Mixed Blood Performance

Documentation of my sister, Gabrielle, and I performing as part of the Primavera 2011 Hiromi Tango Project, Hiromi Hotel - Mixed Blood.


Photo Documentation by Yu Fang Lai

Puppets in detail

Peats Ridge Installation

Some photos of the 'Fiddle my Fiddle' puppet installation at Peats Ridge Festival 2011-2012. The puppets were secured to the fencing using a whole bunch of cable ties threaded through holes in the back panel of each figure. Lengths of rope extending from between the legs of each puppet could be pulled to manipulate their legs into making endless high-spirited kicks. Children and the heavily intoxicated seemed to thoroughly enjoy this.  

The puppets lasted two days before the inevitable idiotic tagging began and someone decided to snap off  some of the plywood pieces. When Bow-Legged Bob lost a leg sometime around midday on New Year's Eve it was time to rescue the battered trio and store them safely until the end of the festival. Lesson learnt: drunk people can't have nice things.   

Bow-Legged Bob

Washboard Abbott

Moonshine Mac

Puppets

Due to the tiny project budget, I ended up painting, varnishing and rigging the puppets in the spare room of my share house. High on wood stain fumes and turps, I spent the days leading up to Christmas tripping over paint cans, stray guitars and the jagged corners of a futon sofa whilst trying to finish the puppets in time for Peats Ridge. 

Puppets in progress

Some photos documenting the first stage of construction for the Fiddle my Fiddle puppets created for Peats Ridge Festival 2011-2012. 

Femme Foetals x Hiromi Tango

Documentation of an interactive performance project conceived during a period of collaboration under the direction of MCA Primavera artist, Hiromi Tango from September - November 2011. In response to Tango's ongoing performance and installation project, Hiromi Hotel - Mixed Blood, my sister, Gabrielle, and I performed an absurd rebirthing ritual in the foyer of the Cleland Bond building, The Rocks, Sydney. 

Dressed in the guise of our alter-ego duo, The Femme Foetals, we used costume and performance to explore boundaries between mother/child and self/body. Inspired by the transformation of the body during pregnancy, and by simultaneous processes of growth and loss that are integral to childbirth, we performed a series of ritualised actions in which we attempted to embody states of becoming Other. 

The following images provide documentation of the costume development and performance rehearsal.