RUT
"Traditionally, the human body, our body, not the stage, is our true site for creation and materia prima. It's our empty canvas, musical instrument, and open book; our navigation chart and biographical map; the vessel for our ever changing identities; the centerpiece of the altar so to speak. Even when we depend too much on objects, locations, and situations, our body remains the matrix of the piece.
Our body is also the very center of our symbolic universe—a tiny model for humankind (humankind and humanity are the same word in Spanish, humanidad)—and at the same time, a metaphor for the larger sociopolitical body. If we are capable of establishing all these connections in front of an audience, hopefully others will recognize them in their own bodies."
- Guillermo Gomez-Peña
RUT is a collaborative, task-based endurance piece, that illustrates the body as the center of our symbolic universe. Each performer is asked to embody the ritual of rut. Both female and male identifying performers act out in and amongst the audience this annual period of sexual activity in deer and elk (traditionally, the males fight for territory and breeding rights).
The motivation for RUT emerged from a desire to create a series of animal prosthetics that could be worn or manipulated by humans; in particular, adornments historically employed to impress and win favor of the opposite sex. Bartlett wanted to see what it would be like for humans - female and male - to wear the antlers of a male elk or deer and interpret seasonal mating rituals. She asks, “What if once a year humans grew antlers and rubbed on trees to declare their right to breed and territories won?” She wanted to see humans understanding and owning their bodies in a raw and atypical context; connecting with their animal, their violence. Through spectacle, play and performance the body and mind are allowed to acknowledge each other. Through observing performing “masculine” and “feminine” animals, she hopes the audience might reconsider personal and societal perceptions of gender, and the constrictions they impose on our ability to understand in full the world and ourselves.
Performers: Ian Etter, Janis Finkelman, Alice Gribbin, Kiley McLaughlin, Kate Rønning, and Heidi Wiren Kebe
Photos courtesy of Derek Blackman
October 2013