Open Cells/Selves: Inside 'Out': Celebrate/Expression: SamIam/Val Smith's 'This is a Trans-World'

Gundry Street, Newton, Auckland, Old Folks Association, November 11.11.11

This is not a review, it is a reflection of thoughts and responses to the work which I saw over a week ago, asked of me by Val and a collection of my own imposed projections onto her work as a practitioner in the same small underground Auckland dance art scene also working in solo interactive ways.

This is a Trans-World. Its 11.11.11 in our small community gundry st hall- Auckland's very own Judson Church hehe (NY 1960s)... the dance art scene is alive and kicking in this hall thanks to Sean Curham. Amazing stuff is cranking out of here.

It's Val Smith aka “'SamIamaman's embodiment” research at play on display, larger than life selves inside cells expanding inside “out” so to speak. Play on words and worlds and the word and world “Trans”... Val/SamIam is a spiritual new age transgender chick and she's testing out some "masculinities (as) hardening games or soft realisations?" (programme notes) On us. And we are up for the game, with self (ours and hers) and selves before audience. Does audience know what we're in for? Each of our own selves and cells reflecting projecting our own gender prescriptions. Its a cosmic day afterall. We are open. We love Val. And we are excited by this work from the outset.

It's interesting to see the influence of my barrage of audience performer interactivity (from solo auck fringe which comes from years of this investigation) expanding across this community in 2011 and how that all unfolds organically.. in and across works engaged with different and specific concepts. Its nothing original but its back from the 60s and our community needs a bit more of this.
Where's this gonna go with SamIam?

Its all power stuff, this is my understanding of and working with it. Audience performer control/play. 'Mind opening' upside down-ness. Cellular insider/outsider-ness. Specific to this work- the preacher, the teacher, educator, the healer, the manipulation of knowledge and religion and spirituality, expression of selves before intimate audience, entertainment and politics infused as we are asked to wave flags in “straight” lines facing each other- much like creating a cat walk for the selves and cells to deliver and birth their precious selves to us on display various somatic fashion items and gendered selves put on and displayed, which 'team' we are on the 'butch' or 'femme'? wave your flag y'all. The delicate intricate self- knowledge to us is delivered through this channel, down this tunnel, prostrations following a statement of shame, are we meant to be facing each other as a reflection as the prostrations move down the line? Are we too ashamed? We don't look at each other, we watch the performance- its very engaging. When she lies on the floor looking up at us its very intimate, I am at the opposite end but get an open 'baby-like' feeling as she stares up at a tender audience look down. Its beautiful. Constant rebirthing of genders anew through cellular expression.

We've seen the morphing and birthing and testing of this gendered and somatic research in Val/SamIam for the past year since returning from the states and now we get to see her in full expression. This work for me is about expression. I've not seen these selves before, they are very much an 'act'.. it is a play. She plays with words and images and ideas like “spaces of dreaming and imagining possibilities of trans-identities from within the body as site of knowing, seeing and feeling, at the centers of this gendered relationality, cells are becoming conscious of themselves, self conscious.”- This is a Trans-World programme notes.

From the beginning, I am hyper aware of the 'self conscious'. It feels more awkward than I've felt before, I am wondering- this 'acting' seems so far from somatics, yet I get that they are offsetting, juxtaposing each other and may infuse to transform. The humour is dry, the layers are clever, the interweaving tidy. Even the references back to 'This is the DIX' section or 'This is the Solid Gold Dance' are meaning to undercut the seriousness of the teaching. But its still a demonstration of an idea relating to the teaching. Overall the delivery is gentle, its not so pushing us away at all. The humour is inclusive not double edged.

SamIAm/Val explains what is happening to us most steps of the way, slipping clearly into the role of 'educator'- which she clearly is. Val runs a “Community of Touch” class sundays at the hall (omg sunday school!) which investigates somatic contact/touch. From the outset we are asked to frame the work through free-form vs formal education and healing. There is butcher paper on a board with sections of the work with bubbles off the title of different sections which she asks us to question her about, but then refuses to completely explain each part as not to 'give it away'. But the point is, she does want us to get it. She wants us to understand what she's doing, what she has been investigating for many years. Unlike Sean Curham's 'menu' smorgasboard in 'Ghosting 2' of sections from which the audience is meant to choose in which we get no explanation of the underpinnings of the artistic investigation and left to our own devices on it, this work reveals itself through the evening- including each section, explained. Val is a word-Smith.

