Diane Torr is a performance artist, writer, director and educator who developed her career in New York over a period of 25 years. In the past three years, she has taken up residence in Glasgow, where she was invited to teach an interdisciplinary course at Glasgow School of Art, and to work with the company Mischief-La Bas, Glasgow, in a new devised production, Painful Creatures. In teaching her gender transformation workshops, Diane has worked extensively in the gay and trans communities in New York, and Glasgow. Over the years she has evolved into a global drag king ambassador.
Drag King Workshop (for women only) presented by Diane Torr
(At the National School of Drama with 3rd Year Students)
"Have you ever wanted to dress like a man, try on the male guise and enter the male domain? The drag king workshop is a unique experience in which women take on the role of men, and live as men for a day. Each woman is responsible for the identity of the male she conceives of for herself, and is required to provide the clothes she will need for her male persona. In the workshop, women will learn how to walk, talk, take up space, and assume the sense of privilege and entitlement that goes along with the male gender. They will practice interacting with other participants in the workshop in their new personae. The workshop culminates in a visit to a public space - a strip joint, a sports bar, an art opening, or perhaps a dance club, where we can test our new identities."
The drag king workshop at NSD was with six 1st year students from 11am-9pm on Sunday, March 11. It was the first drag king workshop I presented in India! What excitement! During the workshop each participant gets a makeover with facial hair, five o clock shadow, etc. which is a pre-requisite to their developing a male character. Some of the students went on observational field trips on campus to check out their male counterparts - how the men articulated themselves physically - behavior, gesture, facial expressions, voice, etc. Others in male garb were confronted by some male students, "Why are you doing this? This is a male-dominated culture. You should not be doing this!" (They clearly were offended by this deconstruction of "man") or some male students were sympathetic and wanted a separate class so they could transform to women.
The students participating were...Laxmi Rawat – male character name “Kapil Rao”, Madhu Smriti Shukla – male character name “Bobby Singh”, Rasika – male character name “Anil Sharma” and N. Kritika – male character name “Abhilash Natrajan”
Each of these students was extremely serious in their engagement with the workshop. They are in a reflective frame of mind as their time at NSD is coming to an end. The workshop brought up issues for them about their situation as 5 female students in a class of 15 males, and the struggle they have had to have a voice over the last three years. They spoke about overall sexism in the school – the fact that no female student has ever had a position, as Union Rep, School President, etc. Also about the selection process for the school – that it is predominantly male students who are on the selection panel. Then they talked further about gender politics in the Staff at NSD, which made me realise that sexism was not just confined to the student population. Additionally, the workshop confronted the students with their situation once they graduate from NSD. They discussed being an actress or working in the theatre in a culture where it is not considered respectable employment for a woman and, for some families, is even approximating prostitution. We deviated from the schedule of the workshop in order for discussion to take place.
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I was assisted in the make-up by Meeta Mishra, an ex student who contributed to the discussion by describing her experiences of working in theatre in other countries, and how this was a possible strategy as a way to develop confidence as a theatre artist. Meeta also had a few new make up tricks like making thick beard and moustaches.... which were not essential for me before I came to India!
Laxmi Rawat said in the introduction that she was curious about experimenting with taking on a male character. In her family she does not have a problem being a girl. She feels free. Laxmi spoke in Hindi when she was in her male character, which was fine, though I missed some of what she said as him. Her character, Kapil Rao, is 26 years old and a graphic designer. He is single and has many friends. In developing the male character, Laxmi tended to act as “Kapil” and had difficulty becoming him. Her performance as “Kapil” in the class improvisation was as if she was on stage, and it was not until we hit the streets of Greater Kailash that Laxmi came into his own. Laxmi coupled with Meeta Mishra, and went to a restaurant together. In the restaurant, they discussed their relationship as boyfriend and girlfriend, with Meeta insisting that she only liked Kapil and Kapil declaring his extreme love for Meeta. Their conversation became impassioned, much to the distress of the woman at the next table, who held up her hand as if to shield herself from them. Kapil was thoroughly enjoying the situation and proceeded to kiss Meeta, which apparently shocked those at nearby tables. Meeta played her part and insisted that they be “friends” and nothing more. In the van driving back to NSD, Laxmi was very animated and said she hadn’t ever had so much fun.
Rasika never felt forbidden to do things as a girl, but she sometimes felt that nobody should look at her and give her special attention as a woman. She doesn’t want to be noticed – wants to be part of the crowd. She hoped that as a man she would be able to achieve this invisibility. Rasika is very expressive, and has "fluttering fingers". She uses each finger individually, which is an unusual skill, especially for me – coming as I do from the West. However, this expressiveness in the way she uses her fingers, arms and whole body, is not useful in becoming a man. Her expressiveness is very much a part of her, and she found it almost impossible to be aware of it, and to change it. Consequently, when she went out in public, she found that people were staring at her even more. She was somewhere in between being a man and a woman, and this held even more of a fascination for onlookers than if she was merely a woman. The experience made her frustrated, but also brought her, and Madhu, who accompanied her, to think about people who are trans-gendered – how it must be for them.
