Untitled Solo Series
The Untitled Solo Series is a trilogy of performances created between 2011-2017. In distinct ways, each one relates to themes of white womanhood, sexuality, masking, transformation, and transfiguration.
Untitled Solo 1 (Chair)
Object or subject of desire? Empowered provocateur enjoying her sexuality or repressed young woman performing for the enjoyment of others? Or none, or all, of the above? Inspired by choreographer Martha Clarke, composer Erik Satie, visual artist Man Ray, and fiction writer Mikhail Bulgakov, this three-section solo tells the story of one woman’s exploration of her sensuality - from the pleasures of objectification and voyeurism to the pains of hauntingly repressed impulses and internalized misogyny and shame. Untitled Solo 1 (Chair) premiered in 2011 at Raleigh Ensemble Players Theatre as part of the Dance Spark Festival.
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Untitled Solo 2 (Bathtub)
Originally created for Dia de los Muertos, this piece is a journey through the birth, life, and death of a creature that exists every day except one in the darkness underneath the surface of the earth. On this day, she births herself to grow, celebrate, and wonder at the light. Music brings her to life, and when the silence settles so does she, for another year of darkness under the earth, a return to death. Untitled Solo 2 (Bathtub) premiered in 2013 at Casbah in Durham, NC, and was performed again in 2015 at Ponderosa in Stolzenhagen, Germany.
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all photos of Untitled Solo 2 (Bathtub) by Tom O’Doherty
Untitled Solo 3 (Beets)
Standing alone against long green grass and a blue sky, a naked woman wears a mask to hide her face. As she morphs from light-skinned to blood-red, she gestures as if the process causes her anguish; however, the mask hides any revelation of her expression, thereby confronting the viewer with the challenge of knowing for sure how the process effects her. A quality of eeriness and beauty, punctuated by the haunting soundscore, permeates the film and transfers this experience onto the viewer. Questions of otherness, racial masking, alienation, and ritual arise over the short duration of the film. Untitled Solo 1 was created as a part of the piece IMAGO.
Untitled Solo 3 (Beets) premiered in 2017 as part of FAKE Fest at the Atelierhaus Australische Botschaft in Berlin, DE, and was subsequently shown in 2018 as part of the VIDEOSKiN Festival in Yukon, CA.
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