(mal)Adjustment 1995
Multiple artists, curated/programmed/produced by Marie Cieri
From March 2 - April 2, 1995, The Arts Company presented (mal)Adjustment, a series of new performance, film/video events and discussions focusing on women’s recognition of, adaptation to and/or resistance against various social projections about who women are and what roles they areexpected to play in the last years of the 20th century. The series includes work of more than 25 women artists from the US, Central America, Canada and England; a nee performance art piece by Costa Rican/American artist Elia Arce that The Arts Company produced and toured to various US and Latin American locations; a total of 12 different presentations on 20 separate dates at 8 locations in Cambridge, Boston, AIlston and Jamaica Plain; and partnerships with the Women’s Studies Program and Office for the Arts at MIT, New Words women’s bookstore and two local shelters for battered women.
1995 curatorial statement by Marie Cieri:
"During the last few years, there has been a resurgence of art work that explores the psychological and political realities of individual women’s lives in relation to the “norms” and institutions of the larger culture. This coincides with increased activism around issues of women’s rights (health, sexual orientation, freedom of choice, education, status within the family and workplace, etc.) as well as recent studies by female social scientists into the cause and effect of of women’s psychological development in the 20th century. In this series, The Arts Company will present work that recasts and often explodes common definitions of “femaleness” from a variety of cultural vantage points, whether these come from governmental bodies, religious communities, the medical and legal establishments, mass media, Hollywood and the fashion industry, individual men and women who have absorbed and personalized the “scripts” for female identity, or just the weight of history. The “(mal) of “(mal)Adjustment” is an infinitely relative term, a fulcrum for weighing our own responses to the way women are positioned and position themselves within contemporary societies."
Writer Dorothy Allison's 3-4-95 performance of excerpts from her then-forthcoming book, Two or Three Things I Know for Sure, can be heard by clicking the link below:
PERFORMANCE
Out All Night and Lost My Shoes
written and performed by Terry Galloway
directed by Donna Marie Nudd
March 2, 3, 4, 1995, MIT Little Kresge Theater, Cambridge, MA
Self-described as a “deaf, queer playwright, poet, essayist and performer who lives in the part of Florida that is not Miami Beach,” [Tallahassee] Terry Galloway presented her acclaimed autobiographical show, Out All Night and Lost My Shoes. Tales of her mother, of growing up with “no ears, weak eyes, teeth broken, fat butt – and these legs…,” of impersonating a seedy private eye to protect herself on the street and of having a nervous breakdown amid the stuffed animals at a natural history museum all add up to the believer in the power of art that she has become.
“…searingly funny…an unflinching glimpse of various states of alienation, ostracization, survival and triumph con chutzpah.” – L.A. Weekly
Two or Three Things I Know for Sure
written and performed by Dorothy Allison
March 4, 1995, MIT Little Kresge Theater, Cambridge, MA
Allison’s performance consisted of excerpts from her forthcoming book of the same title [published by Dutton 5 months later]. An audio version of that performance can be heard by clicking the link at the upper right of this page..
After her performance, she signed copies of her books and had a Q&A with the audience.
Chelsea Girls
written and performed by Eileen Myles
March 7, 8, 1995, Boston Center for the Arts
A book signing and conversation with the audience followed each performance.
"Once a sado-masochistic nun banished myself and four of my twelve-year-old girlfriends to half an hour in the papercloset....Our crime had been giggling uncontrollably at her tales about martyrdom. Naked Christians were tied up and left on the silvery blue ice of Ancient Rome. Women's tits were cut off and served symbolically on plates, there were endless spankings, rapes, tearful pleas by virgins like St. Agnes that their chastity be preserved and naturally it was not. They were violated and then they were killed and all those people who had suffered so much were now in heaven and hearing their trials just made us laugh and go make eyes at each other in class and cough into our handkerchiefs such code words as ah-slut which stood for us. Little whores who would
go to hell."
