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BLOG 2006 ::: September 13, 2006 Today there was commotion on the beach. Beach-goers looked on as a penguin surfaced among the waves of Ipanema. I've seen him before. He's been around here for a month. He's our Loch-Ness cutie. I think it's the same penguin. An hour later when I was in the water further down towards my home he swam up to me. Six feet away. Wasn't there a Warner Brothers cartoon about a penguin that wanted to move to Honolulu or something? Daffy Duck or Bugs bunny or some character was always trying to send him back to Antartica. He would shed ice cubes tears of disappointment. I don't think our Nessie is lost. I think he likes it here. August 15, 2006 I'm back. Renting a place in Ipanema. I hope to maintain my connection with Europe. I've pretty much promised myself never to spend another winter in Northern Europe again. Enough is enough. I need heat. i need health. i NEED to live near the sand. I'm a person that has lived with pain too long. Physical pain. I had a knee operation when I was 16. My leg was never the same with screws in it. Even after they were removed 10 years later I still experienced a lot of pain. pain was just a part of my. my entire leg was always hurting. And running on sand is the only thing that takes the pain away. I now live 150 yards from the sands of Ipanema. I get up every morning and run 6 kilometers in the sand. (the soft part away from the ebb). Since I moved here I have no pain. A nice way to begin. A lot has happened since Empire premiered. I showed Isadora.Orb here in Rio. a two week run. Very successful with a good review. We hope to show it a lot more. Today was my last day teaching a workshop at the University of Veiga de Almeida in Barra da Tijuca. I gave a workshop I called Excercising the Visionary. The idea was to bring visionary thought into the realm of the favela. Most Brazilians people that there is no solution to the favela. "A favela não tem jeito"'. So I mix doing favela projects with visionary space projects along with writing excercises. Went well. I remained quite leniant and open seeing which students would step up to the plate. People enjoyed the class I think. But they don't respond in terms of homework. I have to be a bit of a bitch next time and insist that they bring in their work. Rio is hot. It's winter and we are up to 36 celsius. nice. I'll try to be a better blogger now. kisses to all who are back reading this. Review: Empire: Monday June 19, De Standaard, Belgium: translated from the Dutch Ricky Seabra reasons with the wink of an eye America is an Empire without an emperor. Hence, Ricky Seabra crowns himself Empress. I should have known this beforehand: Ricky SeabraÕs performance Empire is definitely more than somewhat gay. There was, after all, a nude soldier on the poster, with an automatic machine gun covering his genitals. But who would have expected a drag queen show? The Brazilian American artist Ricky Seabra has worked in our country before, with, among others, Airplanes & Skyscrapers (2002). Empire, which premiered last week in KC nOna, is an extremely hilarious lecture/performance about a serious, alienating and sometimes frightening subject: American nationalism. Seabra starts with an analysis of the American anthem. This anthem is regularly sung by pop divaÕs. You remember of course the incident with Janet JacksonÕs nipple and the fuss that caused. But one doesn't laugh at the anthem. Even less susceptible to irony is the flag this anthem talks about. In the anthem, the important question turns out to be whether the stars and stripes are still waving after the battle. The text gives no solution: it remains an open question. Seabra shows fragments of these performances and alternates them with the text on the screen. According to him, the question marks gradually disappeared out of the song text. A meaningful omission? Seabra shows how to correctly fold the American flag and shows the type of films that are heavily parodied by the Simpsons: the stupid animation films that drill the constitution, the founding fathers and the flag into school children. Even if youÕve seen these parodies a lot, the originals remain more horrifying than silly. America behaves as an empire, but looses grip because it lacks an emperor or empress. When Seabra states this, he undresses and somewhat later a Beyoncˇ-clone appears on stage. She is Rickyoncˇ, empress of a bootyliscious country. (this is an eye wink to Beyoncˇ, as well as the subtitle of this performance: Love to Love You, Baby, one of her hit singles). The tone of the performance hardly changes after this. The drag diva keeps on giving us seriousness in a party dress. On her laptop, she surfs to a website where all American army bases are marked on the globe. Seabra doesnÕt give any comment here, but the image of his laptop is projected on a video screen behind him, and he mixes these images of the globe with images from Nancy SinatraÕs These boots are ade for walking. Power is indeed as simple as shoes: