Sunday, March 7, 2010




The Golden People:
A game for at least 4 persons

At first. I chose playmates (actors) based on hair length (sufficient for hot curlers). Actors were assigned gender roles which were not the same as their own everyday ones, thhe gender act meant to challenge the actor and the audience, a bit. Our goal was to play in the murky middle ground of semi-androgyny, the place where I believe the original Golden Girls actor Bea Arthur hung out. We aim to tease this place out and expand it as we use it for a playground. We ask: how do costuming elements such as jewlery and makeup influence readings of the characters as feminine? What happens when these things are removed? We wonder, how do costume details such as fit, drape, textile and color influence the gender reading of the characters? By this game we come to realize that there are a whole set of performative gestures which accompany these aspects of costuming. We notice that traditionally male actor bodies tend to occupy these garments in a much more comfortable way, resorting very quickly to occupying them as dude clothes. and we are interested to watch this sort of "nesting ritual" in which very traditionally female garment shapes are expanded and occupied. Intended to be humorous.