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"The Big Show" an evening length piece performed as my MFA Thesis Concert at California Institute of the Arts in 1998. The evening length work follows a journey from girlhood to womanhood though the transformative identity of "Diva." The music for The Big Show was composed by J Y and Hillary Maroon. The band played live in silhouette behind the scrim, reversing the perspective of the orchestra pit. The Big Show, as well as my written dissertation for the school of Critical Studies, explores the stage (and the page) as a sacred space for the rite of passage from girlhood to womanhood. The Big Show examines the transformative identity of Diva as a character of both ecstasy and manipulation. In the duet pictured on this page, two dancers grimace and contort in sustained unison. Here, I examine the comodification of feminine role-playing. The large group dances featured in the piece are influenced by historical and popular Busby Berkley dance entertainment that prospered under stereotypical and restricting codes of femininity. In The Big Show, however, the canon lines turn into lipstick lines and our heroine dons a mask of her own face in order to expose the way performers "make-up" themselves. Material and research from The Big Show was later used for a solo entitled, Autobiography of an Image, (June 1999) performed at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Los Angeles.
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