{"id":106,"date":"2011-09-30T16:43:31","date_gmt":"2011-09-30T14:43:31","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.factory73.de\/?p=106"},"modified":"2011-09-30T16:43:31","modified_gmt":"2011-09-30T14:43:31","slug":"vaginal-davis-interview","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.sleek-mag.com\/de\/article\/vaginal-davis-interview\/","title":{"rendered":"Vaginal Davis speaks"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"Larger than life performance artist and music icon, Vaginal Davis, was probably the only person in her native city of Los Angeles to go everywhere on a bicycle way back in the 90s. She finally moved to the more bike-friendly city of Berlin almost six years ago, where her work with the art, music, film and action collective CHEAP became her key focus. Davis\u2019 overwhelming creative output \u2013 as a visual artist, in writing and most prominently, on stage \u2013 has become a staple of Berlin\u2019s queer subculture<\/a> as well as its more mainstream theatre and stage venues.
Her apartment is located in the heart of Sch\u00f6neberg\u2019s \u201cRote Insel\u201d, the historic neighbourhood that was once home to such luminaries as Marlene Dietrich and Albert Einstein. A fitting address for Davis, who has covered the walls of her home with colourful magazine clippings of faces and genitals, scribbles, sketches and notes from friends accumulated over the years \u2013 an ever-growing collage<\/p>\n

sleek: Were the walls too white for your taste? <\/strong> Vaginal Davis: All my friends joke that when they leave, they will always have stuck something on them. I like printed images, I don\u2019t surf the internet for imagery. In fact, I\u2019m really bad with computers. I don\u2019t like the immediacy of it, there\u2019s no mystique to the process of discovery.<\/p>\n

sleek: But you\u2019re considered one of the world\u2019s first bloggers, you have an enormous readership and major publications have written about your blog, \u201cSpeaking from the Diaphragm\u201d<\/a>.<\/strong> VD: I started it back in the 90s, as my diary. I had no idea what blogging was. Then someone told me that I what I was doing was actually a blog. I would write an entry by hand, then type it and send it to my web master from an internet caf\u00e9. I\u2019m very lo-tech.<\/p>\n

sleek: You\u2019re a very busy woman, what\u2019s next on your agenda?<\/strong> VD: I\u2019m currently working on a theatre piece, “The Communist Bigamist”, directed by my fellow CHEAP art collective member Susanne Sach\u00dfe, who you might remember from Bruce LaBruce<\/a>\u2019s film, Raspberry Reich. It\u2019s inspired by the 1953 Hollywood film The Bigamist, directed by Ida Lupino. Lupino was one of the few female directors in Hollywood\u2019s golden era and she played in her own movie, too. There are many intertwined layers in the play: Susanne plays Ida, but she\u2019s also Ruth Fischer, Germany\u2019s first lady communist, while I\u2019m both myself and American activist Angela Davis. And both our characters are married to communism, the bigamist.<\/p>\n

sleek: We\u2019ll probably have to see it to understand it, but in essence this is what you do best \u2013 morphing gender, class and race, low and high culture, camp and politics. In fact, you embody it.<\/strong> VD: I\u2019m intersex, born with both female and male genitalia, so I\u2019m a strange hybrid creature. I\u2019m also part German, quarter Jewish, my father was born in Mexico and my mother is French Creole. People would always stare at me, so I figured I might as well just be on stage!<\/p>\n

sleek: You\u2019ve been embraced by academia, teaching performance at Berlin\u2019s Wei\u00dfensee University, Frankfurt\u2019s St\u00e4dlschule, Princeton, Vassar, Columbia and most recently, Malm\u00f6. Next stop is Goldsmiths College. Is teaching more gratifying than performing?<\/strong> VD: It\u2019s often the students who petition to have me come. I love teaching. I invest a lot of time and get very involved. I\u2019m not a dogmatic person. I mean, the students get a syllabus and everything but it\u2019s more a \u2018salon\u2019 style of teaching. I make hour-long studio visits and do a lot of gentle nudging. These visits get intense. We talk for hours, get emotional and cry. I\u2019m like the Big Black Mama and everyone wants to nurse at my breast, get that chocolate milk!<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

sleek: What advice to you have for students who want to become performance artists? <\/strong> VD: I usually remain in touch well beyond the seminars, and collaborate with former students on new projects. It\u2019s important to be connected to youth, you know, being a woman of a certain age\u2026 It keeps me young and vibrant. I\u2019m never going to have any children of my own \u2013 but I can be the mentor. However, I do not encourage anyone to be a performer. Not everyone is meant to be on stage, you know! There\u2019s nothing I hate more than karaoke. Not everyone should be given a mike. I\u2019m a little dictatorial like that.<\/p>\n

sleek: So you\u2019re the anti-Beuys?<\/strong> VD: Not everyone\u2019s an artist\u2026 No, no, no!<\/p>\n

sleek: What makes a good performance artist in your opinion? <\/strong> VD: To me Josephine Baker, aside from being the first black international superstar, was also a performance artist through and through. She created her own biography, her own mythology, she was sensational! And she sought to mix all races by adopting a so-called \u2018rainbow tribe\u2019 of children. She was a little cuckoo too, but who isn\u2019t? Considering where she came from. I can relate to that.<\/p>\n

sleek: Your work is specifically focused on gender issues. Do race and class always play a role, too? <\/strong> VD: I grew up in inner city L.A. I\u2019m not middle class. I have a slight disdain for the wealthy but you can\u2019t help that when you grow up poor. I always have this underlying urge to \u2018kill the rich\u2019, but I do it on stage instead. If you choose to work with me you have to know where I\u2019m from. I\u2019m a sweetheart, I\u2019ll give you my last pantyhose, or the bra off my back, but I can get down and I can throw down. Let me tell you, when a black girl takes off her earrings, you know she\u2019s ready to fight!<\/p>\n

sleek: Would you say that the new piece is a non-violent, keep-your-earrings-on answer to current economic trends in European politics? <\/strong> VD: It\u2019s a political piece but it\u2019s not dogmatic. It\u2019s playful and whimsical, and hopefully will make you think. Europe is going backwards. Susanne Sach\u00dfe lost her agent after she appeared in Raspberry Reich because of the real sex scenes! And politically, it\u2019s disconcerting that people have such short memories. History will repeat itself.<\/p>\n

sleek: That\u2019s a bleak outlook.<\/strong> VD: Oh yeah, I believe we\u2019ll create our own Armageddon. I don\u2019t understand why people want to have babies when there are already so many unwanted children out there. Just adopt, why overpopulate the planet? My mom was an actress, she didn\u2019t want to be a mother and a wife, but women had less of a choice at the time. But today? People say the human race will ebb then and I say “great!”. Maybe something less damaging to the planet will arise. A new species will take over. Here\u2019s to the new species!<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Interview von Hili Perlson<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

Check out our interview with Matt Lambert<\/a><\/strong><\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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