ARTWORK ~ CHARACTERS / DRAG / BURLESQUE:
I have created many characters for performance over the years, from "UnAmerika's Sweetheart" (my catch-all Burlesque moniker), to a 90 year old man named "Super Grandpa" (aka Mary Dolan's lifelong companion, Michael), I have a drunk and smoking pregnant townie "Amanda", and a creepy dude "Rico" who drunkenly yells at the audience before rushing the stage and performing a striptease. I have performed on the street as a living statue, in clubs as a burlesque dancer, on stage in a touring drag troupe and across the country as a puppeteer... I write and choreograph almost all of my own work.
Dance, Physical Theater, Character, Mask, and Storytelling are my basis for understanding performance. I am inspired by caricatures and personas that have something internal keeping them alive and ticking beyond an audience's first impression. We all "know" who these people are, but each one has a story that is different from our expectations. We are challenged to face our assumptions and biases, we are asked to see a two-dimentional cartoon and pull blood, flesh, delight, anger, and sympathy onto the skeleton portrayed, and by the end of a scene, the "other" is known. |
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