catalina_francisco
Happily insatiable always
- Joined
- Jul 29, 2002
- Posts
- 18,730
We have discussed this in part on some threads, though not overly much. I just came across an interview with Felix Ruckert on a BDSM site where he discussed his use of dance to express BDSM. It is a fascinating piece which resparked my interest in these areas of expression in relation to our kink, lifestyle, P/pyl. Here is part of the interview which talks about his production 'Secret Service'.
"It is a performance that people can only experience blindfolded! The audience of SECRET SERVICE enters one by one into the performance space, where they anonymously meet twelve dancers.. In this "first level" they are moved around, stretched out on the floor, lifted up, pushed around a bit, striked, caressed and touched in very different ways, according to how and what they physically communicate to us. We try to read their body language. It might be very "dancy" or playful or erotic or aggressive..Everything is fine as long as no one is endangered in any way.
After this the people are lead out again and then have the choice to come back in for the "second level". This second part asks for a lot of trust. As a preparation the guests are not just blindfolded but also stripped to their underwear and cuffed. Inside we give them a rather soft introduction to D/S Situations, Bondage, clothspins, whips and more. Mostly all happens without any verbal communication, except absolutely necessary. In that specific context I feel it helps people to get into their headspace if they have no talking and no clear idea of their counterpart. In some cases we work with them in a way that they cannot even be sure if they are treated by a man or a woman. People are surprisingly adventurous in the "second level".
There is about half of the audience that wishes to pass to level two after the first one. We got very skilled to find out quickly to what kind of treatment individual people are inclined to and adapt to that. As in some cases it feels as a better idea we also manage to give them the opportunity to top us ( from the bottom !). People come ou pretty touched, sometimes gleamingly happily, sometimes also quite emotionally shaken. We always have some helpers around to care for them after the sessions."
...The reactions of the audience to some his productions;
"SECRET SERVICE passes very well, but it is anonymous, nobody sees what is going on and that makes a big difference. People just feel the sensations and are happy.
In MESSIAH GAME one could observe actual sessions going on on stage, performers being tortured and screaming and skin getting red and swollen and there the audience reacted very confused and sometimes aggressive. The context of a theatre changes the perception of things a lot. Then People have their heads full of pictures of real violence and torture, their minds full of memories and traumas - and then they go start projecting their own trouble right away.
Some wanted to jump on stage and "save " the performers. Others felt violated to be constricted to watch this. Then again others found it boring.They were convinced it was all fake and just perceived it as a show. So they wanted it more hard, I guess, blood and legs chopped off like in the movies. For them I think it must have been a bit like watching a soccer game without ever having played yourself. You cannot really understand what it is like and what its all about just by watching. So there is a lot more work to do with that piece...."
...And how he came to begin integrating D/s etc., into his work;
"In the late nineties I started to integrate audience members into my choreographies. I asked the dancers to actively touch, move, and manipulate willing audience members. I also invited audience members to touch, move and manipulate the dancers. People loved it. In a way I was already working with D/S situations without calling it that way. I started realising how much people crave for physical touch and how much dynamic holds the clever and conscious play with power. Any work in dance or theatre works with that dynamic: as a director or choreographer you try to make "your " performer go places where he or she would not go alone. For the stage mostly this implies a form of physical or psychologic exertion. It might turn out as virtuosity in a physical or emotional sense. But the virtuosity alone is nothing without the fragility that is needed to become present on stage. So in I any way you try to push or seduce the performer to challenge his or her limits..to become permeable...to achieve connection with the audience...and of course the director-actor relation is very often full of erotic undertones.
I found a lot of paralelles to S/M: In a session as well physical and emotional challenges have to go hand in hand to achieve deeper connection. It also proofed to be pretty easy to introduce my dancers to S/M: As dancers they are used to work with physical extremes. They are tough and sensitive the same time. And as performers they are used to repeat their " sessions" with the audience over and over so they also know very well to respect their physical and emotional limits."
