. Kaity Baird began with a video of her on Ketamine. She was in the audience when it started, then moved down to the front where she undressed to her pants and put on some nipple tassles, a playboy headband and a glove. She was completely nonplussed despite her kind of body being a rather rare sight for the average media consumer. She went on to explain to the audience why we had been seated in particular groups - she wanted to see the age demographics at a glance and proceeded to tell us what singled out the individual groups of generations. My generation are a snacking generation, we are into Vlogging and we're more environmentally aware than any other age group. That was the part about us. Then we were redirected back to the Ketamine and were told about Kaity's drug history. She talked like she was discussing her diet. 'I quite liked this... I consider myself a bit of an alchemist... I had a bit of that... I stopped having this... my true love is K... '. There was a particular 'Tri-?'concoction of speed, MD and cocaine (I think) that stood out. The immorality of it made me quite disorientated.The videos of her at home taking Ket were numerous. It was funny watching her, face relaxed, singing along to songs, eyes closed. It was an interesting choice having her drug experience over lay her whole explanation of her intention behind the performance and the drug history. It felt extremely casual. Made the drugs sound fun... but then she said that this performance was the result of some kind of midlife crisis. That when she looked back on her life all she really saw was drugs and she was thinking about what to do next. She also showed us the period during which her ideas for creating the piece were evolving. She claimed to have got some inspiration from taking Ketamine while in India over the holiday period - she showed us videos of this which painfully revealed it was a bit of a lie and she couldn't even finish the sentence 'I've been thinking..' she was so off her face. As I sat there I felt myself viewing as one of my family members - for a few minutes thinking 'what kind of message is this giving off? She shouldn't be in a theatre, she should be in some kind of rehab'. But she was so comfortable and that meant that I was so comfortable. And her Scottish tinted voice spoke with such warmth and certainty that it did feel like she had created something important even though the only material in the whole piece came from personal videos, photographs and Facebook. She talked of her mental health deteriorating after her second make over. She was trying to work out who she was not apart from or despite the drugs but with them. And that left me with some hope. Though I didn't see any sign of her going drug or alcohol free any time soon.
The second show of the night made me feel uncomfortable. I wanted to enjoy it. When Katherine looked up at me I smiled back into her expressive eyes. I did. But underneath I was confused. I was able to understand the humorous videos that were made with Daniel Oliver. I was able to understand the sketch with the external arms manipulating the boring story that Katherine was telling about washing a van. I was able to sing along to the distorted kids song that satirised popular story book characters. But I wasn't able to feel comfortable because... I am able. Katherine is primarily a performance artist. One thing that inspires her work is the fact that she is wheel chair bound. In this case the work was ruthlessly frigid and raw about disability. It felt startlingly important. I think the reason I was so repelled by it is because I'm used to live art at least being a conversation and in this case I was muted by my ignorance and shock at not being prompted to feel pity like we normally do. It's made me realise I am too cautious about my views on disabled theatre and that the strength, force and fire I witnessed from Katherine shouldn't surprised me.
I called this blog Broken Bodies because I could see the performers naming a performance something like that. It was also an evening of delving into the new and taboo and, intellectually, I feel like I fell apart.
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