This is a Trans-World, she lip syncs James Brown's 'This is a Man's World' at one point. “And it would be nothing... without a woman”. It reminds me of some Derridian/mimicry stuff I did in my 90s women's studies body politics paper – a look at the song 'You make me Feel like a Natural Woman' by Aretha Franklin, you make me FEEL like a natural woman, implication- that woman is not essential, there is nothing natural about womaness or maness, that it is entirely sociological. And we get to 'play' or 'act' out the gendering of selves .. which is what SamIam illustrates. The theoretical research on trans-gendering is in the programme notes and very clear.

What interests me is the conceptual slippage between personal as political (personal interest of mine and also very 60s/70s) in the form of – personal engagement with religion from upbringing which is inherently homophobic and new age spiritual investigations with an awkward self consciously 'twisted and kinky' searching expression of trans gender sexuality through somatics. Also curious about the placement of cultural experience in the work which also relate directly to these- references to westie (west auckland) culture, Val having grown up in Helensville, and all that comes with this. The tough bogan culture, the play on butch and femme within that and the alternative being to be a 'hippie'. Its all presented as gags, sometimes tender stories.

I'm getting images of Middle America here as well... the film Boys Don't Cry springs to mind as well as Monster. Horrible images, ugh. Please don't. I'm not sure if its the westie embodiment of white trash America or the fundamentalist (homophobic) christianity so often exploited in American b-grade and arthouse films or the fact that Val has recently also lived in the U.S for nearly 2 years and was married to an American or the 11.11.11 psychic channeling buzz (i'm into psychic yo) but I'm feeling America vibing through this work.

I'm liking that. America is and has been a dominating force in world & media consciousness for awhile now and also the centre of a lot of new age spirituality. Shamanism. SamIam is working with shamanism. Yay we are in the same tribe there.

Having seen a section of this piece in Dunedin in October “Straight relatives” (when I was also on tour) at the Qubit Performance Art festival I was curious to see it (personal interest also) in a different setting, city and audience/culture. In Dunedin I was in hysterics, the list of straight relatives, the stopping and questioning of some of them, “I think uncle... so and so”, the play between 'kinky' and 'twisted' in somatic movement and trying to 'find the flow' inside that is pretty genius, starting/ending? in a 'middle finger up for all ya'. This is the 'A-Team' at work. She's a 'natural' comedian. The Auckland crowd feels 'naturally' more tense and full of expectation than Dunedin (which I also discovered), who laps it up coz they're generally not as spoilt for interesting performance as Auckland. Still also loved the hymn-like singing on the stage, this preacher like sermon of some incredibly poetic somatic principles which happen to be crack ups as well. Still my favourite section I think. Its absurdist, heart that: singing “I really like this part of the dance, one body as one self, body flows across and between, affect seeing and being seen. Comfort and discomfort. Empathy is one of the key processes going on. Boundaries between fears and judgements. Playing out what might be wanted and unwanted in the space. Measuring distances using distance and proximity. Dynamics of sacred geometry. Intertitial, inner and outer intellectual process of becoming and dissolving”... (possibly misquoted- but all sung)

Definitely getting the play between trans and spiritual unbound fluid multi-gendered selves also becoming and dissolving. It's the 'Trans-evangelist'. This is the section I inquired about at the beginning.

Stripping solid gold section with handle bar moustache to James Brown- cut short. Hang on am I confused- did that come later? “That's enough of that” she moves to new section.. Defs hyper real SamIAm in action. From “social somatics” to hymns, to finger up to prostrations and post it notes of shame all pointing to her, to baby, to stripping, to a story about first girlfriend out west who had crystals and discovering the The Cure- its super personal stuff!

