lady-like, 2016
Lady-like addresses the traditional idea of what it means to be a woman, specifically responding to the sayings “act like a lady” and “sit like a lady.” My performance work aims to complicate gender and sexual binaries, challenging the limiting conventions of normativity. Unlearning these systemic structures and understanding them as being in a state of constant fluctuation has encouraged me to utilize playfulness as a method of subversion. In this piece I insert myself into the space as a figure that exhibits societal markers of both masculinity and femininity. This complicates the cultural signifiers we use to conceive of and simultaneously construct gender, while also calling into question the dichotomous taxonomy through which we divide men and women. Through the use of tropes, camp, characterization, and drag influences I subvert the expectations of gender. This piece challenges object associations that are deep-seated in our society.