As submitted to CIIS for my MFA application.My creative work is equal parts personal and political: the creative arts are my way of making sense of my political situation, my social circumstances, my struggles and celebrations. At the same time, I have a keen interest in the aesthetic and technical aspects of the creative arts: which music conveys the mood I seek to express? How can I paint my face to express a certain character? How do I execute a sharp shimmy, maintain eye contact, keep my pacing?
After just over three years in performance art (starting with burlesque and circus, as well as some improv and theatre work), a lifetime of writing, and experimental forays into other creative forms, the time has come to bring my work to a greater level. I need to develop my skills and technique further, and I also need to delve deeper into my politics and heritage to create stronger, more evocative work, while also being supported and surrounded by my peers and inspirations. However, my current environment does not provide the mix of support and resources that I need to advance and grow.
My political experiences and activism are mainly centered on the experiences and representations of People of Colour / Culturally and Linguistically Diverse communities, particularly as they intersect with other identity politics such as gender, sexuality, and ability. Yet such issues are often marginalised in larger Brisbane activism. There have been a number of times where I have been involved in anti-racist activism and have been the only non-White person in the room, making my presence conspicuous. Political activism in this area has not always been as creative as I would have liked, despite appreciation of the strong political history of street theatre and music: most of its applications are towards demonstrations or bureaucratic-like processes, and any creative protest action does not tend to spend a lot of time on the
creative part.
Academia and media tackle these issues too, but mainly on a theoretical and impersonal basis - examining them from an outsider’s perspective rather than valuing the inner experiences of those that live these issues directly (
as explored in the anthology Feminism For Real edited by Indigenous anti-racist activist Jessica Yee). Self-help and personal development do take a more applied approach, but like activism there is not a lot of time or energy spent on form: art is often just a tool like any other, and there’s not a lot of scope for those who want to explore the art form further for its own sake.
Yet the arts world itself also has its limitations. The mainstream burlesque scene, in particular, has demonstrated some derision against those that they feel are
using burlesque as a therapy session, and both the
pro-burlesque and
anti-burlesque factions regularly debate the concept of “empowering” and whether the “burlesque is empowering!” sentiment leads to more professional performances. I feel that this derision and dismissal has led to a lack of insight about the
content,
heart and
impact of performance, whether as performer, producer, or audience member.
Some of the most powerful, moving, memorable acts I have been lucky to witness have been strongly from the heart and soul - pieces on battling inner demons, fighting oppressions, reclaiming stolen power. I was especially inspired by the thoughts of current Creative Interdisciplinary MFA student Saria Idana on catharsis and vulnerability and its role in creating “
art that moves”. Yet almost every class here spends more time on choreography than dramaturgy, and acts that are more overtly political or deeply personal are seen as “niche” at best, alienating and unentertaining at worse. These pieces may find a better ideological home in arts festivals and contemporary art venues - however, it is still a major challenge, as these art avenues tend to rely on a shared academic experience (while a lot of burlesque is self-taught or taught in more commercial settings) and see burlesque as too “low-brow” for inclusion. This then creates a conundrum for those who create alternative, political, activist burlesque: too angry and not pretty enough for the burlesque stage, too rude and not sophisticated enough for the contemporary arts world.
Things get even more complicated as a minority - one’s minority status is made out to be the
definition and
reason for their work, plenty of stereotypes and cultural appropriation takes place, and discussions about the implications of things like appropriation and stereotypes are shut down quickly for being “too dramatic”. These are
recurring patterns within contemporary burlesque (including in
supposedly more “sophisticated” avenues such as the queer subculture) but
most responses by the local (often White-dominant) burlesque community have been dismissive.