-- from Chelsea Girls
Stretching My Skin Until It Rips Whole
written and performed by Elia Are
March 9, 10, 11, 1995, Boston Center for the Arts
Arce discussed her work with the audience after each performance. During her residency in Boston, she conducted workshops at shelters for battered women.
As a production of The Arts Company, “Stretching” has its own webpage.
Five-Year Diary/1995 Version
by Anne Charlotte Robertson
March 12, 1995, 2-10 pm, Boston Center for the Arts
Five-Year Diary is an ongoing work begun November 3, 1981 in Boston, now 78+ reels, approximately 26 minutes each, Super 8 mm and video. Five-Year Diary/1995 Version is a selection of this material, presented within an eight-hour period in an environment designed by Robertson.
Slyboots and the Other Women I Am Gone Wrong
conceived and performed by Stephanie Heyl
Composer: Kathy Kennedy
Set construction: Christa Erickson
March 23, 24, 25, 1995, Double Edge Theatre, Allston, MA
slyboots plural noun but singular in construction [‘sly+boots]: a sly, tricky person; esp: one who is cunning or mischievous in an engaging and diverting way.
Stephanie Heyl was born in Germany and raised in the cornfields of Normal, IL, where she developed a keen eye for the absurd masquerading as the mundane. At the time she was part of (mal)Adjustment, she was living and working in San Diego as a performance/installation/video artist. As of 1995, she had
exhibited and performed in more than 40 solo and group exhibitions since 1989. Her collaborative work tends toward the political; for example, in 19xx she toured to migrant camps in upstate New York with the Border Arts Workshop. Her solo work often is intensely personal; recurring issues include a commitment to maintaining a sense of wholeness while navigating the reality of being a mixed blood (Anglo/Pima tribe); and a belief that being a twin, being a woman and being queer have important impact on her experience.
Bad Girls Upset by the Truth
songs and stories written and performed by Jo Carol Pierce (1944-2022) (vocals, keyboard)
accompanied by Guy Juke (guitar, vocals)
April 1, 1995, The Jamaica Plain Art Center (cosponsor)
April 2, 1995, The Middle East (upstairs)
Refreshments available at both sites.
Program note by Jo Carol Pierce, 1995: “Jo Carol Pierce spent her early life as a Lonesome Polecat in Prairie Dog Town (Lubbock, TX), marrying and divorcing, trying to find a cure. Finally, in 1992, two young, talented champions, Troy Campbell and Michael Hall, released a tribute record to her, an unknown, undead entity, featuring 19 of her favorite bands singing her songs and turning her overnight into a famous ignoramus in her home town of Austin, TX, and proving that Anything Can Happen. About the same time, she became a grandmother and caught the eye of Guy Juke, on whom she’d had a crush for about 20 years. Last year they got married, and tonight they’re delighted to be playing together here in your town.”
Terry Galloway. Photo: Alan Pogue.
Dorothy Allison. Photo: Jill Posener.
Eileen Myles. Photo: Dan Larkin.
Elia Arce in "Stretching." Photo: Andrew Perret.
Anne Robertson in still from reel 76, Five-Year Diary.
Stephanie Heyl. Photo: Aaron Chang.
Jo Carol Pierce
Film/Video
Film/Video Screening 1
BODIES/FASHION/ASSIMILATION/POLITICS
March 16, 1995
MIT 6-120, Cambridge
This first mixed program of the series featured films and videos from the US, England and Canada. “As cathartic as it is transgressive” is how Amy Taubin of The Village Voice described The Body Beautiful, a 1991 film by Ngozi Onwurah. This stunning exploration of a white mother who undergoes a radical mastectomy and her Black daughter who embarks on a modeling career reveals the profound effects of body image and the strain of racial and sexual identity on their complex relationship. The program continued with Operculum, a 1993 video by Tran T. Kim-Trang that examines the consultation process and desires behind the practice of surgical eyelid alteration for Asian women; What Happens to You?, Vanalyne Green’s 1992 video about a woman who begins to hallucinate about the transformation of the political landscape during the Reagan era while watching Jane Fonda’s workout tapes; On Her Baldness, a 1991 documentary about women who have lost their hair because of illness or who have chosen to shave their heads for personal or political reasons; a pair of music videos by Sophie Muller featuring rock “Diva” Annie Lennox; and a short by Anne Charlotte Robinson.
