Girl Gang Thank-You Card: An Interview

Lickety sat down with Jordan/Aida to discuss the Girl Gang thank-You Card show this Friday. Enjoy!

Ahhh, after a long day and a very grounding evening, Jordan has consulted with Aïda and yielded the following responses...

> What is up with the title of your show, GIRL GANG THANK-YOU CARD?

The Girl-Gang Thank-You Card title is, I must admit, a chiasm of two
distinct ideas and narratives which I found, when juxtaposed, captured
some of the meanings and meta-meanings of my current work. In
investigating British Columbia as a metaphoric post-colonial
dis/utopia, the narrative of a 1997 homicide immediately came to mind.
(http://www.vancouver.sfu.ca/freda/newsltrs/v3n1.htm). The status of
BC as containing and suppressing its own beauties and systems of
violence (the recent sex-worker serial killer story being another) has
been an on-going source of fascination to me, even though I stand as
an East-Coast non-participatory viewer and receiver of mediatized
propaganda, myth, and anecdotes which feed our collective impression
of what ideas BC can be used to explore: a post-colonial sub-state, an
intriguing one amongst many which Aïda might consider more subtle
and/or familiar. The Thank-You Card is a reference to certain
anxieties around gratitude, entitlement, gifts, indebtedness, and
teleological thought. Also, the idea of members of a self-identified
"Girl-Gang" actually sending Thank-You cards to their "donors,"
"funders," or "victims" was so grotesquely funny I just couldn't
resist running with it! If expanded into a touring show, the title
may change to something like "Aïda auf Nootka, or Journey to the
Juicefasthaus".

> What elements of your show make the posting require an 18+ warning?

The end scene is meant to be a brutal, albeit surreal, reenactment of
extreme reproductive anxiety and bodily pain. I did not want to be
responsible for assisting very young people is processing or reacting
to it, and felt more comfortable with consenting adults' possible
misinterpretations than with those of "underage youth". There will
also be some overtly sexual pantomine. In another more supportive
context (and one without illicit alcohol sales at the venue), showing
this to minors would not necessarily present a problem for me.

> How does this work figure into the greater context of your oeuvre?

This question is delicious and flattering, as my oeuvre has been in
two parts. Classical performance (i.e. Western, published, text-based
theatre), and drag/performance art. This piece will function as my
attempt to reconcile (and explode/confound/shake off) these two
distinct streams of my own performative history. I will allow
dialogue, linear narrative (of sorts), and illusionism-- as in
classical theatre-- but will attempt to shed, at the same time, the
preposterous seriousness and hermetic anti-semiotics of contemporary
"Performance Art" at the same time. It will be a synthesis that will
not shy away from self-deprecation, humour, glory, and fear.

> Thanks for your time!

KUNST MACHT FREI
Bitte shein!
JAïda