The MFA in Creative Inquiry at CIIS reminds me of one of my first ever forays into burlesque - a special weekend workshop called “Unleash Your Erotic Power”, hosted by San Francisco-based burlesque performer (and currently pop musician) Vixen Noir while on tour across Australia. The workshop was a mini version of those she had been teaching in the US and which have led to the launch of many performers’ careers over the years, especially those of queer women of colour. In the workshop she provides tools and encouragement for participants to explore and examine their sexual history, their thoughts and feelings around sexuality, and their desires and fears, and combines them with practical skills-building in burlesque performance - dance, character development, stagecraft. Out of this workshop comes a set of performances that are at once strongly erotic, polished and professional, and also deeply heartfelt and personal - often with a strong political edge (past participants have created work around issues like fatshaming and rape).
This represents, to me, the strong mix of elements that I desire for my creative and personal development: analysis of the underlying issues and politics; reflection and contemplation of my personal history and values; skills development in performance, stagecraft, writing, creative planning - all coming together to strongly support each other. Each element is crucially important, not just an afterthought, and together they combine to create powerful, inspiring, evocative work - that is also aware of and responsible for its position within culture and society, in terms of content and representation.
During my last stay in San Francisco, for a three-months arts residency in 2011 with CELLspace, I have noticed that San Francisco and the Bay Area is particularly ripe with the types of opportunities that I desire. I was awed at the Bay Area’s wealth of opportunities and the respect given to those who wanted to explore their sexuality in creative ways, without the derision or condescension because it wasn’t “high-brow” enough. Many of my respected role models and inspirations, such as Dr Carol Queen and Annie Sprinkle, are based in San Francisco and welcomed me warmly as family. It was hard to feel isolated or unsupported because any possible minority status had a strong community backing. Issues do still crop up, including serious community strife and bigotry, but there is also space and recognition for those who protest to speak up and be heard; a far greater critical mass than there would be in Brisbane or even elsewhere in Australia.
This is a huge part of the draw of the MFA for me: I would be surrounded by the very people whose work and footsteps I seek to emulate; be able to tap into a wealth of resources on politics, culture, and sexuality; and have the emotional and social support to allow me to keep going with my work. As I am supported by the MFA and wider communities, I am more able to contribute my own strengths and experiences - curiosity and keen research skills, a vibrant passionate energy, perspectives of race, culture, and sexuality from different parts of the world, the willingness to try new forms and styles while staying true of my core message - being free to explore who you are without retribution.
This message and mission is often expressed back to me through one very common line of feedback about my work:
"I wish I could do what you do, but my family would kill me."
I get this comment surprisingly often, from other South Asians who marvel at this particular South Asian openly expressing her sexuality, whether with my words or my body. They say I am their "role model", that they want me to be their "mentor", that we should hang out sometime and share tips.
Little do they know of the massive risks I constantly take as someone who is out and open about her work, especially with sexuality and physicality. There have been times where my family’s culture and heritage have conflicted severely with my more eclectic upbringing and current situation - and these are the experiences and values that inform me and influence me, even if only marginally.
I grew up as the child of Bangladeshi migrants to Malaysia, where sexuality was not something to be talked about, thought about, or considered at all. Attempts at a national sex education curriculum were often short-lived, not helped by the tendency to conflate cultural biases and superstitious fears with scientific information. This society prized intelligence above everything, especially physicality and the body - the only time physical skills were prized is if they led to award-winning achievements. I didn’t even have the time to ponder my sexual or gender identity (though questions did pop up sometimes) - I was battling deep racism, especially from school and government policies, and was already dealing with enough emotional abuse and trauma to really think about anything else.
My only solace was the Internet, especially as an outlet for my pop music fandom: I was inspired and comforted by the music of Savage Garden, whose lyrics seemed to mirror my life with eerie precision, and the upbeat tunes of Aqua kept me smiling when everything else tried to bring me down. Even to this day I count them as my main creative influences - while they do not explore quite the same political and creative areas that I do, their approach to music, lyric, and expression greatly informs my own, and much of their work has become the soundtrack to my own pieces. (At one stage I was planning a cabaret about my life based on the music of Darren Hayes and Savage Garden, but was turned down by their management due to possible copyright issues.)