Madhu Smriti Shukla in the introduction wanted to develop a different perspective. She wanted to separate from how she thinks as a woman, and wanted to discover, for example, what is a man’s process when he looks at a woman or when he talks to other men. What is it like on the other side? As the male character, Bobby Singh, his parents are from Punjab and he did his education – B.Commerce in Bangalore. His ambition is to become an engineer but he knows that his father will give him money to open his own businees and he is planning to open a woollen factory. He likes girls. Likes to talk to them. He was in a co-ed school where the girls would steal his parathas, but he didn’t mind. He likes girls. As Bobby Singh, Madhu was very successful. It was fortunate that Bobby Singh accompanied Anil Sharma to the McDonald’s at G.K. Market, as he was able to maintain confidence when Anil was losing his. One thing that Madhu noticed was that there was a man eating in Mcdonald’s and he had extremely feminine gestures – he was even more feminine than Rasika. It made her wonder what it must be like for him, and for others who don’t fit into the gender stereotype. This experience gave Madhu some sympathy for them. Madhu was courageous to take such an extreme character as a Punjabi Sikh, but she pulled it off with flair, and was particularly good at maintaining a male voice. Though as a young Punjabi man, her voice could have a light and playful quality, which was not so far removed from her own.
N. Kritika, in the introduction, talked about a production she had done with other students where they were looking at gender and at transformation into something else. Rasika, for example, had played the part of a eunuch. She saw the workshop as an extension of that enquiry. As the director, Abhilash Natrajan, she was impersonating one of the Acting Directors at the school with whom she had been working on a production. N. Kritika is a big woman and very self-aware. The transformation into her male character was not difficult, and probably was made easier because she had worked closely with the person she was impersonating. Her size was useful in exercises like learning to take up space and to hold your ground. I coupled up with her when we went out publicly to G.K. Market. However, first the whole group went to Nathu’s Pastry Shop in the Bengali Market – a daily hangout for the students.
It was interesting for the students to interact with counter-hands who see them regularly but didn’t recognise them. At G.K Market, Abhilash had a plan, and I followed him through the whole market walking at a fast pace, never stepping aside for anyone and even bumping into some stationary people, without a backward glance. Our destination was a local bar/disco where we had a couple of beers and even danced to the Bollywood numbers, bringing our beer glasses on the dance floor. This last action filled N. Kritika with mirth, as she later recalled the experience. We did not attract any special attention and were generally ignored by passers-by, who got out of our way – two men on a mission! In the feedback session afterwards, N. Kritika said that it was the first day she had not been conscious of the fact that she is fat. She felt it was OK to be fat as a man – that it was not a problem.
On the way back to NSD, N. Kritika bought a bunch of white roses, whilst we all observed his interaction with the flower seller from the van. I was rewarded with a bunch of roses, when Abhilash re-entered the van. That was a special thank you from the students.
Long may they thrive!!!
Please visit http://www.teak.fi/teak/ACT/torr.html for more details on Diane Torr’s workshops.
Diane Torr
I have been making mainly solo performance work for over 25 years, with the exception of a few collaborations and group pieces. I was very excited to have the opportunity to make new work within a situation in which there was the potential to collaborate with artists from other countries, and to possibly include people from the community around Khoj.
I wanted a working dialogue with the other artists, and to kick start that process, I offered a one day performance workshop at the beginning of the residency in which everyone could participate. The workshop began with physical exercises, including breathing, stretching, and working in partners to do body lifts and stretch the body further. I had instructed each person to bring a personal object – something of some significance to them. These were distributed at random to participants who had their eyes closed, were sitting on the floor and with hands behind their back. Their experience with the objects was a tactile one, as I took the objects back before they opened their eyes. They then used their sense memory of the object to create a character, and developed movement, voice, gesture, etc. through improvisation. Each formed character then collaborated with another, and created a duet which was shown to the group.
The exercise following this was a solo performance that each participant then created with their own object, focusing on their essential connection to the object, such as an emotional narrative, eg. one of the residents had brought in a small stuffed toy bunny rabbit which she had brought with her, and was a momento from a close friend.
