This is one of a series of writings that reflect on my journey toward re-making a performance art work called ‘The Butter Piece’. I first made it in 2011 and I’m revisiting it now a decade later.
‘The Butter Piece’ will be shown live at CLAY, Leeds on the 26th November and Colchester Arts Centre on the 1st December. More details here http://www.victoriafirth.co.uk/the-butter-piece-2021/
8th November 2021
I’m getting ready
I’m getting ready to show my body to an audience
– and in this case naked.
In the same way I might prepare a costume, or set, lighting, other things the audience might see
I am preparing myself. I am preparing my body.
I want to say ‘This is not about bettering my body’ – but that position isn’t cut and dried.
In creating a physical performance I do need to be stronger, I will want to access the full range of my physical expression. I definitely think about the aesthetic of the figurative form, how I am using my instrument.
It is possible that being more active might change my shape.
I might lose weight.
But, I have to check this rationale isn’t being ridden by a desire to be more attractive in a socially prescribed way. To check that my preparation isn’t masking a desperate dieting, gyming, tumbling race to the finish line of the show – where I am thinner and beautifuller and all my ex-girlfriends and artistic rivals kick themselves.
My way through is to think about being embodied. Grounded – where the ground is an internal surface. A place where I fill my skin, I am the right size, I can stand up inside myself with all my physical and emotional material.
And so I am training.
I’m training by spending quality time with myself
– sometimes exercising, sometimes not.
I’m looking at pictures of myself
I’m moving around
I’m being tactile when I can and noticing space when I can’t.
I’m eating
I’m noticing what pleases my skin
I’m attentive to tiredness, tenderness
I’m taking up space.
I’m noticing when I feel uncomfortable and not making it comfortable
I’m noticing when I feel groovy and not pissing on my own cornflakes.
I’m not hiding.
To be intimate with a lover, a friend, an audience
– you first have to be intimate with yourself
And intimacy is about honesty, clarity, vulnerability.
So that’s what I’m really training.
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