My precocious desire to learn led me to investigate sex and reproductive health information under my own steam, but what I found did not entice me. It seemed too messy, too prone to danger (a 0.001% risk is too much!) and other things seemed more interesting (and risk-free). Occasionally a side of me - nicknamed Pandora, after a friend’s story - would pop up and taunt me with dirty fantasies and idle sensual curiosity. I ignored Pandora, figuring her to be more trouble than was worth, found solidarity with the online asexuality communities, protested against compulsory femininity by being as anti-feminine as possible (no makeup! no skirts! no beauty industrial complex!), and settled into a life of perpetual non-religious virginity.
Then in 2006 I moved to Australia, met my first boyfriend, and any sign of asexuality vanished. I learnt about pleasure, about the possibilities that lay with the senses, about romance and intimacy. Being with my partner introduced an especially steep learning curve to my understanding of relationships - after a number of years I accepted myself as polyamourous and queer, preferring to develop individualised relationships based on my history and connections with people rather than on societal definitions and rules. I re-examined what I learnt about love, sex, and relationships, comparing and contrasting my South Asian culture’s notion of marriage for companionship and care with the Western ideals of sexual compatibility and attractiveness, finding that neither works in isolation. I had to do a lot of this work on my own, cobbling together whatever sources I could find to build my own philosophy.
In 2009, after finishing my Bachelor’s degree in Creative Industries I decided to release myself from the shackles of familial expectations and pursue things that I found more interesting, even if they were risky. I was cast in a production of the
Vagina Monologues as the lady-loving dominatrix, which led me to investigate burlesque and kink further - and I fell in love with what I found. Here was an avenue for me to take the stage, a lifelong dream, and do it the way I want it to! I didn’t have to wait till I perfected complicated dance moves or conformed to a particular look or style: burlesque was built for self-expression, or so I felt. My class with Vixen Noir built a strong foundation for my perspective on burlesque. I revisited my (still) strong love for Darren Hayes and Savage Garden by creating a comedic skit based on a true teenage incident of my mother catching me in bed with their poster. I read widely and in depth about human sexuality, BDSM, sex worker rights, gender and sexuality politics - and gained an appreciation for the femininity I desperately tried to distance myself from before. Pandora was was making up for lost time in spectacular fashion.
However, the glitter and shine began to fade, and the scene’s true colours were not as pretty. I came across the propensity for racism and cultural appropriation, while simultaneously expecting POC/CALD performers to either fit into a 1940s corsets-and-pale-skin aesthetic or be as deeply ethnic as possible to be recognised. I was getting introduced as the Bollywood Princess at shows despite not having any acts to do with Bollywood. I would attempt to start discussions with other performers that staged very stereotypical work, talking about how that work is harmful and perhaps other avenues could be explored - but,
like Barakat experienced with her note on racism in queer performance in Sydney, the responses were often accusations of “calling for censorship”. For a scene that often prided itself on “rocking the boat” it seemed like they could not deal with controversy from within.
To find support, healing, and company I explored burlesque by communities of colour, queer communities, people that have faced some form of marginalisation in their lives. Their performances were offbeat, subtle and loud at the same time, stinging in their satire while still maintaining their bawdy sense of humour - much like how burlesque was at the very beginning in Victorian times. Performers like Brown Girls Burlesque, The Lady Miss Vagina Jenkins, Masti Khor, Glitta Supanova, Akynos, the Ladies of Colour Cabaret, Iskra Valentine, Ginger Snapz, Cherry Galette, JZ Bich, and many more used this form to burlesque itself: perceptions of what is beautiful and sexy, political power and the lack thereof, conforming to and breaking out of gender roles, telling stories of trying to exist as a human being in a world determined to stuff them into pigeonholes.