After a speech about hate crimes and wanting a tolerant society its a Party Break. There's so much clever word play its pretty hard to keep up, esp when you're drinking bro. I enjoyed the 'social somatics' and interactivity of just being near people as they socialised saying nothing, channeling what? Worked really well in Dunedin. How anti-social healing work is in public. Love that, love it. As I thought it might, it got slightly lost in Auckland but that didn't matter I guess. I see someone giving her a book on Queer Theory.

Back from the break, SamIAm/Val sings us a beautiful song after sitting in chairs asleep at the back of the stage like parents asleep at the tv, she looks like Sinead Oconnor. Exorcism dance, that's how I saw it. 'Skin inside skin', 'Body is cell'. We are in vipassana meditation with SamIAm, inside her brain. Hands knarled, its painful ecstasy, enticing to watch. “I often forget my brain” (ironically) she says dryly in the middle of a fairly intense session of deep sensory internal writhing. Humour is never forgotten though right. Gorgeous moment.

Make out corner: I'm a plant, which I didn't feel worked. Perhaps authentic people responding would have worked better than me. I jumped the gun, after a few drinks but I knew I would. Me and SamIAm. I'm ok with that, its intense. We stare each other out. She says I'm fire energy after. Ok. I'm up for whatever. Then Anna Bate and Zahra. Sean Curham and Geoff Gilson. People laugh. Curious, the tone is gendered, self conscious, there are no heterosexual couplings. Its now codified, strange how that works.. the power of suggestion, is it 'giving licence'? All in the make out corner are performers, except 1 person. Daniela Ferreira Araújo Silva, Val's gender paper teacher. Mostly cute faked awkward interactions heightened the acting of gender posing. Posing in general.

We are asked to wave flags for whether we were in the SamIAm or Val team. Equal cheer, though 'naturally' (culturally) i think – 'there was quite a bit of blurring there' .. of course that's the point. Why divide? Inside from out. Outsiders IN. The slippage got more and more comfortable and less self conscious as it gained momentum through the work between acting/playing and somatics.. which I can relate to. We are told its a 'win win situation'- whoever we vote for. Yay- Imagine that? Its Elections coming up. But its a happy ending! Oh I forgot the streak, when was that? At the end? Yep I think so.. She strips more properly and does some booty shaking with a handle bar moustache at the end I think in gold undies- saying she has as 'gold obsession' (can relate too). Another 'act'.. Yup the crowd love it... its entertainment doing its magic. Always eases away any tension.

Thought it was beautiful to see the full expression of all SamIAmVal's ideas in the past year, no doubt crystalised in meditation and how supportive this community was of this special work. Rather than a reflection upon our own gendered selves, which it perhaps was for some people- maybe more the SamIAm team- a group of people around her.. the work presented the visibility of that which is invisible, inside ValSamIAm which ripples out into the world energetically for sure coz that's how shaman healing works, and was a very clever and clear interweaving of theory, poetry, word play, entertainment acts, gendered selves, personal stories and somatic & spiritual conceptual engagements of an awesome performer. Rich in expression, far from the critique of over intellectualised European Dance its cool to see Val and SamIAm finding that space to explode/implode within time cells/selves and a portal to share an awesome piece of performance with us and on such a special day. No doubt 11.11.11 is devil's talk, but hey bring it. Its not called the new age for no reason.

It's a trans-world and we still have issues, so many many issues to work through and release as a species. Gender and sexuality are big ones. Some believe true healing can only occur through somatic body work. Respect. Celebrate expression, however it comes out. I see the work as moving social change with the change of the body.. as organic. “Changes and transformations are blessings. They are not triggered from without but from within; and the world is our mirror. As we change, even within our consciousness, everything reflected within the world also begins to change.” - Animal Speak.

Yay bring on change, acceptance, tolerance and healing. This work overall is gentle for me. “Out” there & brave, but soft. Sensitive and generous.

It's important for such a potent scene in this Auckland dance art buzz to be reflecting and engaging with each other's work at an intellectual but also practical/industry level within what I see as a solid movement. Local is global and this stuff is good. It is also quite unique, here in the corner of our world. From what I have seen.

Cosmic outsiders are in. Finally. Its 2011.