|
|
Rickyoncé
is the Empress of the American Empire in
Empire,
Love to Love You, Baby
(Or How I Learned to Fear Being Un-American
and Love the War on Terror)
|
Empire
is a light-hearted, intelligent, and
extremely hilarious lecture/performance about a serious, alienating
and sometimes frightening subject: American nationalism. Read entire review and view Empire poster below images |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
Empire, love to love you baby is Ricky Seabra’s third solo performance. Empire, love to love you baby taps into the questioning of the American Empire as it is today. As a Brazilian-American artist, who keenly constructs and deconstructs images live on stage, Ricky Seabra speaks through the voice of the American Empress Rickyoncé. Her Imperial Highness argues and works for an ever-expanding and non-perishable Empire. |
|
Empire
premiered June 15th in Mechelen at the Kunstencentrum nOna, Belgium Review:
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 Seabra's 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 diva's at sporting events. You remember of course the incident with Janet Jackson's 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 pop diva 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 animated films that drill the constitution, the founding fathers and the flag into school children's heads. Even if you've 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 Beyoncé-clone appears on stage. She is Rickyoncé, empress of a bootyliscious country. (this is an eye wink to Beyoncé, 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 Google Earth where she has marked all the American army bases on the globe. Seabra doesn't 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 Sinatra's These Boots Are Made for Walking. Power is indeed as simple as shoes: you need one to walk on and one to conquer the world. Later on, Rickyoncé also shows her warriors: she finds them by surfing to a gay pornsite: www.malecorps.com. Empire is a light-hearted, intelligent performance. Seabra doesn't do more than collect images from TV, films and internet, as far as they fit his subject. A bit like Michael Moore. But Seabra doesn't feel the need to convince his audience. Moore makes his arguments with a hammer - which is valuable - and Seabra with the wink of an eye. - Marc Cloostermans |
2005 2008 for upcoming presentations click on: |
.