December 2018
What started out as a presentation for a series of performative happenings inspired by the Beatnik cafés of the 1950s, turned into a surprise non-matrixed performance and improvised re-enactment of Audrey Hepburn’s spontaneous dance in Funny Face (1957), in the next room. Considering the pre-conceptions that people make and the judgements that are formed based on witnessing one side of a personality, Venus Crofts and I devised this piece with the aim to take our classmates completely by surprise. Who would expect such a performance from the ‘quiet duo’?
Being an introvert, I often feel others only perceive me as being quiet and passive, when in fact I associate strongly with Hepburn’s eccentric character Jo Stockton in Funny Face. Dance is a way I can truly express my quirky confidence. After all, a personality is not one sided. Certain sides are revealed depending on the environment and company we find ourselves in. From experience, I know that this creates a tension within ourselves and a self-judgement problem as we worry that others will never see our personalities as a whole. This turns into a never-ending cycle that we all go through, believing we’re alone in this – when in reality, we all face the same concerns.
ELLY RUTHERFORD 