Since 2009 I have been fascinated by lap dance and what it has to offer to contemporary performance. I approach the form as a microstructure to study the phenomenon of live art, and the potential of communication and exchange between performer, and audience. Lap dance is highly sexualised according to commercial aesthetics and semiotics of sex and femininity. It can be discussed as a formalisation of a semiotic body where gestures, movements, codes, and symbols of femininity are made use of to achieve a performed sexuality. As art and commercial entertainment are continually melting into the other, I believe there is a great potential to analyse, research, appropriate, and deconstruct such forms of entertainment. Please note it is in fact not my interest to question lap dance, its implications, or otherwise but to provoke the questions which lap dance can propose to performance, as well to an audience, regarding the economy and politics of privacy, intimacy, and the very organisation of body and space in live art. In this workshop lap dance is appropriated and used as a microstructure to practically study choreographic and performance issues revolving around distance, touch, atmosphere, relation to sound, presence, presentation, eye gazing, and breath matching. Participants’ conceived private dances will be presented informally for their invited guests.
Dani Brown