you need one to walk on and one to conquer the world. Later on, Rickyoncˇ also shows her warriors: she finds them by surfing to a gay pornsite: www.malecorps.com Empire is a light-hearted, intelligent performance. Seabra doesnÕt do more than collect images from TV, films and internet, as far as they fit his subject. A bit like Michael Moore. But Seabra doesnÕt feel the need to convince his audience. Moore makes his arguments with a hammer Šwhich is valuable- and Seabra with the wink of an eye. Marc Cloostermans June 19, 2006 Woohoo!!!! Empire is over (i'm exhausted) and it gets a great review in the Belgian newspaper De Standaard! They call it "an extremely hilarious lecture/performance about the heavy, alienating and sometimes frightening subject: American nationalism . . . Empire is a light-hearted and intelligent performance. Seabra doesn't do more than bring together images from TV, film and internet as long as they fit the subject. Kind of like Michael Moore. But Seabra has less of a need to convince his spectators. Moore reasons with a hammer - and that has it's value - but Seabra with the wink of an eye." Here's the review in Dutch. Translation will come later this week: Maandag 19 juni 2006 / Theater Ricky Seabra redeneert met de knipoog Amerika is een keizerrijk zonder keizer. Ricky Seabra kroonde zichzelf alvast tot keizerin. Achteraf bekeken had ik wel kunnen weten dat Ricky Seabra's voorstelling Empire meer dan een tikkeltje gay zou zijn. Er stond, per slot van rekening, een blote soldaat op de affiche, met een automatisch wapen voor zijn genitali‘n. Maar wie verwacht zich dan meteen aan een travestieshow? De Braziliaans-Amerikaanse kunstenaar Ricky Seabra was eerder in ons land te gast, onder meer met Airplanes & skyscrapers (2002). Empire, dat vorige week te zien was in KC Nona, is een ontzettend komische lezing/performance over een ernstig, bevreemdend, soms beangstigend onderwerp: Amerikaans nationalisme. Seabra begint met een analyse van het Amerikaanse volkslied. Dat volkslied wordt regelmatig gezongen door popdiva's. U herinnert zich het incident met Janet Jacksons tepel en de heisa die dat veroorzaakte. Met of in de buurt van het volkslied wordt niet gelachen. En nog minder vatbaar voor ironie is de banier zelf waarover gezongen wordt. De prangende vraag van het volkslied is of de stars and stripes nog flapperen als de strijd gestreden is. De tekst geeft geen uitsluitsel: het blijft een open vraag. Seabra toont beeldfragmenten van uitvoeringen, waarbij de tekst ook op het scherm verschijnt. Volgens hem zijn de vraagtekens uit de liedtekst geleidelijk aan verdwenen. Veelzeggend? Seabra doet voor hoe een Amerikaanse vlag correct moet worden opgevouwen en toont het soort filmpjes dat in The Simpons uitvoerig geparodieerd is: de belachelijke tekenfilmpjes waarmee schoolkinderen het belang van de grondwet, de Founding fathers en de vlag ingelepeld krijgen. En hoe vaak je de parodie‘n ook gezien hebt, het origineel blijft toch nog altijd eerder griezelig dan silly. Amerika gedraagt zich als een keizerrijk, maar ontspoort omdat het geen keizer of keizerin heeft. Als Seabra die stelling uitgesproken heeft, kleedt hij zich om, totdat er een Beyoncˇ-kloon op het podium staat. Zij is Rickyoncˇ, de keizerin van een bootyliscious wereldrijk. (Een knipoog naar Beyoncˇ, net als de ondertitel van de voorstelling: Love to love you, baby. Dat is een single van haar.) De toon van de voorstelling verandert daarmee amper. De drag-diva blijft ons vergasten op ernst in feestverpakking. Op haar laptopje surft ze naar een site, waar op een globe alle Amerikaanse legerbasissen ter wereld aangeduid worden. Gesproken commentaar geeft Seabra er niet bij, maar het beeld van zijn laptop wordt geprojecteerd op een videoscherm achter hem, en over de globe heen zie je beelden van Nancy Sinatra die These boots are made for walking zingt. Macht is inderdaad zo simpel als schoenen: met het ˇˇn wandel je, met het ander verover je de wereld. Later stelt Rickyoncˇ u ook nog haar manschappen voor; daarvoor surft ze naar de homopornosite www.malecorps.com. Empire is een lichtvoetige, intelligente voorstelling. Nochtans doet Seabra niet veel meer dan beelden van tv, films en internet samenbrengen, voor zover ze bij zijn onderwerp passen. Een beetje zoals Michael Moore. Maar Seabra heeft minder de behoefte om zijn toeschouwers te overtuigen. Moore redeneert met de hamer - dat heeft zijn verdienste - en Seabra met de knipoog. Ricky Seabra speelt "Empire: Love to love you, baby". Gezien in Mechelen, KC Nona, op 16/6. Van onze medewerker Marc Cloostermans June
7, 2006
I'm drunk on Duvels right now in mechelen. I have a press conference tomorrow as empress of America and I still have glitter all over my body from rehearsals. I will walk home glittery nonetheless. I'm totally into the American Empire right now and even more fascintated (even in love) with the Star Spangled Banner. The discoveries I have made about it are mind-boggling. I just received the following jpeg from my director Dirk Verstockt. Pretty good.
