Chop Chop Chop (2024)

Chop Chop Chop (2024) is a risky live performance piece enacted at a house ball exploring themes of failure and freedom. In this experimental performance, I walked three categories (Bizarre, Lip Sync and Sex Siren) with the intention of soliciting a “chop” from the judges by offering an alternative interpretation of the current ballroom standards in Vancouver*.

I was influenced by Melti Suryodarmo’s iconic Exergie – Butter Dance (2000), a 20-minute long performance involving Melti dancing on a flat of butter while repeating slipping and falling. I find Butter Dance absolutely absurd while appreciating the perseverance required to keep getting up and dancing on the increasingly precarious surface. It creates intense tension for the audience, and similarly, I wanted the audience witnessing my failure performance to feel uncomfortable and unclear regarding my behaviour. I wished for the audience to have gut reactions like, “WHAT!”, “WHY?” and “She’s doing it WRONG!”.

I also felt uncomfortable. I worked incredibly hard knowing that in showcasing an authentic version of myself, I would be publicly rejected (chopped). Although I was driven by a strong creative impulse to make this work, I had to actively sit with my inner critics throughout the process — including now in the aftermath (I’m scared! I’m scared!).

I long for recognition, safety and belonging within community, so it was intense to allow myself to experience the feelings and bodily sensations relating to such public failure and overt rejection: disappointment, humiliation, and fear. As failure was my goal, contradictorily, I was incredibly successful.

Ultimately, this performance was a deliberate act to unravel the connection between feelings of failure and a core belief of shame within myself.

I survived.

It is okay to find my voice.
I’m allowed to have an opinion and to express it.
I can feel the frozen fear melting. It is moving up and out of my heart.

I am a free radical!
And, I have never felt more proud of myself.

Thanks for being interested in the chaos!

*Vancouver is located on the unceded traditional territories of the Sḵwx̱wú7mesh, Səl̓ílwətaʔ/Selilwitulh and Xʷməθkʷəy̓əm.