\nStill, white\nbody on the\nedge of a large white block,\nClara Delorme perches on the very edge of the platform like matter\nyet\nto\nbe\nmoulded.\nShe is\nalmost immobile,\nher breath\nlike the razor edge of a knife. \n<\/p>\n\n\n\n
With\nthe poise of a trapped animal, or a person on the edge of a great\nunknown, her gaze flicks to scrutinise us,\nflicking to every\ncreak of a chair, every muffled cough, holding us trapped.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
At the National Arts Festival<\/a> in the double bill<\/a> titled by her name, Clara Delorme is the artwork. The first piece is L\u2019alb\u00e2tre<\/em> (Alabaster), followed by a work in response to a sexual harassment case where a man named Justin posted images from L\u2019alb\u00e2tre<\/em> on porn sites under the heading: \u2018Clara Delorme lift her leg to make her vagina lip come out\u2019. <\/p>\n\n\n\n In\nL\u2019alb\u00e2tre<\/em>,\nwe\nstill ourselves beneath her gaze, like flies being pinned on a board.\nFinally,\nher\nleft\nfoot lifts and\nshe flexes her toes.\nThere is a sense of relief. The contained\nenergy,\nthe hyper-presence of the performer, and the sense of the us\nbeing\nequally watched creates a vital\ntension.\n\n<\/p>\n\n\n\n If\nalabaster, the soft, white rock that has become symbolic of its\npotential rather than its own presence is part of how we understand\nDelorme\u2019s act, then our expectation of alabaster to be carved into\na\nnew form becomes\npart of what is being analysed. Delorme puts the audience\u2019s desire\nfor movement on this cold white table, above\nthese\nharsh white lights, her\nnaked\nfigure\non the\nslab a\nmanifestation\nof potential.<\/p>\n\n\n\n When\nshe does\nmove, she frustrates\nevery expectation of dance.\nSeemingly\nlost in a reverie of self discovery, taking us along as we see the\nbody anew; limbs dissociated and attaining a life almost independent.<\/p>\n\n\n\n She\nbecomes\nboth\nthe first person in the world, born out of the foam into a new world,\nand a child at play, inadvertently revealing secrets of our own\nphysicality we\u2019ve forgotten. \n<\/p>\n\n\n\n The\nplay ends, abruptly as a disturbed daydream, and she shifts across\nthe light, hips lifted to become a physical manifestation of Gustave\nCourbet\u2019s famous painting L’Origine\ndu monde<\/em>\n(The Origin of the World) before this first captivating performance\nends.<\/p>\n\n\n\n We exit as seating and technical arrangements are shuffled, returning to see Clara Delorme lift her leg to make her vagina lip come out.<\/em> With chairs removed leaving fewer seats than there are audience members, we are told to sit wherever we choose. This invites intimacy, but Delorme is detached, staring into a laptop screen placed on the floor. <\/p>\n\n\n\n We become voyeurs, separated from her work. Wearing only an oversized white t-shirt, she removes her spectacles before carefully pulling two white latex gloves over the same hand that was central to the repetitive gesture in L\u2019ab\u00e2tre.<\/em> Her right foot, part of a duo of movement in L\u2019ab\u00e2tre<\/em>, is also gloved. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Lit only in the in the dim glow of the screen, the gloves initially having resembled crumpled tissues, the detritus of, or preparation for, masturbation. As she shifts beneath the white cotton, performing a dance reminiscent of a striptease as she removes it, we hallucinate in the semi-darkness, her body morphing into sculptural shapes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n This bill is layered with meaning, each gesture a deliberate act refuting the violence enacted by the non-consensual use of her work as pornography; a cleansing. At first perplexing, the performance takes some time to settle. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Slowly the realisation: Clara Delorme lift her leg to make her vagina lip come out <\/em>is a clinical intellectual fuck you to those who sought to profit by perverting her art.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u00a92022\nThe Critter. This article is licensed under a <\/em>Creative\nCommons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License<\/a>.<\/em>\n\n<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"