May 28, 2006 Yesterday before leaving home (my B&B here in Mechelen) I decided to shave my legs. Since we start rehearsing my Empress role on Monday I thought I should be ready at least hair-wise (capillarily?). Funny though how you have to keep on shaving or grooming so that everything looks somewhat uniform. . . ass, lower back, chest hairs (the few I got) and arm pits. Those I've been shaving a little every 3 days so that I'm not surprised with itches and ingrown hairs. (Today I concluded my armpits). So after working on Empire on computer the whole day yesterday I told Axel, one of the directors on NONA theater, that maybe I should promote Empire and pass out flyers dressed as the Empress of America in the theater bar after the Abattoir Fermé's show. Axel thought it was a good idea so 5 minutes before the show was over I ran to the studio and got in my dress, shoes, wig and faux Chanel sunglasses. I got up the courage and walked into the theater bar. Quite an experience. First time I've ever done drag in public. At first I had to tense up the muscles in my legs so my knees wouldn't shake. But after a Duvel and many compliments to my legs I started to relax. I looked quite nice in drag. I was shooting for the Beyoncé / Destiny's child look. I thought I would suck and it was a very good idea that I experimented with it in public yesterday as opposed to leaving my first time for the premiere! But last night I realized that I do make a nice drag queen. The trick for me is showing as much leg as possible and hiding as much of my Portuguese nose as possible with big Chanel/Prada type glasses. At the end of the night with just a few people in the bar I went upstairs and changed back to Ricky. I was surprised at how uninteresting and ugly I became. So I went home after one more Duvel and dreamed that my dress tore, my heels broke and that the blue reflective film on my sunglasses came off. Drag Anxiety Syndrome. May 27, 2006 So Empire is coming along. I have another 3 weeks until curtain time. The play is divided into two parts so far. First, me, Ricky talks about the Empire . . . analyzing it through the national anthem. I listen to the Star Spangled Banner at least 20 times a day now and rather than getting sick of it I'm starting to appreciate it as a fantastic work of poetry. . . quite open to interpretation . . . and, to romanticize a bit, quite the "living document" like the Constitution. We have pretty much nailed down the Ricky half of the performance and on Monday we move onto the Empress part when I get into my heels and turn into Rickyoncé, Empress of America. My mission: to advise Americans on how to maintain the first nonperishable Empire of the world. It's Saturday today and I slept 12 hours last night. I was quite burned out from the intense week. I was going to work out today using my Billy Blank's Tae Bo tapes (The Empress practices Tae Bo in heels) but I was far too jaded to go to the studio let alone get on stilettos. But I did solve my Google Earth scene today. The Empress dances with Google Earth showing the expansion of the American Empire. So all is well. Belgium is just a bit too gloomy and drizzly. I wish the sun would come out. May 13 , 2006 Still enormously jet-lagged. When travelling eastward my jet-lag usually lasts a day for every half hour of time difference. So I'm around 6 to 9 hours jet-lagged (since I was in DC and LA between May 2nd and 8th). So if I'm 8 hours jet-lagged it'll be 16 days before I'm back to my normal insomnia. But then I have a festival in Brasilia coming up. Supposedly I'm going to be given a ticket to travel to Brasilia on the 25th Thursday. Arrive Friday. Rehearse Saturday. Perform Sunday. Leave Monday. Arrive back in Belgium Tuesday. But I believe it when I see the ticket. Shaved my right leg yesterday. Two down and none to go. Looks quite nice. Feels nice too. I find I caress my legs a lot. It takes some 15 years off your legs when you shave them. My empress throne looks good and now we are wiring it up. I control and survey the world from it in the performance. I have to bring my storyboard and script back home (Bed and Breakfast) every night so as not to waste time. My sleep is so screwed up now. Last night for example I went to bed at 8PM, woke up at 11:30PM. Worked on my script till 4:30AM, and woke up at 9:30AM. May 11 , 2006 Totally jet-lagged right now. Slept an incredible 9 hours last night. Just arrived in Belgium after a conference in Los Angeles with the Zero Gravity Arts Consortium. I talked about the projects I hope to carry out on our parabolic flight this summer. One will be an improvised scene for Isadora.Orb. The other will be conducted in Lunar Gravity (the airplane starts off doing three parabolas of Martian