Sounds fascinating and brave, not to mention refreshingly innovative from a different direction to which most of us are used to our experiences of BDSM coming from. Has anyone been to a performance of this sort in any of the mainstream recognised performance arts? Does it interest you? If you have been, how did the experience feel....did you like it?
Catalina
"It is a performance that people can only experience blindfolded! The audience of SECRET SERVICE enters one by one into the performance space, where they anonymously meet twelve dancers.. In this "first level" they are moved around, stretched out on the floor, lifted up, pushed around a bit, striked, caressed and touched in very different ways, according to how and what they physically communicate to us. We try to read their body language. It might be very "dancy" or playful or erotic or aggressive..Everything is fine as long as no one is endangered in any way.
After this the people are lead out again and then have the choice to come back in for the "second level". This second part asks for a lot of trust. As a preparation the guests are not just blindfolded but also stripped to their underwear and cuffed. Inside we give them a rather soft introduction to D/S Situations, Bondage, clothspins, whips and more. Mostly all happens without any verbal communication, except absolutely necessary. In that specific context I feel it helps people to get into their headspace if they have no talking and no clear idea of their counterpart. In some cases we work with them in a way that they cannot even be sure if they are treated by a man or a woman. People are surprisingly adventurous in the "second level".
There is about half of the audience that wishes to pass to level two after the first one. We got very skilled to find out quickly to what kind of treatment individual people are inclined to and adapt to that. As in some cases it feels as a better idea we also manage to give them the opportunity to top us ( from the bottom !). People come ou pretty touched, sometimes gleamingly happily, sometimes also quite emotionally shaken. We always have some helpers around to care for them after the sessions."
...The reactions of the audience to some his productions;
"SECRET SERVICE passes very well, but it is anonymous, nobody sees what is going on and that makes a big difference. People just feel the sensations and are happy.
In MESSIAH GAME one could observe actual sessions going on on stage, performers being tortured and screaming and skin getting red and swollen and there the audience reacted very confused and sometimes aggressive. The context of a theatre changes the perception of things a lot. Then People have their heads full of pictures of real violence and torture, their minds full of memories and traumas - and then they go start projecting their own trouble right away.
Some wanted to jump on stage and "save " the performers. Others felt violated to be constricted to watch this. Then again others found it boring.They were convinced it was all fake and just perceived it as a show. So they wanted it more hard, I guess, blood and legs chopped off like in the movies. For them I think it must have been a bit like watching a soccer game without ever having played yourself. You cannot really understand what it is like and what its all about just by watching. So there is a lot more work to do with that piece...."
...And how he came to begin integrating D/s etc., into his work;
"In the late nineties I started to integrate audience members into my choreographies. I asked the dancers to actively touch, move, and manipulate willing audience members. I also invited audience members to touch, move and manipulate the dancers. People loved it. In a way I was already working with D/S situations without calling it that way. I started realising how much people crave for physical touch and how much dynamic holds the clever and conscious play with power. Any work in dance or theatre works with that dynamic: as a director or choreographer you try to make "your " performer go places where he or she would not go alone. For the stage mostly this implies a form of physical or psychologic exertion. It might turn out as virtuosity in a physical or emotional sense. But the virtuosity alone is nothing without the fragility that is needed to become present on stage. So in I any way you try to push or seduce the performer to challenge his or her limits..to become permeable...to achieve connection with the audience...and of course the director-actor relation is very often full of erotic undertones.
I found a lot of paralelles to S/M: In a session as well physical and emotional challenges have to go hand in hand to achieve deeper connection. It also proofed to be pretty easy to introduce my dancers to S/M: As dancers they are used to work with physical extremes. They are tough and sensitive the same time. And as performers they are used to repeat their " sessions" with the audience over and over so they also know very well to respect their physical and emotional limits."
Sounds fascinating and brave, not to mention refreshingly innovative from a different direction to which most of us are used to our experiences of BDSM coming from. Has anyone been to a performance of this sort in any of the mainstream recognised performance arts? Does it interest you? If you have been, how did the experience feel....did you like it?
Catalina
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Either way I am all for innovation over the same old thing revamped any day. 
They do say it can, but then a lot of everyday things do IMO.
