The Story
Sex Workers' Art Show: Cabaret with a Conscience
Two dancers from the the 2006 Sex Workers' Art Show Tour. Courtesy of Annie Oakley.
It was a racy, provocative, and poignant night.
There were nipple tassels, a dildo gun, more than a bit of stripping (including an on-stage striptease lesson for one lucky attendant), plenty of song and dance, wickedly witty humor and even fake cash seemingly pulled from a backside nether region, normally hidden from public view.
Most importantly, however, there was an illumination of a world and the personal lives of its inhabitants who for too long have been obscured by obsessive lust or hatred, perhaps even a conflicted combination of both, or worse yet, completely ignored.
The Sex Workers Art Show returned to the College this past Monday night for its second year in a row. This time, the show was less censored (now topless, but still with bottoms thanks to College administration) and free for the first 490 out of the estimated 700 people who waited in the massive line that assembled outside the UC Commonwealth.
A nationally touring and likewise acclaimed performance art group, the Sex Workers' Art Show combines all of the aforementioned elements and more in attempt to both correct the misconceptions about the sex work industry and give voice to those in the trade by highlighting the fact that sex workers are real people, not objects.
They have a job, go through the daily grind and have a personal life like everyone else. Some of them even manage to elevate their work to a sublime artistry like those in other professions, as so many of the talented performers demonstrated on Monday.
The eclectic mix that graced the stage consisted of burlesque dancers, performance artists, singers and often some combination of the above. Many of them turned out to be award-winning writers, music artists, activists and historians as well, and they all managed to combine performance, pleasure and political messages into a wildly entertaining and informative night of spoken, sung and visual invention.
The show opened with an introduction from founder (and director, road manager, emcee, and den mother) Annie Oakley, who assured everyone that it was OK to like naked ladies, but there is a problem that these women are usually only allowed to be that.
She went on to discuss that it was the show's intention to initiate a dialogue about the sex work industry and stress that the people in it were deserving of safety, respect and the right to be heard. Otherwise, Annie said, the silence which most sex consumers prefer from their so-called "products" renders sex workers invisible.
She also expressed the hope that the discussion would not be limited to just sex workers but would extend to everyone in the service industry, especially those earning low wages.
After leaving the audience with these themes in mind, the show got off to a raucous start with Bridget Irish, a film and installation artist, who began with a hilarious dance routine to booming, guitar-heavy music while (initially) wearing full army regalia. She then proceeded to hand out potatoes to the audience, only to return to the stage to strip just as the music made a fitting transition to "America, Fuck Yeah!" from the movie Team America.
After donning pantyhose, Ms. Irish came back out to the audience to have the potatoes deposited into her tights. Then, she finished with another uproarious dance on stage, this time with potatoes-in-tow.
This was just the first of the near-dozen performances which ranged from an intensely personal and touching narrative on sex work by writer and performer Amber Dawn, to an ostensibly bizarre but thought-provoking, mixed-media performance by C. Snatch Z., an eclectically trained dancer and performance artist.
Z.'s antiwar-themed piece began with a background movie which depicted a combination of falling snow and heavy weaponry, followed by a routine which combined lip-synching, dancing and pleas to an unknown listener to stop the war, with the offer of oral pleasure and more if her request was granted. It was a powerfully affecting piece, despite its inscrutability, and at one point the audience was left in an utterly stunned silence.
While the general reaction to the show was overwhelmingly positive, some did not know what to make of the political overtones and outright protestations that were prominently featured in some of the acts.
"It didn't know what it wanted to be," said junior Annie Wanlund, "[and] that was not necessarily a bad thing, but it was going in a bunch of different directions so it was hard to keep track of it all."
Others were unfazed by the sometimes serious, occasionally ranting nature of the political statements made.
Irrespective of any confusion over the politics of certain pieces, Annie Oakley certainly has a clear vision for the show and what she wants it to accomplish.
"Sex workers are myth creatures who are either hated and feared or obsessively lusted after and neither has to do with real knowledge [about them]," she said. "So I wanted to start a dialogue to speak about own experience outside that myth and link that to the bigger issues."
Bigger issues, indeed. So many themes were covered during the show, from consumerism and war to alienation and race. This multilayered approach seems at once both its major strength and weakness. It was able to touch upon a number of important issues affecting people today, often in an eloquently intelligent manner, that it is sure to be the springboard for further dialogue. Yet, the variety of perspectives expressed did not necessarily coalesce to make a statement on any particular topic, outside of the few major themes highlighted by the show's founder.
Despite the conflict found by some, the Sex Workers' Art Show certainly managed to inform and entertain the audience, by putting on a great show and challenging all in a stimulating manner that will engender a broader discussion.