Film/Video Screening 2
MOTHERS/MADNESS/MORALS/MORE…
In-person presentation by video artist KATE WROBEL
March 18, 1995
MIT Bartos Theater, Cambridge
This program featured seven films and videos from New York, Chicago, Seattle, Canada and England including Angry, a short, comic piece by Nicole Holofcener about breaking up with her mother; Mindy Faber’s Delirium (1993), described in MS magazine as “a chilling-while-loving portrait of the defiance inherent in some women’s mental illness”; Home Away from Home, a new fiction film by Maureen Blackwood in which an immigrant mother tries to make a real home for her family in her backyard while an alien culture looks on; How I Spent My Summer Vacation (1994), Kate Wrobel’s personalized documentary about children who are brought to abortion clinic protests to “rescue the pre-born”; and Daughters of Dykes, a 1994 video by Amilca Palmer in which teenage girls talk about their relationships with their mothers and their peers and their own sexual identities.
Film/Video Screening 3
IDENTITY/MODELS/DIFFERENCE/SELF
In-person presentation by video artist CATHERINE SAALFIELD
March 26, 1995
The Brattle Theatre, Cambridge
This program of video works cast mirrors at who lesbians are and what their reference points are (not). Among Good Christian Peoples (1991) by Catherine Saalfield and Jacqueline Woodson is based on Woodson’s essay about being an African American raised as a Jehovah’s Witness who finds a way to reconcile conflicts between spirituality and self-image. In Janine (1990) and An Untitled Portrait (1993), Cheryl Dunye addresses the formation of her identity in relation to a white, upper-class, heterosexual classmate and to her older brother. Kiss the Boys and Make Them Die by Margaret Stratton explores how memory, sexuality and the self are created and enforced through the family story. Visiting artist Catherine Saalfield wiil then screen her latest work, Cuz It’s Boy, which addresses the question, “What does the story of Brandon Teena (the Midwestern teenager killed for passing as a man) have to offer lesbians?” Saalfield will also show a collage of TV talk show material she has compiled about women who dress as men and will talk about her work as an activist lesbian media artist.
Film/Video Screening 4
EVE/APPLE/ENLIGHTENMENT/DARK AGES
In-person presentation by Boston filmmaker CYNTHIA McKEOWN
March 29, 1995
MIT 6-120, Cambridge
(mal)Adjustment’s last film/video program featured the premiere of In the Beginning, Boston filmmaker Cynthia McKeown’s retelling of the Biblical story of Adam and Eve as a “fractured fairy tale.” McKeown will be present to talk about her work and answer questions. Program 4 continued with A Place Called Lovely by young lesbian video maker Sadie Benning. In this evocative work made with a Pixelvision toy camera, Benning expresses her coming-of-age recognition of the violence found in life, from explicit beatings, accidents and murders to the more insidious violence of lies, social expectations and betrayed faith. Meena Nanji explores the effects of repressive Islamic laws on the female body and psyche in her award-winning 1992 video, Voices of the Morning. Tamara Jenkins’ stylist and deadpan Fugitive Love follows the return of a recently single, slightly prodigal daughter to a family homestead full of women. In Kiss My Royal Irish Ass (K.M.R.I.A.) and MakeDream, Chery Donegan uses her body as an artmaking tool while swiping at several male mythologies. The program will end with Lydia Lunch’s dark soliloquy on violence and vigilance in Beth B’s hypnotic Thanatopsis.
Funding
Massachusetts Cultural Council, a state agency
LEF Foundation
Agnes Gund
Kathryn Green
and other individuals.