My Horn is a Chalice

The Unicorns follow The Chalice to their destination; a procession throughout this building soon to lose its current purpose.  The spectacle could be experienced almost as though it were an apparition. The characters seem to sense one another.  They have a need to come together in this way: a communion of sorts.

Performed at Central Saint Martins School of Art, Charing Cross Road, 2011. Concept, costumes and music by Eleanor Clare. Unicorns: Hannah Byrne & Hollie Stewart.  Choreographed by Dagmara Bilon. Sound engineered by Andrew Dickens.  Final track in collaboration with Ben Trinkle.  Photographs by Ben Turner. Video excerpt filmed and edited by Mariana Rocha.

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Cod Piece: A Split Tale

She rises up from the ocean; she floats upon the dark waters of the lake at the bottom of the mountain; she appears at the cliff’s edge.

In Hans Christian Andersen’s tale, the Little Mermaid beautifully and evanescently evaporates into glistening foam in the ocean as she dies, or to describe death in the euphemistic terms of the plot, ‘expires.’  Unlike The Little Mermaid, who evades aging when she sacrifices herself for her prince, the figure in Cod Piece: A Split Tale wears signs of decay on her face.  The huge lips could be the product of a cosmetic procedure, perhaps to reverse the visible signs of aging, or they could communicate a desire to be sexually attractive: the sign of an insatiable and dangerous appetite. 

Instead of a sinuous fish’s tale, a cod’s head pokes out from between the legs of the siren/mermaid. In fact it is merely apparel, as are the blonde wig and the huge lips - but as an apparition of fantasy, the character is hybrid and ambiguous.  The siren and the mermaid embody in their upper half seemingly benevolent beauty, yet the lower half of their body may represent chthonian nature: the mysterious power of its inescapable and seductive pull.  In the myth of the Vagina Dentata, a meat eating fish inhabits the vagina of the Great Mother.  The hero breaks the teeth out of her vagina, so making her into a real woman.  The violence of this scene is not only physical, but also metaphorical.  The desires of the Great Mother are silenced through the breaking of the teeth.  It could also be surmised that the Great Mother, whose vagina is ‘inhabited’ by the fish, feels herself to be complete, and that this renders the purpose of a ‘real man’ (opposed to a ‘real woman’) redundant. 

DVD projection; 2.04 mins.

Written performed, & edited by Eleanor Clare; music in collaboration with Fyn Wyr; filmed by Kam Wan

Fabulous and Monstrous

Inside the walls of the Isola di San Servolo lies the white facade of the Benedictine Monastery, which later became a sanatorium for the mentally ill until the 1970’s.  Night falls late in June, and the air is warm and balmy.  I am approaching the monastery wall against which I will stand.  The white turban and the full length robe seem to have a quasi-religious air in this setting.  The large full moon is rising in the sky, and I am glad to see this.  It gives me comfort.  The timing is perfect, and the real moon will be mirrored in the one that rises in the film projected across the white stone wall, across my white robes.  As the projections begin, I stand with my back close to the cold wall; I sink into their darkness, the whiteness of the robe absorbing the images.  I let the projection, drawn from my imagination, take over.  I feel as though visually my body recedes, perhaps just snatches of mouth and eyes, as my voice penetrates the still atmosphere.  This will turn around.

Fabulous and Monstrous was performed as part of the Exhibit Festival, Isola di San Servolo, Venice , 24th June 2009. It was performed in 2010 at the Bristol Old Vic as part of Mayfest on the 16th May 2010.

I Lost It in My Own Reflection

Under the spotlight I can feel the transformation, it always occurs.  I know it.  Eyes shine a little bit brighter, cheekbones are a little more chiselled.  It reveals as much in the glare as it conceals in the shadows.  There is a way to make this work even better; glossy highlighter upon the cheeks, eyeliner and false lashes to accentuate the eyes, colour on the lips.  It can be thickly applied – the thicker the better, for the light will strip away the detail.  This applies to the costume too.  It is crudely made: designed simply to pull in and pad out, and of course to dazzle. 

It is difficult to see the audience clearly from the stage, with the lights in your eyes.  The audience knows this; they can look upon the performer without reciprication.  It is a comfortable situation for all.  How would it feel to turn the lights up?  How would it feel to undo all the magic (and perhaps one might say trickery) that had just occured under the spotlight?  I wanted to return the gaze of each and every member of the audience; I wanted to ‘strip away’ and become sincere; I wanted to expose the vanity; I wanted to explore the need.

Lyrics and composition by Eleanor Clare. 'I Lost It in My Own Reflection' & 'In Avatar' in collaboration with H. Hammond & Wayne Powell.

Performed in 2008 at the Arnolfini, Bristol, U.K. and as part of NWEAMO at SDSU Concert Hall, San Diego & the Harold Golen gallery, Miami, U.S.A.

A Portrait of the Artist as a Golden Fountain

I had been feeling angry for some time.  Perhaps it was unfounded.  I was disillusioned by what seemed to be a feeling of embarrassment that surrounded the word: feminism, and all it encompassed in art, literature and theory.  I was angry that there was still disapproval of women who were successful, confident, or showed their bodies.  On more than one occasion that year I had been annoyed by hearing the phrase ‘she’s only successful because of her body; because she showed her tits, because she showed her ass.’  So, studying on my BA as I was at the time, I wondered if I would get a 1st if I got my tits out. 

Bruce Nauman: I’ve seen him paint his bare flesh in black and gold with his fingers, and I’ve seen the trajectory of water arcing upwardly out of his mouth in A Portrait of the Artist as a Fountain.  I’ve read A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, and I’ve thought about how the language Joyce uses seems intrinsically linked to his relationship with his mother and other women.  How is it for a man?  And then the Italian sculptors Donatello and Michelangelo still seduce me with their serpentine male – David.  It is something to be revered, and another to be degraded.  It may be possible to be degraded in the process of becoming revered, and to be revered through degradation.

The performance took place on the opening night of the exhibition 'Fallout: the process of curating a post-exhibition space' at Centrespace Gallery, Bristol, 2003. The film was subsequently projected above the plinth in the spot where the performance had taken place.