Event

Shorty- Hester Chillingworth

When I was a child, most people thought I was a boy. Or thats what they said, but I think really it was that they couldnt read me as a girl, and they thought the only other option was boy. I danced when I was young. I used to hurl my body around as if impact meant nothing, because impact did mean nothing. I was, as my mum often reminds me, very free. At a certain moment, dancing seemed to become about attracting the opposite sex and advertising gender, and I fell off the dancefloor with a crash.

The starting point for this project is to create a drag persona who is a child. This child will hurl my body about often to music as it did in those early days.

I propose that the moment we realise we have been separated out by assigned genders is a trauma one which some people accept and some people refuse to. This is about dragging across age into a non-binary space, and its about adults fear of talking about children and sex in the same breath. And its about sweating profusely, in the effort to re-open a time before we reached for pink and blue deodorants to start covering it all up.

This commission is supported by the National Lottery through Arts Council England.

Producing Partner: Chisenhale Dance Space
Presenting Partner: Rich Mix