Whores are great!

Sex Workers Art Show. Northwest Campus Auditorium. UCLA. 2/14/06.

It's a bad sign when you arrive to see the artists leaving the venue ten minutes after the performance should have started. When I got to the show late (traffic), I was hoping it hadn't begun, but I wasn't expecting to find the audience locked out. The show started half an hour late due to extreme technical difficulties, and while I was initially annoyed, the show was more than worth the wait, and they did a great job of rolling with the punches as the sound cut out spontaneously, microphones only sometimes worked, and technology proved generally unreliable. They went on with the show despite everything, and did an excellent job. Each of the individual performers was excellent, and I will try to talk about all of them, though I will sadly be brief about it. This altogether, despite technical difficulties, was an absolutely wonderful, sexy, brilliant, well-organized show and I encourage everyone who can to get out and see it. The schedule is here.

Annie Oakley organized the show and introduced the performers, but I would have liked to have heard more from her about the project, the artists, herself, anything. I want to listen to what this woman has to say.

Once the show finally started, it began with a beautiful dance piece by Julie Atlas Muz. Muz opened and closed the show, with her first piece involving bondange and stripping, and her closing piece entitled "Bloodbath." Both were short, simple, and stunning. She has a beautiful body and she uses it with wonderful skill and expression. She had a rough time with an audience that wasn't warmed up and didn't know what to expect, but that's no indictment of her skill. It was just strange to be cheering loudly for a naked women, whose performance was so clearly beautiful and artistic, especially with a modest audience of mostly queers, feminists, and other people particularly sensitive to exploitation. It took a little encouragement to convince us to be vocal, but once the crowd warmed up, we really did love the performers.

Tralala Farsi Sentiamo really broke in the audience by reading a fun, not entirely erotic piece about sex work. She encouraged us to laugh and cheer, and got a really great atmosphere going.

Scarlot Harlot, "one of the foremothers of the sex workers' rights movement," performed a great Dworkin/McKinnon spoof, then stripped to her fabulous unrepentant whore self and performed a song about her weight. Her performance was fierce and fun and fabulous, and she's really a force of nature.

Michelle Tea was really the one I was there to see. I've read several of her books, and I think Rent Girl is the greatest thing ever and I would recommend it to anyone. But, despite my adoration, I had never seen Michelle Tea perform. I had seen her in person, at several of Katastrophe's shows and once just on the streets of San Francisco, but I'd never heard her read. It turns out she's an amazing performer as well as an amazingly talented writer; she chose a great, hilarious selection from Rent Girl and she read it perfectly with wonderful clarity and expression and animation. She's another one I would just love to listen to her talk for as long as she was willing to do so. I can't wait for Rose of No Man's Land and I hope she does a book tour!

Simone de la Getto of Harlem Shake Burlesque performed a fun burlesque strip number, and then sang a song, for which the music cut out in the middle and she continued fabulously. She is quite a performer, and although there were scary moments as she gave audience members lap dances, in general she had a great connection to the audience and a great performance in general.

The adorable Bridget Irish perfomed a wacky reverse strip tease in which she emerged onstage naked and in secret agent fashion she had to find articles of her clothing stashed all over the theater. Despite the stripping of other performers, there was something much more disconcerting about a naked lady running through the theater. It felt like a real triumph and a relief when she managed to find and put on her bra!

Juba Kalamka of The Deep Dick Collective performed a fascinating song/performance piece entitled something like (I may be wrong about this) "Requiem for a Nigga Ass 'Ho." It was an intense, serious piece displaying his musical range and skill.

All of these performers were selling merchandise, and I wanted it all. I bought a Sluts Unite T-shirt for the sheer audacious fabulousness of it (I'm not sure if/when I'll wear it). But I kind of also wanted a Sex Workers' Art Show t-shirt (the one with the mud flap girl); if I weren't quite so broke, I totally would have bought that, too. And I came home later and realized I should have also purchased Rough Tongues: Femmes Write Porn as a V-day present to myself, so I ordered it from Amazon. I will probably also break down and purchase Scarlot Harlot's book, Unrepentant Whore as well; I bet it's great. Overall, for a free show it cost me $21, but these women deserve my money; they were pretty darn awesome. If anyone outside of LA reads this, and the show's coming to your town, by all means get your ass there and bring plenty of cash. You'll be glad.