Zodiak Laboratory: Christy Ma

“I’m your private dancer, a dancer for money. 
Do what you want me to do” 
– Private Dancer by Tina Turner

In their upcoming piece Christy Ma and the working group will focus on the physical aspect of touch from a stripper's point of view. During their residency period they will delve into how the taboo of stripping is embodied within strippers themselves and how it is navigated in this line of work.

Christy Ma’s artistic practice is an embodied example of the splitting process drawing from Gail Weiss’s (1999) body images: embodiment as intercorporeality. Weiss references the discussion on the “split subject” by Iris Young and Sandra Bartky who condemn the societal attempts in taking away the potential of transcendence by reducing women to mere bodies. 

Like Weiss, Christy questions the general assumption that objectification is oppressive. Years of dance training required her to think of the materiality of her body and train it as an instrument, alienating herself from the full and complex understanding of her body. This practice allows for thinking of the body not only from subjectivity but also the ability to put on multiple imaginative lenses of potential spectators. In this sense she is much closer to the spectators and allow for a possibility to “touch” them. Before the performance is shown in front of the audience, there are countless times that she captured an image of herself, “a specular extract of oneself” (Merleau-Ponty 1968).

In the residency the working group will investigate the different contour of touch, seeking to understand its place within the broader framework of social norms and “standard” of morality. How does touch sound like, feel like, look like, supposed to be like?

Working group

Choreography, Concept, Performance: Christy Ma
Dramaturg: Camilla Rantanen
Sound Design: Alina Ostrogradskaya
Videography, Spatial Design: Aino Kontinen