Hair!

I recently saw a fabulous comedy piece at the Amsterdam Fringe Festival called "The Freak and the Showgirl". Mat Fraser was a thalydamide baby and has deformed arms and hands, and Julie Atlaz Muz is a sexy burlesque dancer and together they have created one of the funniest, most politcally subversive pieces of comedy/burlesque you are bound to see in this lifetime.

Mat has spent a lot of time researching how handicapped people are depicted in pop culture, on tv, in film, in theatre. He has a lot to say on the matter from personal experience, and he also has some great pistaches from 20th century freak shows at the circus. Our endless fascination with what is "abnormal" makes the audience uncomfortable at first, but Mat's whole stage persona has everyone on his side within minutes and laughing at his whole "porn for handicapped people" satire.

Mat couples with the lovely Julie Atlas Muz, whose burlesque dances are subversive as hell - Little Red Riding Hood wearing a wolf mask, a prisoner chic who strips off completely naked, lights a ciagrette, tears up a €5 note, mimes fellatio and sodomy and then ends her piece with a political speech about how all these things are illegal in a lot of places and we need to stand up for our freedoms. Together they have a lot to say about how we objectify bodies either as freakish or as sex objects.

In the space of a bit more than an hour they are in various stages of undress, have audience members in hysterics and covered in beer, and have given much food for thought in a most entertaining way.

The thing that stuck with me most of all was almost incidental in terms of the "messages" they had. But it was anything but incidental in the show. When Julie was completely naked (breaking one of the ground rules of burlesque) it was apparent to the entire audience that she does not adhere to the social convention of shaving or waxing her pubic hair. She pointed this out and gave us all a good look at the full bush she sports. And she also pointed out that the fashion to shave or wax is a way of succumbing to the male fantasy of a young girl's hairless vagina. If we are to be women celebrating our sexuality fully, she contends, we should be letting it all grow.

And to prove her point, she introduced us to Mr Pussy, and we were treated to a film projection the size of the theatre wall of her vagina wearing sunglasses and with the hair braided into a moustache and beard, as she took "lip synching" to a new level. Her vagina lips sang to the theme song of the musical "Hair" and the visuals were tear-rolling hilarious as she went spotted, polka dotted, spangled, jangled, braided and confettied....long hair like Jesus wore it, Hallelujah I adore it!

I used not to shave anything - armpits, legs, pubic hair. It was a political statement as much as a fashion statement at the time. But I too eventually succumed to the pressures of what society and a few men told me was more sexually appealing. I watched this piece in full appreciation and pondered whether the choice to de-hair has truly been my own. I wonder if Julie Ataz Muse can bring "freak" and "showgirl" back into one shared vocabulary across the globe? I wish both her and Mat well on their mission in any case!

http://www.matfraser.co.uk/
http://www.julieatlasmuz.com/