“Useless, shiftless, not gainful, non linear, not turned to normal or appropriate use.”

An intimate choreography between three performing bodies, one live, one fiberglass and one digital, “Idle” distorts perceptions of posing and the pleasures and problems of that act. Rejecting useful and appropriate functions, the bodies are deep in the pleasures of female-to-female drag, both reveling in and rejecting expected characteristics of different modes.

Working with another performance artist, I asked her to generate video material of whatever she felt unable to indulge in inside her own work. The provided material was then edited into a video score for my live performance. By taking on all authorship and compositional responsibility, I wanted her to feel free in whatever way she desired to revel in things she may normally suppress and of which other people or contexts may have made her wary.

My live body responds to both Georgia’s body in the video projection and Mandy’s fiberglass body in the space with me. “Idle” is a fifteen-minute performance opera with a video and audio score, live singing, physical movement and object manipulation. Questioning contexts, what is gained and lost by fulfilling agreed upon roles and who is afraid of your body in what context and why. Invaded and overpowered by music, the viewers’ own assumptions, fears and secret fantasies may turn on them.