The Hidden Pin Up #25 - Push Festival 2019

 Photo by Chris Payne

Happy new year everyone! The Hidden Pin Up began 2019 with a bang taking part in Push Festival at HOME Manchester this weekend just gone!

Push Festival is an annual celebration of the North West's creative talents, showcasing two weeks of exhibitions, events and screenings and we were thrilled to present our performance of burlesque/vogue/spoken word as part of the launch night to kick the whole thing off.

The Hidden Pin Up is a collaborative art project between myself and Manchester vogue house the House of Ghetto, an all female black dance troupe headed by house mother and choreographer Darren Pritchard. The work explores the history of the hidden and forgotten figure of the black pin up girl and investigates the legacy of stereotypes and racial fetishisation that still plagues women of colour today. You can read how the project developed by scrolling back through this very blog for The Hidden Pin Up posts numbered 1-25.

The launch night was fantastic, with many other artists taking to the stage in the gallery to recite poetry, sing and introduce their work to come over the festival. The Hidden Pin Up finished the evening, taking the audience by surprise when Lenai Russell our fabulous dancer appeared amidst them as the notes Miss Celie's Blue's filled the air.

Photo by Chris Payne

Lulled into a happy fuzz by free wine the audience watched the first half of the performance, which takes the form of a traditional fan dance, with big smiles on their faces and many whoops and cheers. I think the nuance and meaning of the work might have been lost on them until Justina Aina our spoken word artist swooped in and really shook things up.

Her delivery of the inappropriate and thoughtless phrases aimed at women of colour which were layered over Lenai's graceful vouging created a disconnect that demanded attention. I'm pleased to say that we got our desired effect and the piece was met with much positivity.

Photo by Chris Payne

 Sunday saw us delivering the performance again on an hourly basis in the gallery with an additional opportunity to view the fans and costume in detail and chat to us about the work afterwards.

With high numbers of attendees, it was really nice to see so many people want to find out more and share their own experiences. The words used in the performance and embroidered into the fans were a great opener to discussions about sexism and racial slurs and where the topic stands in 2019. We also had some lovely feedback from reviewers on twitter:

Push Festival 2019 was a brilliant experience for us and thanks again to HOME for the opportunity! We have plans to take The Hidden Pin Up further so watch this space! Until then, to find out more and see extra check out my Instagram and also treat yourself to a limited edition Hidden Pin Up badge or art work from my SHOP.

The Hidden Pin Up #18 - Choreography part 1

On Friday we finally got to visit a dance studio to begin choreographing the routine for The Hidden Pin Up!

I met with Lenai the dancer from Manchester's House of Ghetto and Darren Pritchard, the house mother and choreographer, and all three of us were raring to go! I was really keen to see how my hessian burlesque fans would perform and also excited to put our ideas together. After researching and working on this concept for a year, it was thrilling to see it come to life and put some meat on the bones!

The performance is based on a traditional fan dance and anyone who has been following this project for a while will know that using fans was inspired by my research into vintage exotic dancer Jean Idelle who was one of the most successful black burlesque performers of the 1950's. You can find out more about Jean HERE

The aim of a fan dance is to tease the audience by only showing hints of bare flesh as the fans move around the dancer's body. It's important to captivate the audience with the fans movements so they highlight poise and footwork and emphasize what the dancer does with her arms and legs. It's usually the last third of the performance where the dancer does a 'reveal' and their full figure can be seen.

Darren was fantastic at giving direction and using traditional fan dance moves mixed with some of the vogue moves he is famous for. We even came up with some new moves I've never seen before. I was especially impressed with Lenai, who has never done any fan work before but picked up the skill almost immediately! 

It was exciting to see the fans in action. I was interested to know how they would perform as they are made from hessian instead of the soft floaty feathers usually used in burlesque. It turned out they had a grass skirt/ dried grass movement that I loved as they reinforced the 'primitive' character the project calls into question. They did shed fibres like crazy but there was something satisfying in watching the hemp fly around Lenai as she shimmied and turned.

It literally gave me shivers to see the dance performed to music. We wanted a song that not only hit the vintage mark but also spoke of women of colour and strength over adversity, for while this work plays on stereotypes and fetishes built around women of colour, it also puts the agency entirely in the dancer's hands and invites the viewer to look past the cliches. The piece we chose was Miss Celie's Blues from the soundtrack of The Colour Purple. Here's a little taster:

The full first half of the routine is now mapped out and we were all really excited by how much we got done. It was a fun morning and I can't wait to work on the second half which will have a a totally different feel and energy.

The Hidden Pin Up #14 - Bet You're a Tiger In The Sack/ Can I Touch Your Hair?

 

How many of you have heard these before? It seems saying inappropriate things to women of colour is a common occurrence. I'd love to hear if you have ever had similar said to you to add to the Hidden Pin Up project. As you can see stories are transcribed in thread onto hessian feathers. The feathers make up a pair of burlesque fans which will be danced with by Manchester's House Of Ghetto, an all black female dance troupe for a performance exploring the history of the black Pin Up and the racial stereotypes and fetishisations which still exist to this day!

