Connection and Consent: A Gallery Exhibition and Performance

September 29, 2018 by

Photo by Juan Carlos Ruiz Vargas of my performance, “Listen, No Speaking, Touch”, as Medusa at Pulqueria los Insurgentes, Cuidad de México, September 6, 2018. This performance was part of The Scarlet Tongue Project/El Proyecto de la Lengua Escarlata.

I have been asked by one of my favorite artists to install a piece of art and to perform during the opening event of a gallery show running the month of November and into December. Please come by, there are some really fabulous artists on the bill and it would be great to catch you at the opening on November 15th:

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Ourselves
An exhibition of transgender and non-binary artists making work about the trans experience

Exhibition: November 5- December 6
Reception: November 15, 5-9pm
University of Rhode Island, Providence
80 Washington St, Providence, RI 02903

Curated by Caleb Cole Artists:
Chai Anstett, Sam Bodian, Ria Brodell, Eli Brown, Caleb Cole, Leah Corbett, Arlo Crateau, Catherine Graffam, Jamezie Helenski, Rob Lorino, Cobi Moules, Lenny Schnier, Austen Shumway, J. Turk, Creature Karin Webb

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The installation and performance I’m bringing to this show is an iteration of the work I started this month in Mexico. I’m excited to bring my work to a third type of venue — from club space, to black box theater, to art gallery!

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“Listen. No Speaking. Touch.”
by Creature Karin Webb

Installation: A small nook area is set up/created with red fabric walls, it is warmly and dimly lit (as possible). Inside the nook there are 2 chairs and a small side table set with roses, a basin of water, with a stack of washcloths nearby. Scattered around the table, chairs, and floor are rose petals. Each petal is marked with a fingerprint of blood from the artist. There is a small swatch of red fabric with thread revealing a number of stitches already stitched in, the needle still attached, is prepared for more. The shape taking form on the fabric is the figure of a person. On the floor, a chalk circle surrounds the space (alternatively this can be taped or painted — whatever works best with the venue’s floor and traffic patterns).

Performance: The artist is dressed in comfortable, casual, sensual clothing. Outside of the circle on the floor, presented toward the audience, the artist places three signs: “Listen”, “No Speaking”, and “Touch”. The artist takes their place within the installation on one of the chairs. There are a few iterations of this performance which include different “offerings”. I am proposing “Washing” for this venue. The water basin and stack of wash cloths are used. Participants who wish to interact with the artist are welcomed non-verbally into the circle to sit in a chair. The entire one-on-one performance within the circle is non-verbally conducted. There is no expectation of what will happen or not happen. The offering to wash or be washed is physically present, though it is the connection between the two participants which is impetus for all action which occurs. This is a study in non-verbal communication, connection, desire, and consent. Performances with each participant vary in length. Each connection the artist makes over the course of the performance while in character (participants, audience members, etc.) is marked as one added stitch to the piece of red cloth. Eventually the form stitched will be stuffed with petals saved from each performance, and as the work continues, stitches of beading will be added until the object is complete.

Statement: I’ve been meditating on this piece of art and performance for a few years, and I began it’s practice in la Cuidad de México on September 6th, 2018. So far I’ve performed and installed this project in two different venues: the Mexican nightclub, “Pulqueria los Insurgentes”, and in a Mexican theater space, “La NaBe foro”. Both of these performances were created in collaboration with artists during an artist retreat as part of The Scarlet Tongue Project. Installation and performance at the University of Rhode Island will be my third venue. I plan to bring this piece to many venues of varying type and size throughout the next few years. Please write me if you have interest in booking this performance, other of my work, or to bring me to your venue as a speaker or educator: Contact

