In a sharp role reversal, the go-go bar clients are represented by one dimensional figures that signify “silent decor”. The dancers, by contrast, are the ones who talk and have opinions.
I create an illusion of 50′s glamor, dancing to Sinatra’s “New York, New York”. Beneath the facade of making it in New York, are the terms by which making it as a “glamorous” dancer in a go-go bar are possible. A strip-tease disposes of “the glamor” and unsuspectedly reveals a Scottish nationalist warrior dancing to the Jacobite song, “Such a Parcel of Rogues.”
In this performance I paralleled the colonization of Scotland with the colonization of women’s sexuality. I think only two Scottish girlfriends in the audience laughed and understood. The rest of the audience were puzzled but entertained…