I found great inspiration and mentorship from people outside the burlesque world who deftly addressed issues like feminism, racism, and intersectional oppression into their work. These included Brisbane performance artists Evelyn Hartogh and Sunny Drake, who opened up their hearts and souls to me to provide creative and personal guidance, to multidisciplinary artists like Candy Bowers who are also active in fighting racism in their creative fields. I have since created a private Facebook group, Anti-Oppressive Burlesque and Creative Sexuality, for all these people to network, inspire, and commiserate. The group has been a strong source of solace, hope, and community.
I also heard from other people who were new to burlesque or were spectators, appreciating my work in speaking up for those within the margins. Some had wanted to explore burlesque, being charmed like I was by its potential for fun and fabulousness, but put off by the constant exotification and erasure of minorities like them. Others were dubious about any sort of open performance of sexuality but managed to see the radical possibilities for change through art.
To quote Heather MacAllister, founder and director of the Fat Bottomed Revue:
Any time there is a fat person onstage as anything besides the butt of a joke, it’s political. Add physical movement, then dance, then sexuality and you have a revolutionary act.
Their support and outreach showed me that it was still possible to create work that was heartfelt, poignant, personal, and also very political and hard-hitting. The work of my inspirations gave me the strength to keep going even when I was being attacked by other industry people who did not appreciate the call-outs and scrutiny. I looked around for other avenues to perform and create, finding like-minded friends in unusual places, while developing my knowledge on other ways people have used sexual expression to relate truths about themselves. I even branched out into other forms of creative sexuality, often more erotic: this was a major risk within my culture, and I am not as out as I would like to be about these aspects of my explorations.
In this journey I discovered an interesting dilemma: there is very little representation of South Asians in the fields of creative sexuality - burlesque, pornography, even erotic writing. Even the originally South Asian teachings of tantra and the Kama Sutra are predominantly taught and commercialised by White Western people, often with very colonial imperialistic stereotypes of South Asian culture, such as changing names to that of Hindu deities or whitewashing Tantra and Kama Sutra into predominantly sexual texts without respect for the original spirituality and cultural contexts. Even the “alt” scenes, exemplified by the likes of porn website Suicide Girls, are very White-heavy, and minority representations don’t tend to include South Asians. As a performer and model I have received plenty of comments about how I am “too fat”, “too hairy”, “too short”, “too dark”, and various other slurs about aspects of my body that are common to South Asians.
Even within South Asian culture, my look is not seen as attractive or desirable: I am the Before picture in the Fair and Lovely ads, in need of skin-lightening makeup and heavy foundation and long straight hair. Whether by local or international standards, people who look like me are considered “ugly”, and it is a rare soul that even recognises us as
sexual let alone
sexually attractive (especially difficult when queer, since we don’t neatly fit into conventions of queer fashion or look). I have spent many hours trawling website archives and databases looking for people who could be my kin, but they are few and far between: my only hints are cliche “South Asian” names, like Devi or Kali, and even then not all South Asians reveal their heritage as such due to a need to be anonymous (for example, a wellknown burlesque performer of Indonesian heritage tells others she is South American).
It’s this need to be anonymous and discreet that brings up the other half of this dilemma: there are South Asians who are interested and curious to explore these fields more, but social and familial taboos make it near-impossible to do so. The stigma against sex workers and sexually-open people is universal: almost every modern culture vilifies those that take their sexuality outside the framework of a heterosexual marriage with procreation as a priority (especially women and gender minorities), using slurs and insults like “slut” or “whore”, and questioning the moral values of those that dare to expose their body to the public. Even when these performers, models, and other producers are involved in something non-sexual, their judgement and values are questioned: for example,
the controversy over porn performer Sasha Grey reading aloud to children or
the number of teachers and childcare workers that were let go from their jobs due to potentially risque photos on their social network profiles. This gets extra complicated with many South Asian cultures due to the strong collectivist values of filial piety: everything you do is not just a reflection of you but also of your family, your kin, your community. Sex is seen as a private matter, kept between husband and wife; to bring any of that in the open and be indiscriminate about who gets access to your body is to dishonour yourself and dishonour your loved ones.
