity (particularly collective masculinity) and its inevitably self-cannibalizing outcome. I was also struck by how the women affiliated with this subculture were seemingly so willing to objectify themselves in the face of this force.
Linked to these uncomfortable moral dilemmas is piece’s ‘aestheticization’. When asking a frat boy what constituted an effective keg stand, I was struck by how much his answer resembled a response Marina Abromovich gave four years ago at the Venice Biennale when asked: ‘what constitutes an effective performance’? The frat boy explained, in admittedly less articulate means, that he approached each ‘stunt’ as an unrehearsed personal act of endurance and repetition that required the transcendence of pain. For me, this immediately conjured the language of body and harm-based performance practise of artists such as Abromovich, Burden, Acconci,,and Nauman, in which the body is pushed past entropy to apotheosis. Broadening aesthetic comparisons, the startling use of household materials (Vaseline, condoms, baby powder) in fraternity stunts and hazing suddenly resembled the high-art petroleum jelly landslides of Matthew Barney or the post-modern explosions of John Bock and Ryan Trecartin. Well what better fit for Nuit Blanche?! We attempted to craft scenarios in which, during the middle of the unrehearsed ruckus, an iconic element from the performance art cannon would appear (i.e. during a nauseating eating competition, a boy’s face is suddenly covered in honey and gold leaf to resemble Joseph Beuys).
This piece could never have existed in another space quite like it did at the Theatre Centre. It’s Nuit Blanche incarnation was the ultimate culmination of the ‘frat party-as-performance’ vision we explored in workshop through Harbourfront Centre’s HATCH: emerging performance projects. Through the development process we discovered the work required total audience immersion/disorientation, the artistic apparatus of a social intervention, a steady supply of booze, moments of one-on-one intimacy and confession, and then the space/time/creative framework to allow for the eruption of action so horrifying it might actually provoke audience intercession. I think, for the most part, we were successful in these aims. I would have liked an all-night rager, though I suppose it’s just a fact of nature that frat boys scram after last call. Luckily this Ragnarok, a night of battle, ritual, and chaos, didn’t tear the theatre asunder like the firmament of the universe. Though it came pretty damn close.
Posted: October 23rd, 2009 under Uncategorized.
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