“Listen. No Speaking. Touch.” is a meditation on the artist I’ve become, the human I am presently, and the rules I’ve needed to break or ask permission to explore along the way. Its performance is an invitation for viewers and participants to grow with me, to experience communication non-verbally, to offer, accept, to hold boundaries, and ultimately to risk being present with another human intimately. “Listen. No Speaking. Touch.” elicits recollections of the ways I (and many people) have been marked, whether by society, socialization, or specific people, throughout our histories in ways which disrupt our naïveté and the fairy tale of what connection, love, sex, romance, and friendship are “supposed to” look like. We struggle, in this society, to find our way within a culture which promises personal rights and opportunities, yet enforces repression of individual expressions of identity through violence, non-consensual acts, systematic poverty, refusal to acknowledge the needs of minorities, through institutionalized bigotry, and largely through fear. We are beautiful as we are, marked though we may be. With “Listen. No Speaking. Touch.”, I want to create space for individuals to connect with me, the queer artist, in basic ways which allow curiosity a chance—by way of simple actions and silence we might discover co-creation. “Listen. No Speaking. Touch.” also invites one to explore thoughts and feelings around current discussions of the #MeToo movement. As we practice and/or witness non-verbal negotiation one becomes more attuned to the subtleties of a language which is physical and energetic, and must begin to take responsibility for the ways we are able to “Listen”, to understand the desires and boundaries of the people around us. We are complicit, we are aware, and we must take responsibility for the moments we create with one another, positive, negative, neutral, and complicated.

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Many of the artistic opportunities I engage in, and frequently the ones I believe in the most and want to continue to cultivate, are unpaid events. The work I create that is paid usually doesn’t break even and rarely profits for the materials invested and travel expenditures acquired. I don’t have the luxury to consider time and labor costs for my endeavors: rehearsals, tech time, actual time spent developing, creating, and performing, or installing a piece. I have been a professional storyteller since age 11 and have a degree, a certificate, and an entire year of Master’s work under my belt invested in my performance career, as well as decades of touring, producing, artistic direction, directorship, teaching, and troupe management under my belt. To date I’ve performed in almost all of the States, in four countries, and on two continents.

The reason I do what I do is because I believe in humanity and I believe in the power of an engaged community. I believe culture moves toward meaningful progress and improves conditions for under-privileged people because individuals “do” something to push these important conversations forward. My writing of this blog, the performances I bring to stage, the visual art I create, and the subjects and ways I educate are all part of how I, as an individual and an artist, bring my personal resources to the table to try and effect change. I made a choice early on in my career to work for my own creative brain and to develop a performance/artistic aesthetic and mission of my own, and to speak with my own voice to the audiences I find. Rather than audition for the theater community at large, I believe that as a queer person, as a woman, and a person who comes from and lives in poverty, that my voice is needed in contrast to the straight, white, cis, ableist, middle-to-upper class, patriarchal environment we are governed by and exist within.

If you admire or are inspired by any of the ways that I produce as an artist or educator I ask you to become a patron of mine and contribute to my Patreon campaign. My patrons are the only steady (ish) source of income I have, and they are the reason I’m able to invest in my art further and further as time moves on. I currently make about $450 a month. This is the base pay I live off of, supplemented by whatever other gigs I am able to book, and some months there are very few or none. I would like this base of patronage to grow so I can spend more of my time creating my art, producing, teaching, and performing, and less of my time trying to book paying gigs outside of my primary focus. I publish paid content through my Patreon page six times a month. It’s possible for you to pledge at whatever level you wish and to cap the amount that you pay if you desire to. Any amount helps. Please donate, and please share. Thank you.

Play On My Friends,
~ Creature

Support my writing on Patreon. For one time Donations: Support the Artist or email.
This writing takes time, research, and consideration. It is my art. Thank you.

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Haunted by Medusa

September 20, 2018 by

“Medusa Casting Mischiefs”. Drawn by Creature Karin Webb

The following scripted performance was written collaboratively by Samantha Bryan and Creature Karin Webb. Is is meant to bring the story of Medusa into the light contemporarily. We both feel connected to her story, and it was important to us to create art in tribute of her, especially concerning today’s conversations referencing #MeToo.

About Medusa: Medusa was, in her early years, a ravishingly beautiful Temple Priestess for the goddess Athena. Medusa (there are varied interpretations about the level of consent involved) was raped by Poseidon, and so banished by Athena from service. Athena also punished Medusa by making her ugly, turning her hair into snakes, and cursing her so that anyone who looked upon her face would turn to stone. Time passed for Medusa in this form. Eventually Perseus came along. He beheaded Medusa, taking her head with him to use as a weapon. When he finished with this use of her head, he eventually gave it to Athena so that she could mount the head upon her shield. When Perseus beheads Medusa, from her neck is birthed the winged Pegasus and Chrysaor, a giant.

