WETT
STATEMENT
TITLE
“Wett”
Subject
Female sexual empowerment
Venue
An outdoor stage, requires a kiddie pool full of water and a dance space that can be covered in peaches as well as amplified sound and an aux cord
Medium Used
Physical Movement/Poetry
Theoretical Background
Based on an experience I had with the empowerment I felt being a cage dancer, I wrote a poem that I then set to music. The piece is a way of embodying that empowered “wet-ness” by beginning with a scene where the wetness is drowning myself; using the words to empower and change the vibe, and then ending with a peach, a symbol of a verdant juicy wetness.
The piece begins with me covered in a mesh netting, representing the feeling of invisibility that women experience when we’re out of touch with our own bodies. I walk amongst the audience touching them with bits of ice, a representation of the struggle with a desperate need to please; the sense that making others happy will solve my invisibility. The sense of obligation that is inherent in this desperate act however sullies the possible pleasure and renders it cold.
Unable to solve the gnawing need within me, I move to the pool, searching for wetness outside of myself. The mesh begins to pull me down and a fight ensues. A fight with my own invisibility that, combined with external demands of wetness is drowning me. This struggle continues until the music changes.
I slowly pull myself free of the mesh and the pool, while the words of a poem I wrote play over the speakers. It’s a poem about setting boundaries and finding power within one’s self. As the words begin to inspire me, I put on dancing heels, and my body language changes. Rather than wearing my invisibility and allowing it to take over me, I am clearly coming into my own.
As the poem finishes the beat drops and I move into a dance of empowerment. I’m allowing you ‘Just to watch me.’ I remove two juicy peaches from my bra and eat them victoriously, happy to be partaking in my own wetness, my own pleasure. Finally, I reach into my pussy and pull out something I place into my mouth. Red paint drips out of my snarling mouth as I stand there, breathing heavy. I have found my source. I have found my own wetness.
I was asked to perform a 10 minute piece, and promptly forgot about it... until 24 hours before the show. Since I had no time for rehearsal/ run-through, I put together 3 songs, a general idea of what would happen when and some props. The first time I performed any of it was onstage.
It felt like I was using art to communicate with my subconscious, every movement was unpracticed, raw, and came from my core. Every mistake became an on-purpose. Falling with intention. It wasn't until afterward that I felt the truth of the piece. The lesson it had brought into my consciousness.
Safety is an illusion. No matter how many walls we build, how many resources we stockpile, or guns we own, we cannot run from what makes us human.
Photos by Rabbit