The Art That Will Not Fit
EBM HUMPHREYS
Home Live Art are celebrating their twenty-fifth birthday this year, so there was cake all round at an auspiciously thirteenth Salty cabaret last Thursday at the White Rock Theatre. HLA are the very people that once trained me to write non-colonising reviews: notice that the word ‘review’ is a slippery invitation to ‘know best’.
Rowdy SS immersed
But how can we know whether our gaze, our opinion, is objective and fair, or whether someone’s skin colour, body shape or sexuality is unduly influencing our experience of their art? Well, we probably can’t. So, instead, we can observe ourselves watching the show – especially a show like this, where what’s fascinating is the array of reactions on British faces to a roaming performer in a dangerous costume. This is who you can depend on HLA to book.
Not every act left the stage. Take the Pink Suits, a Salty staple, brilliant dancers deeply beloved by director Katy Baird, who shone, in this cabaret setting, with their tight and sexy offerings, that included a physics-defying version of Dirty Dancing’s iconic routine. Local debutante Victoria Oldman (also active in the Queer History collective) took to the stage without fright for a comedy Ghostbusters routine – and together with Rowdy SS’s full-frontal sensory immersion, and Nene Camara’s visceral critique of mainstream body standards (protective eyewear provided), defied expectations of queer, drag or cabaret performances to be sexualised.
Local DJ Sarah Buller kept the thumping tunes coming all night, and I can own my bias in being most in love with Ginny Lemon, to whom I owe the censorable earworm ‘balls-deep in [a national treasure]’. Another superb dancer, Azara Meghie, brought the queer joy in a Grace Jones homage. Albeit billed as a ‘queer drag show’ at the box office, Salty offers queer artists a freedom to evolve, because of HLA’s overtly risk-taking ethos. Literally anything goes, as long as the venue doesn’t get into trouble with the law (which has happened).
The clue is in the name. ‘Live Art’ isn’t a catchy title, it’s an art form. Troublemaking on the fringes of performance art, live-art is home to the art that will not fit. Much as the artists at this auspicious thirteenth Salty are professionals: there is a distinct invitation into the chaotic and unchartered. Live art favours innovative, unpredictable and site-specific cultural experiences – it can’t be well-defined because it ignores parameters. But it is very much alive.
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