When young ladies are at risk of honour killings from their very conservative relatives for daring to even be close to a man; when gay and lesbian people are forced to seek asylum overseas for fear of their safety; when your job security, livelihood, and even custody of your children is precariously based on your reputation - any adjustment to that is risky, even if it’s not
you yourself stepping out of bounds.
Thankfully my parents were not prone to drastic measures such as murder or ostracism: however, they do hold a relatively well-respected position back home, and in a wide and vast family tree that accepts anyone however loosely related as kin, word spreads fast. When I first started doing burlesque there was a major family uproar over a number of pin-up photos I had shot of myself merely due to the presence of heaving cleavage: I was otherwise fully clothed and indeed was very conservatively dressed by pin-up standards. No explanation about my agency, my safety, my free will, or even the cultural differences that made these photos really not a big deal in Australia, would be entertained. It put a big strain on my relationship with my family and I feel obligated to not discuss or even hint at my creative practice. I do not think my actions have severely impacted my family’s livelihood in material or practical ways, but the stress of being hassled are high, especially with mental health.
With pressures like these - your family’s reputation and life in your hands, society not seeing you as having a sexuality - it’s no wonder then that South Asian representation is very low even compared to those of other minority cultures. Who wants to be the
first penguin, diving into ice seas to seek to seek sustenance, such high risk of death or injury? Who wants to bring that risk upon themselves, their family, and - by extension - their culture? Who wants to be saddled with the heavy responsibility of representing a major conglomerate of cultures, being the non-consenting spokesperson for people’s prejudices and biases, having their actions and bodies and expressions be taken as a symbol of that culture rather than an expression of their own individuality? There is hardly any support from family, and larger culture - whether mainstream or subcultural - is not as friendly either. What are South Asians to do if they want to explore their sexuality but do not see any safe ways to do so, no role models, no best practices? Not even recognition by their fellow minorities for their specific struggles and quandaries?
I completely appreciate the perspective of those who feel they could not even broach the idea: failure could lead to disaster far beyond that of the individual. The balance is so tricky to maintain - exploring and honouring your sexuality, sensuality, and sense of pleasure, while keeping to more conservative, traditional norms of such matters that remain private and narrow. It is this precarious balance that I wish to explore in my Creative Inquiry MFA, including documenting my own practice and the reactions to them, researching and having conversations with other people in this position, and facilitating related creative processes within these communities.
While I started off in performance and burlesque for fun, the direction of my work has been strongly affected by the responses and feedback (both positive and negative) from spectators and peers: deeply political through personal reflection. There are pieces that are less message-driven and are more visual spectacle, and even those are informed and inspired by personal experience - of what makes me happy, of what inspires me, of the specific images and feelings I get when listening to certain songs or living certain experiences. These sort of expressions are ones I don’t get to see for myself very often elsewhere. Even the more progressive liberal circles tend to be limited in their representation: often White, middle-class, educated, without too much worry of how open expressions of sexuality would impact the people around them. I felt like a precarious hanging bridge between cultures, trying to make sense of all my influences, never really belonging to any of them. As
Somali feminist Idil Farah wrote about rethinking the rhetoric of female genital mutilation amongst both Somali communities and Western feminists:
There are many women who are forced into this mediator role by competing cultural paradigms. If I lend political and social agency to Somali women, and reject the limited narratives about my homeland, then I am in solidarity with patriarchy. On the other hand, if I challenge and call on Somali women/African women to address our subjugation at the hands of our men, I am merely the political messenger of the West. I think much of this conflict stems from society’s need to group cultures into comfortable boxes, so we may understand and place judgment upon them.