Our performance was a meditation on a combination of factors from Medusa’s story and from our own experiences. It was as much about how one’s reputation (fairly or not fairly evolved) pervasively informs how society treats one. It’s also about the way we evolve as individuals because of the things which have been done to us. Though Medusa dies she is not forgotten, her story lives on in many millions of women and other people marked by sexual violence, self-freed sexualities, and those who wrestle with the brutality of shame. This performance points to our innate connection with one another, and our potential to treat each other with regard or without. It asks how we might come to one another’s aid, empathize with each other, and care for those who are marked as “fallen”. Samantha and my performance pays respect to Medusa’s spirit, one which invoked much inspiration during our time at this past month’s artist retreat for The Scarlet Tongue Project.

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Haunted by Medusa
By Creature Karin Webb and Samantha Bryan

Written for performance in la Ciudad de México, as part of The Scarlet Tongue Project/La Lengua Roja
Performed September, 6, 2018 at Pulqueria los Insurgentes

Medusa (played by Creature Karin Webb) takes her place on a ledge above the crowd and haunts the performance space this night. Like a gargoyle she inhabits her corner of the club. Connecting with audience members silently, she encourages individuals to draw close, taking a moment with each one who dares come forward. She is a ghost of her former self, temple Priestess to Athena. Medusa now haunts this room, connecting with whomever is capable of looking back and offering themselves vulnerably to her. Dark, older, unclean, she has bright eyes and offers her gaze for reflection back to the audience members willing to approach. Each connection is a world unto itself.

A bowl filled with rose petals, each marked with the artist’s blood is by her side. They are gifts, playthings, to smell, and used as offering. Medusa, deflowered long ago, was cast from society. Today from her perch she watches, casting mischiefs to the crowd below. Rose petals rain from above during this connection, or forehead to forehead she offers her silent touch during that one…

At last an actor approaches, and Medusa hands this player a piece of chalk. The performer draws a circle in the center of the room. A third performer, the Scarlet Woman (played by Samantha Bryan), enters and dances her story within the circle. At the end of her dance, she removes her large wig and veil, gestures towards where Medusa watches, and she sets it on the floor. The Scarlet Woman, as in Death, lays down to final rest.

Medusa approaches the circle to care for this woman’s body. She brings a wash basin of warm water, a cloth, and sheet with her into the circle. Medusa respectfully removes the Scarlet Woman’s clothes and washes her, preparing her body for the earth, and covering the body with the sheet last. Medusa sits a moment in witness over the covered body, and then proceeds to walk to the edge of the circle. Medusa slowly follows its path. As she walks her body becomes older and more bent over. Slower, ever closer to the ground, she continues on, crawling the last segment of the circle until she is left crumpled and unmoving on the floor. As Medusa makes this final walk, losing her power, the woman’s body animates from underneath the cloth, beginning to rise. As Medusa becomes motionless, the woman has lifted herself to sitting, sheet cascading away from her body. She is alive.

Like sand, a stream of salt is poured from directly above Medusa’s body onto her motionless form. The sheet, fallen from the Scarlet Woman’s face, allows her to witnesses this end. The Scarlet Woman stands, gathering her things. She leaves the circle, freed.

FIN

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I’d love to hear your thoughts and questions. We hope to perform this, and other pieces we’ve created as part of The Scarlet Tongue Project, at venues everywhere. Please let me know if you’re interested in bringing performances, lectures, workshops, and/or Documentary footage from The Scarlet Tongue Project to a venue near you. Our performance is easily adaptable to any space, and we’re happy to book at colleges, theaters, meeting halls, galleries, abandoned factories, art houses, private homes, or any other venue which has interest in sharing the project with an audience. Help us bring further discussion of women, anger, and art to your community.

Play On My Friends,
~ Creature

Support my writing on Patreon. For one time Donations: Support the Artist or email.
This writing takes time, research, and consideration. It is my art. Thank you.

