Teatro Luna: S-E-X-Oh!

I had not heard of Teatro Luna before going to the performance this weekend and therefore did not know what to expect. It was quite the change from the art events/lectures. I greatly enjoyed the performance and attended the talk back following the show.

Upon entering the theater I saw life-size posters of 5 naked women (each on an individual poster). I was intrigued by what these meant, but was given clues by the writing on the posters (e.g., “5'1" and not growing” or “no hips”). I think they did a good job of setting the stage, which was that of comedy and serious issues tossed artistically together to inform the audience about a group of women that in the past were not given a voice- that is the Latina population. My favorite pieces were those where each actor would stand alone on stage and a voice over an intercom would talk about the woman (saying several of the things from the poster).

One of the thoughts I had while watching the show was about the actor’s ability to use their space efficiently. They performed a series of skits, but we were able to distinguish the different acting spaces. Also, the involvement of the audience in a few of the skits was done in an interesting way- not direct speech, but as if we were privy to her thoughts. I think that for the most part the show discussed things that many women can relate to, but they added a little of their Latina culture to it. It was a very funny show, with serious moments sprinkled throughout.

Hope Chest

One of the artistic techniques that I was particularly struck by was the use of newspaper. I thought that I could use this technique to express the differences in the interior and exterior by the type of newspaper / articles. Because homosexuality was something that was hidden I plan to line the interior of the box with articles about gay issues or articles from the Blade newspaper. The outside of the box would be covered in news articles about everyday things- weather, sports, etc- to mask what was not necessarily readily available to the public. Something that I got from the readings was the idea of the separation of the two cultures (heterosexual and homosexual) into communities based on commonality. I would like to represent this with the repetition of the box shape within the original box or by placing a figure, like the target (repetitive circular shape), inside. I would also include a lid, to keep the inside hidden at least initially- until someone gets curious and looks inside. This is something that I think was an issue for Johns and Rauschenberg due to his statement about their embarrassment at being too well known and becoming gossip. During this time it was something to be kept a secret and tucked away- so a lid would represent this.