A sex-positive and openly expressive South Asian who still finds value in her cultures of heritage and defends them from Western accusations of “uncivilised”, but who also finds significant issues of concern with the current cultural ideas of sex and gender: backwards patriarchal apologist & “angry brown chick” in one box, seditious rabble-rouser acting as an agent of “corrupt Western yellow culture” in another.
The boxes are unstable and they crumble, trapping us within. I’d much rather
strip off all expectations and
break away from the ties that hold me down so I can express
my experiences of contradiction & conflict and
dance through heartbreak so that I can
shine a light my own way.
And now that I have experienced the power of telling my own story my way, I want to help others do so too. As
Matt Stillman, who provides “Creative Approaches to What You Have Been Thinking About”, advises:
If you are speaking with someone you can not wait for a moment to show off your brilliance but only be concerned with listening and offering service to them. You can provide care and kindness and service to people anonymously. You can do it for one person, for a group, to people you know, to strangers or the whole world. If you think you lack something you must give it.
I dearly miss the Bay Area and all the amazing people and communities I had the honour of meeting through that trip: the creatives, activists, social changers, people who were actively creating works of (he)art through social inquiry - or rather, as a means of inquiring and pulling apart society’s preconceived notions of sexuality, gender, race, class, representation. I met other Queer People of Colour who were also dealing with the intersections of their various minority positions, also feeling like precarious bridges, who built community with each other. I got to meet many of my inspirations and heroes, work closely with them, and feel strong affinities not just in terms of working in the same fields, but also of being respected as a peer, a friend, a family member. I found the acceptance and warmth I had long sought after, and I found many places that provided excellent building grounds for the work I yearn to do.
Not every part of San Francisco and the Bay Area was heavenly, of course - I still encountered racism as well as a strong dose of stress and heartbreak. But for every disturbing incident there were plenty of people that spoke up and had their voices acknowledged. There were Kitty Stryker and Maggie Mayhem, sex-positive activists and sex workers, charging along with their missing to
educate the kink & sex-positive communities about consent and abuse within the scene, and the Femmes of Colour Symposium, who tackled issues of racism within queer culture and homophobia within their heritage cultures, welcoming any and all representations of “femme” across colours and borders - or
directly challenging the exclusivist hegemony of “femme”. I strongly felt that if I wanted to start something I could in the Bay Area - and if there were people who wished to refute me or challenge me, or if I wanted to challenge others, we could have our disagreements openly. I felt my spirit soar and my creativity blossom in ways I had not felt for years due to the isolation I felt (and still feel) in Brisbane. And, as a bonus, there are plenty of people in the Bay Area that wish me back, that encourage me to return and spend more time with them, that thank me for my presence and count me as one of their own.
It is with this motivation that I apply to CIIS: a university I first got to know from attending a presentation at the Performing the World conference in New York in 2010, impressed by their approach to creative direction and their dedication to spirituality and social change, with a course that expresses everything I have wanted to do with my creative practice for some time now - develop it further as a means of providing space and avenues for people like me to express their truths and enjoy their physicalities, without worry or fear of negative consequences, and pass on those skills and knowledge to others.
I want to bear witness, and have others bear witness, to the stories and fantasies of people who don’t often get the stage: the dark, the ugly, the shy, the overwhelming, the absurd, the oddity, the incomprehensible. I want to support people who have been marginalised, desexualised, hyper-sexualised, thrown about in preconceptions and stereotypes. I want to empower them to represent their own truth, tell their own stories, tell their own stories, hold and display their bodies however they want to on their own terms. I want to create spaces for people to explore their erotic away from the norms of racist, classist, sexist, heterosexist, monosexist, ableist bigotry - whether through revelling in the pleasure of spicy food and hearty meals, or rupturing shackles of abuse and abandonment placed on them by people who saw them as mere objects.
I want to help ease sexuality into being, take part in expressing sensual truths, and - even if just for a short time - be part of a group and an audience that
listens.