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The Spell of a New Experience

September 8, 2018 by

“Medusa” played by Creature Karin Webb at Pulqueria Los Insurgentes en Cuidad de México as a part of The Scarlet Tongue Project. Photo by Juan Carlos Ruiz Vargas

If I knew everything I wouldn’t need to be alive. The act of discovery is seductive — new relationship energy, romance with the unknown, seeing a part of yourself through someone else’s eyes… Thursday evening I performed as Medusa en Ciudad de México for “The Scarlet Tongue Project“, and it was everything. The room was small, and each performer stirred the cauldron we were in. Our audience was not there just to watch, they lived with us, breathed with us, shared our emotions, stories, expressions, and creations. The audience felt powerful to me, very alive. I am new here, late to the game of meeting the heart that beats in this country. I’m grateful at 40 years old to be walking new paths and still falling in love.

For a while now I have been working my way into a performance which directly challenges the audience member to participate and co-create a thing that is vulnerable, honest, and new. While I regularly interact with my audience and (usually non-verbally) instruct them how to connect with me during performance, Medusa was my first time without an action-centered script, inviting a room of people into my space to co-create and play. It went incredibly well. I felt as though I was in a temple being visited by believers. Our interactions held joy, fear, tears, laughter, tenderness, love, playfulness, intoxication, timidity, release…

“Listen, No Speaking, Touch”. This is the name of the performance I will create this coming Thursday at a different venue en Ciudad de México, a theater this time rather than a club. Last week’s “Medusa” was a workshop of the concept. Will it hold up the same when I’m not putting on a specific character, or within a theatrical space rather than a club situation? I don’t know. I’m looking forward to finding out.

This performance is about interpersonal communication and what it looks like and feels like to non-verbally engage one another, navigating through layers of intimacy and consent. Is it possible to feel one another and have an experience both outside of your complete control and also — positive and negative alike — accept and learn from the experience you have? In today’s world I feel we’re losing our connection to one another on emotional and physical planes, yet the physical and emotional parts of us are huge factors within our humanity and experience as living animals. I hope to do a series of these performances over time and explore the impact different venues, situations, and energies have on this form of communication. I feel lucky to be starting my journey here in Mexico.

I would not have been able to acheive this level of articulation within my performance art without working, as I have been for a while now, within BDSM communities and as a sex worker. As a professional Dominant my ability to understand and hold my own boundaries (and therefore recognize other people’s boundaries) has been tried, become clearer and explored more and more thoroughly, and grown sturdier over time. As a BDSM practitioner — top and bottom, Dominant and submissive — I have practiced my ability to read non-verbal body language when it comes to physical and emotional interactions, and energy exchange. As a lifelong character actor and observer of motivation I am much more comfortable with a wide range of reactions coming from different people as reaction to stimulus. This is work I love to do. This is work I want to build on and create a career from.

This work is optimistic. Like Medusa I was punished after my first negative sexual experience. This work is about remaining faithful in humanity. Medusa sprouted pegasus wings after her beheading, and there is something in this artistic meditation about growing into adulthood and navigating the subjects which have negatively been wired in my brain and body since too young an age, on my own terms. It’s time to change the story, allow myself to be affected by others, positive and negative, and take wing.

A gift from an audience member, addressed to my character, Medusa.

Without faith in humanity, how do I remain a believer in peace? Without drawing out and exploring the good in individuals how do I maintain my own faith that connection is our salvation and the opposite of war is not peace, but creation, love, conversation, complexity, and growth? My art is directly connected to my internal anger at being sexually victimized and forced, at various times in my life, to choose between my own physical/emotional/psychological sanctity and connection, curiosity, or pleasure. It is antidote to rape culture and the damaging societal belief that we must play roles with one another, rather than vulnerably come together to find what we have to share which could make each of us feel more whole.

Art is the spell of new experience — comfortable and uncomfortable. We pleasure, revel, need, seek out, and find solace in its forms because life is not so finite, so programmable, so by the rules, so safe, or so black and white.

Play On My Friends,
~ Creature

Support my writing on Patreon. For one time Donations: Support the Artist or email.
~This blog takes time, research, and consideration. It is also my art. Thank you.

Filed Under: Perspectives on Kink Blog Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , ,
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