June 2021
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Striptease was built on a patriarchal base and its structure is the very essence of patriarchy. Doesn't its practice reinforce these structures? Not when you know how to use the master's tool against the master's house, as Rebecca Schneider so eloquently says, analysing one of Madonna's performances in her book The Explicit Body in Performance. Like Theodora in the Byzantine Empire and Cardi B today, strippers have not waited on anyone to be feminists and to reclaim the tool of their domination that is their bodies. I hope that tomorrow, strippers won't have to fight to be part of the feminist discussion. We could all learn something from them. There's a reason they inspire pop culture and the art world. The Bad Girls understood ahead of us; you can expose and attack a system that oppresses, without further oppressing the victims. On the contrary, they opened up a new perspective on women's sexuality.
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Striptease is my way of understanding the strategies of the Bad Girls in an experimental way and is a continuation of my theoretical research on the same subject. It is a performance in three parts: Warm Up (9 min), Reverse (7 min) & Hostage (9 min), which I have documented in three videos, using footage shot by the audience. Warm Up is an appetizer. A small speaker playing Bonnie Banane hangs from the end of my braid. I dance and do repetitive movements using my braid as a lasso. I want to feel sexy and show it. Reverse is a striptease where I try to dress without my hands... a real struggle. It's a fight with myself that takes a lot of effort and is more humorous than it is teasing. In Hostage, the audience no longer has a say, I've made them mine with my dress that traps them turn after turn.
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Warm Up https://youtu.be/L-VUwD1mNso
Reverse https://youtu.be/6b3tC_thJEY
Hostage https://youtu.be/jxK2EQ17TnM
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Camera: Julia Demierre, Laurent Bertuchoz, Méline Hauswirth, Andrin Engel, Isabelle Benvenuti
Photography: Nina Laneve, Yadin Bernauer
Live sound support: Yadin Bernauer
Editing: Emma Bertuchoz
Music: Bonnie Banane - Zinzin, Sexy Planet, Les Bijoux De La Rein, Béguin
Other Audio : Emma Bertuchoz
Makeup: Nina Laneve
Costumes: Emma Bertuchoz, Marie-Anne Jeanbourquin Bertuchoz