- Creation, choreography & performance: Monique Jenkinson
- Sound design & additional direction: Marc Kate
- Camerawork: Ben Estabrook
A glamour is a spell. A spell is a meditation. I seek to reconcile practices of spirituality and adornment by making them interdependent. Moment by moment the necessary focus of meditation is altered by the vibration of noise. How does one embody visual noise and aural focus? Can the magnification of noise enhance instead of detract from focus?
I consider the intimacy and power of wearing someone else’s clothes, or something bestowed by a specific person, and how this is connected to the acts of passing, passing down and passing on. I honor the past by reanimating its relics, celebrate the present through acts of joyous destruction and look to the future through an ongoing project of transformation.
Focus. Focus on your breath. Inhale. Inspiration. You put on your modular showgirl outfit created especially for you. The tulle inside the taffeta like muscles inside skin. Focus on the deliberate movements of preparation. Focus on the ceremony. The incantation, enchantment, glamour. The glamour is a charm that affects the eye, that makes objects appear different from what they really are. Keep the focus. Keep the focus.
Focus. Focus on the deliberate movements of preparation. Focus on the ceremony. Focus on those who came before you. Hold them in your breath. Borrow their finery. Your grandmother’s beaded sleeveless sweater bewitches with the coy percussion of its glinting jet. The circle skirts bought on the street. Belonging first to whom? The feathers of birds – Dead? Alive? – the tinkle of beetle wings travels from your ears into the ears of others. (The incantation, enchantment, glamour. The glamour is a charm that affects the eye, that makes objects appear different from what they really are.) Keep the focus. Keep the focus.
Focus. Focus on the dead. Exhale. Expiration. Focus on the deliberate movements of preparation. Wear beads from the Ganges and bangles that clank like bones, given to you by your departed friend. Focus on the ceremony. (The incantation, enchantment, glamour. The glamour is a charm that affects the eye, that makes objects appear different from what they really are.) Keep the focus. Keep the focus. A disintegrating dress given to you to deliver to its end. Wear it. And destroy it with a dance. Sweep it away. Sweep it all away.
Start again.