Here's the latest response to the call out. Tell me what you think and share your stories! You can comment anonymously on this post or contact me on my facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/GemmaParkerArtist/ 

...a guy in a bar in Southport drunkenly staring (swaying) finally coming over to tell me “you’re pretty for a black girl”. 

Another was in Uni, a guy I was getting a little friendly with stopped what we were doing to say “this is weird, I’ve never slept with a black girl before”...

The Hidden Pin Up #13 - I'm not really into black girls but...

I'm still looking for stories of racial fetishisation from women of colour for The Hidden Pin Up project. I am transferring them onto the hessian feathers of the burlesque fans I have made that will be danced with by Manchester's House of Ghetto as part of a performance exploring the history of the black Pin Up.

Below is one of the most recent responses I've had. If this rings any bells with you, get in touch and tell me your story! You can share anonymously in the comments section of this blog or message me on my Facebook page. Contributions posted on my blog will be anonymous. To find out more about this project search this blog for The Hidden Pin Up series.

My experience has mainly been in the work place and passing/sweeping statements about my culture/hair, and just my work colleague’s lack of understanding and ignorance of black culture and heritage. 

So for example I am the only POC in my office and I have comments like ‘how do you get your hair like that', ‘can you brush it’, ‘what happens when it gets wet’ ‘can you tie it in a bobble’, ‘can i touch your hair’ , ‘never realised it was that soft’. 

I could go on and on but they are some of the daily micro-aggressions I have encountered. 

The Hidden Pin Up #10 - Meeting with The House of Ghetto

Today I traveled to STUN Studios in Hulme to meet Darren Pritchard the House of Ghetto's house mother and House of Ghetto (HOG) dancer Lenai who will be dancing with my hemp burlesque fans for my Hidden Pin Up project. I was so excited!
 

It was great to chat about the project and see how the fans looked in hold which also gave me a chance to see how they handled. The fans are unfinished as yet because I still plan on embroidering words and phrases into the feathers which will be inspired by true stories of black fetishisation. 

While at the studio I got my first story from Darren as he recounted how Lenai's sister had been dating a guy who told her 'You can be my mocha'. Not only is this totally cringe worthy it's also a perfect example how black women can still being treated as 'exotics' and further highlights how the stereotypes given to the black Pin Up from the vintage era have survived today.

We also discussed costume ideas and I took some measurements of Lenai for the outfit I am currently putting together. My designs are based on examples that are blatantly not authentic but a western amalgamation of 'black/savage looks' used in mainstream films and pop culture. 

I want to keep the look vintage Pin Up but also have that unsophisticated inauthentic theme. Everything will be made from hemp to complete the raw primitive aesthetic behind the fans. I am loving how the hemp can be sculpted, frayed and cut to create different shapes and also the various connotations it brings up about black stereotypes and black history.

 

It was really great to move this project onto it's next phase and I am loving every minute of it. I'm hoping to share some of the stories I collect in my upcoming posts and also how the outfit and fans progress. Until then get in touch with your own stories of black female fetishisation and stereotyping. Email gemma-parker@hotmail.co.uk with the title The Hidden Pin Up or find me on Facebook Gemma Parker Artist

 

The Hidden Pin Up # 9 - Burlesque fan experiment with hemp

I've spent a couple of weeks industriously fraying sackcloth to resemble ostrich feathers for my experiment making burlesque fans from hemp, and I now have my first complete fan.

I'm really pleased with how beautiful it looks and quite surprised too. It's very textural and immediately recognisable as a burlesque object, yet the different material makes you want to look closer.

 

Due to the hemp it is heavier than a usual feather fan but not too heavy to manipulate and wave and I'm interested to see how it handles and looks when being danced with. 

I created the feathers by using a real feather as a template to cut out the shape. I then stitched a thin piece of craft wire along the feather stem so that the feather would have some stability and bend into the shape I wanted once finished. 

Next I began to pull the edges apart, removing whole strands in places and creating fronds that mimicked the real feather. I found that this only worked if I cut the sacking on the cross in order for the frayed edges to create the right shape. Each feather is different and I like how that adds to the overall effect. I spent some time figuring out how to lay out each feather to make the most visual impact.

The fan worked best when I placed the feathers to reflect their natural bend. For instance I sorted feathers that bent to the right to lie on the left hand side of the fan so they would lean inwards. Straighter feathers I placed in the middle and left bending feathers I placed on the right. You can see how much better this looks than just laying the feathers out any old way.

 Feathers laid to bend inwards

Feathers laid in no order

I then used more craft wire to fix the feathers to the spokes of a 16" burlesque fan. I used two layers to get a fuller look.

My next thought is to experiment stitching into some of the feathers. I'm thinking of embroidering words that represent the stereotypes black Pin Up's of the past and black women today still have to face in mainstream culture. 

I'm making the fans to highlight the marginalised and primitive characterisation that have hidden the black Pin Up from view, so this will take a bit more research into what messages will work best, and I'd like to do some one on one chats to get first person experiences from women who have to deal with this regularly.

If you have any stories or info to share about your own experiences please get in touch. In the meantime I will be interviewing friends and seeing how the hemp takes to embroidery.