gravity, then 3 of Lunar, then 6 of Zero. During one Lunar gravity parabola I hope to have everyone on the plane go to the front of the plane and skip towards the back. This is for a lunar architecture concept of mine called Skipping Halls. These are long tubular structures that serve as a substitute for transport systems. Instead of getting on a vehicle to travel from one base to another or from one place in a base to another, one would walk into one of these tubes and simply skip in long, high strides to their destination. Then I talked about Isadora.Orb and showed scenes from the performance. In Isadora.Orb, Andrea is the one who goes into space. She is a representation of my desire to go. . . or rather she is the metaphor for the poetic potential of space. But at no point do I go. I represent the feasibility, the plan. But now that I have the chance to go on a parabolic flight I realized I should incorporate this giant leap of mine into the performance. So today I go to the theater to set up the stage for Empire. Last night before going to bed I shaved my left leg. What a project! I didn't realize a leg had so much surface area to shave. Will shave the right leg now. April 25, 2006 Junior de Luziania, me mande um email. April 20, 2006
Will
somebody please give Bush a blow job so we can impeach him! April 7, 2006 (Happy Birthday Bia!!!) The following letter appears in this month's Art Monthly (issue May 2006, no. 295). In January I received a spam from Jimmy Durham containing a speech he gave at the World Social Forum in Porto Alegre in 2005. In his speech he proposes to boycott the Sao Paulo Biennale because of Brazil's treatment of indians. He complains of the way some Brazilians refer to Indians as "our Indians". He equates Brazil under Lula da Silva to South Africa under Botha. He suggests that public addresses should always acknowledge the people that once occupied the land (Porto Alegre to him is the land of the Guarani) and he talks about how people of European extraction should apologize to people of native New World extraction (which would be something quite difficult to implement considering the mixture of races that occurs in the New World. Anyway, a few weeks ago I was browsing the internet and I found that Durham's speech was getting some press in the art community so I decided to send my response to his speech to Art Monthly: A response to Jimmie Durham's brilliant boycott of the São Paulo Biennial: Dear Mr. Durham, Aside from the expression "our Indians", we have another expression in Brazil: "The left only unites in jail." (A esquerda só se une na cadeia). After 184 years of right wing governments, Brazilians have finally put a left wing President in power (infinitely more left wing than anything your country will ever be capable of producing in the next 100 years). And NOW you find it appropriate to equate Brazil to South Africa under apartheid to help move along your cause. (And you call it "in the spirit of solidarity"). Well, thanks for that nail in the coffin for our struggling left wing government. If I were a paranoid leftist I would say that your discourse is funded by the CIA in order to divide a growing left-wing sentiment in South America. But I'm NOT a paranoid leftist. I just see you as another self-serving activist that can't choose, tactically, the right time to act upon his impulses. And that's why (according to the left-wing expression I mentioned) that WE LEFTISTS, historically, end up in jail more than right-wingers. Your boycott plan gives us nothing to act upon. No names, no agencies. Not even a face to pie. Just an opportunity to do some performance art on the steps of a Biennial. I can already see it on the news this summer: Probably mostly American activist/performance artists traveling on funds provided by their patrons or their NYFA grants. The broadcasts on CNN and Fox News will be one minute long max giving the impression that Brazilians hate Indians (period) while NEITHER network will be covering Guantanamo or the Patriot Act. Your face on the cover of Art News, of course. Because the American left has been so inadequate that it has absolutely NO REPRESENTATION in Congress you now want to force your ideas on others outside your country the way Bush does "freedom". Interesting, isn't it, Mr. Durham, how the oppressed mimic the oppressor? You may want to brush up on your Paulo Freire. Your so called "spirit of solidarity" is destructive and your ideas about collective New World apology are boring. I'm an American and a Brazilian citizen, part Portuguese, part Marajó Indian, part Black, maybe some Spanish, Dutch and Irish if I go back far enough. I don't expect my hairy Portuguese ass to apologize to my beardless Brazilian Indian