The second half of the day’s performance workshop was site-specific and took place in the local Khirkee Mosque – a 14th century historic monument which has many arches and domes. Working in partners, they were given 30mins to work on an improvisatory performance that explored light/ shade and shadow within that environment. One pair¸ Oreet and Sushil used the light to make shadow puppets with their hands, and focused on the sound of the bats and birds in the mosque as a sound source; another pair, Anusha and Wu Ye made a series of synchronised movements in which their shadows were never apart, and always overlaid, accompanied to sounds that they each emitted; Sonia and Paulo sat back to back and experienced sound vibrations that they exchanged through their bodies, and they then positioned themselves at different angles to make shadows with their hands along the shade boundaries created by two of the columns in the mosque. I did a solo where I danced and tried to run away from my shadow, whilst singing the song “Me and my shadow”.
There followed two more performance workshops given by Anusha and another by Oreet, but the other resident participants for a variety of reasons, did not present one.
I was undaunted in my pursuit of working with a group, and decided I would offer a performance workshop for the locals. I organised signs in English and in Hindi, (translated by Arun) to be put up in the street inviting participants to take part.
There were five men from the village who showed up, and at the beginning all of the residents took part. I played some music and had everyone dancing alone and then together. Then with a partner, I asked them to follow each other’s movements, alternating who was the leader and the follower. Then I asked them to remember 3 or 4 of the movements they had created together. These were then passed along to the group and we all learned each other’s movements. In the end there was a complete choreography composed of the movements by twelve participants – six residents (Sonia dcid not participate because of a knee problem), five locals, and Asta, the Community Outreach Worker at Khoj. Everyone enjoyed the experience and there was a real sense of a group dynamics. Each day at 4pm, the performance workshop continued. However, towards the end of the week, it became clear that none of the locals wanted to be involved in a public performance, and the other residents had moved on to do their own studio-based performance projects. I had to reconsider the project and with Asta’s help, brought in 8 of the local kids, who were extremely excited and enthusiastic about the opportunity to participate. I was then able to “PASS ALONG” the movements created by the adults and have each of the kids contribute some of their own.
Is this performance that I conducted with the kids “Performance Art” or a “Community Project” or a “Street Performance”?
To present this performance publicly in the street in front of Khoj blurred the audience boundaries as there were both invited guests and a large crowd of local people watching. The definition of the work was also blurred – it was “performance art” in the sense that I am a performance artist and I initiated and conducted the work, but it can also be seen as a community project and a street performance.
In the last analysis, I achieved my objective – to work with a group in which we collaborate on a performance.
TTT ADVENTURE
This is a truly inter-active performance where the audience has the choice to watch or participate. Either way, they are the ones who are making the performance happen.
TTT Adventure was developed through a need to have a communication during the residency that was not using verbal language. One of the residents, Wu Ye is Chinese and one is Brazilian, Paulo, and they speak very little English, but they can both play the universal language of ping-pong! I decided to present the opportunity for a release from the daily struggle to communicate, and created the Table Top Tennis Adventure.
Here’s how it works -
Each participant takes a bat and as there are six – this is a game for six players. Each player moves around the table in a clockwise direction, and aims to hit the ball once at either end.
The skill is primarily in regulating your pace so that you are at either end of the table in time to hit the ball. You also need skills of co-ordination to hit the ball so that it bounces once on the other side of the table and not on the floor, or the wall, or your opposing number’s chest! As the days went by, some of the administration staff at Khoj got involved and demonstrated their ping-pong expertise. Then the occasional visitor to Khoj would also participate.
In the TTT Adventure, nobody wins and nobody loses,
but we have the chance to demonstrate skill and make fools of ourselves.
ALMOST HIDDEN is a solo performance which explores a liminal erotics. It derives from the concept of the forbidden glance. Imagine that you are in a car on a flyover on the highway. You pass an apartment block, and very briefly you get a glimpse into the window of one of the apartments. For a moment you become the voyeur of a private fantasy. A woman in slip, bra, wig and high heels, with her back to the window is dancing to the mirror. She is engrossed in watching herself as she repeatedly poses and tries out dance moves. For that second that you notice her, she turns around. She is wearing a black eye-mask. You are now not only curious but intrigued. The experience of the forbidden glance where a secret intimacy is publicly revealed, generates a fantasy in you that continues long after the car has passed over the flyover, and occupies your imagination as you travel along the highway.
My interest in making this performance is a continuation of an investigation and search for an erotic aesthetic which highlights the sensual in daily life. It is an attempt to bring awareness to the notion that we have ownership of our bodies and of the erotic. The erotic and the sexual have been claimed by corporate interests, as if there was a lease on this expression and they own it outright. This is very apparent in New Delhi , where there are taboos about kissing in public or holding hands in public and women can be publicly chastised or admonished for being considered “Immodest”. Bollywood and MTV are the two places that I’ve found where the erotic is allowed and celebrated. Television is a cold, voyeuristic medium where the audience looks on but can never physically participate. However, it is only within that package that this expression is tolerated. The one exception that I experienced in my time in New Delhi was when I visited “Pegs n Pints” on a Tuesday evening – when same sex couples uninhibitedly danced together like there was no tomorrow.