face. Nor would I allow my hairy Portuguese legs, next time they go to Lisbon, to acknowledge trodding Moorish soil. Haven't our puritan (now I'm speaking as an American) Judeo-Christian upbringings contaminated us with enough guilt? Oy Vay! No, Mr. Durham. You were NOT in the land of the Guarani when you announced your brilliant boycott idea. You were in the land that was ONCE Guarani. You were in Brazil, honey bun. A country that has been independent longer than Belgium, Italy, Germany and other Old World nations. You emphatically say that WE are the ones that "MUST change now!". Give the world a fuckin' break! The people that must change are the American left with it's pedantic politically correct rhetoric on how others should run their lives and choose their words making leftists look more and more foolish hence giving strength to America's right. Yes, Brazilian Indians should have territory, rights and opportunities to education but we don't need shit media reports trivializing performance art and warping its meta-language messages into sound-bites that are going equate Brazilians to Nazis. Many Brazilians are working hard with Indian nations while thousands if not millions more are dealing effectively with other EQUALLY HUGE problems. And, finally, making art biennials into our battlegrounds (I'm an artist too) for the media to transmit is just as senseless as Blacks in South Central or Arabs in Paris burning their own property. It is misdirected activism. Instead of boycotting São Paulo maybe the PEOPLE OF THE WORLD should boycott the Whitney Biennial this year! For what? A totally lame and ineffective American left . . . oh yeah . . . and the illegal war in Iraq which the American left can do nothing to stop. Until we meet in jail, Mr. Durham. Um abraço, Ricky Seabra April 6 , 2006 My letter attacking Jimmy Durham's proposal to boycott the Sao Paulo Biennale was published in the British publication Art Monthly (May 2006 / No 295). I'll publish the letter here soon. Other than that all is OK. In Brasilia now preparing my costume and set design for my next performance Empire, Love to Love You Baby. It just rains too much here in Brasilia and there are far too many mosquitoes. Feb 4, 2006 Today I bought my dress and heels for my new performance. At least 30 minutes of it will be in drag. My legs looked great in the 5 inch stilettos. But they were so difficult to walk in. After 10 minutes my calf muscles started to convulse. I got so tired from the knees down. Muscles in my boney feet were trembling. But I thought... what the heck. just get them. 16 years ago I used to puke before going on stage. And in my last performance I sang a solo in Russian. If I can learn a song in Russian I can learn to walk in stilettos. Feb 3 , 2006 The development of my new performance (Empire, Love to Love You Baby) has been going pretty well. My residency at the Kunstencentrum NONA is almost over. Now I'm winding down. When I got into the studio to work in December I knew what I didn't want to do for EMPIRE... I didn't want your typical left wing anti-globalization discourse. After two months I have now found a direction with things I want to show and talk about, sing and even dance. And last week I even came up with somewhat of a storyline. I feel quite good about it. But there is still a lot of work to be down for the premiere in June. I head back to the States around the 8th of February. I hope to visit friends in 4 cities, Atlanta, DC, NY, Philly. I also hope to conduct some interviews about the things i will be talking about in Empire. I've been living outside of America for so long that I just need some American feedback. So that's it for now. I'll trying to be a better blogger. Jan 29, 2006 The development of my new performance (Empire, Love to Love You Baby) has been going pretty well. My residency at the Kunstencentrum NONA is almost over. Now I'm winding down. When I got into the studio to work in December I knew what I didn't want to do... which is your typical left wing antiglobalization discourse. Now I have found a direction with things I want to show and talk about, sing and even dance. And last week I even came up with somewhat of a storyline. I feel quite good about it. But there is still a lot of work to be down for the premiere in June. I head back to the States around the 8th of February. I hope to visit friends in 4 cities, Atlanta, DC, NY, Philly. I also hope to conduct some interviews about the things i will be talking about in Empire. I've been living outside of America for so long that I just want to see what kind of reaction the material I came up with will get. So that's it for now. I'll trying to be a better blogger.
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