POWER — radicalisation and self-love
I worked on a show a couple of months back. POWER was girl-pop personified, feminism high on glitter and sweat and blisters, and I absolutely loved it.
It was a piece of performance art, far from the usual “sassy best friend”/“exposition squeegee”/“generic dude” roles I tend to get on stage, and for once, I was being myself.
It’s weird, being yourself on stage. It changes how you think, how you feel — how you see yourself and the audience. I’m sure stand-up comics do it all the time, I can’t imagine the level of will you have to have to be yourself on stage for a full hour at a time, because I had trouble doing it for even short sections over about 50 minutes.
It’s vulnerability — because people are looking at you, the real you, not the carefully constructed mask of all my most confident and most self-assured bits I have whenever I play a role. It’s joy — because they’re listening. It’s fear — because I’m self-conscious, and I can’t get a read on strangers watching in the dark.
It’s all those things and more, so much more.
POWER also changed how I’ve thought and seen myself, perhaps (??) for the better.
I’ve been a feminist for as long as I remember — finding equal rights for everyone in society has never seemed like a bad thing — but I’ve began to notice other things that I guess I might have just brushed away as ‘life’s bullshit’ before I worked on this show, and I’ve allowed myself to be angry over them, for once.
Like:
- Realising that the people online who have doxxed and harassed me should actually get in trouble for what they’re doing.
- Realising that I should value myself more than let people use me for the perks that I get from my jobs/workplaces.
- Realising that I shouldn’t let employers take advantage of my work or how I do things.
- Realising that I’m allowed to say no.
- Realising that despite my own feelings about my body, I should care for it more than just letting strangers use it for their own gain.
POWER led me to consider these things.
I think I’ve always felt dysphoric. It’s not necessarily a gender thing, just more of a consciousness thing. The fact that I have a body that I exist in and it’s the only one I’ll ever get has always been quite strange to me.
Quite alienating, in a way.
I’ve done some things with my body that I’m not proud of. I think most people probably have. Sexuality and all that is totally fine, providing everyone’s consenting and all that, but when I think back about some of the things that I’ve done…
I don’t know if my consent ever really came into it.
Which is fine — really- it’s just something to think about.
When discussing trauma during the creation of POWER, thinking about who I am and how I got here, I realised that there’s probably moments in my past that fall into grey areas. Things that probably weren’t super safe for a young woman to be doing, especially someone with the internalized disgust I felt for myself at the time.
But that’s fine.
POWER taught me to think about it, to process it, to be mindful, to bring value to myself and my body, even if I don’t like it.
Which I don’t, don’t get me wrong. I’ve always fallen more into the category of sidekick, rather than protagonist, in regards to looks, and that’s not going to change. I just… think about it now. I recognise these things, even if I can’t stop thinking them.
I went into POWER determined to do well. I wasn’t going to let anything stop me, because I was worried about how I looked in regards to everyone else. I wasn’t going to be the pity pick, the ‘diversity hire’, the one who stuck out.
And hey, I absolutely did, but that’s fine. I could dance as well as everyone else, and that’s all I ever wanted to do.
I found a place where I could be myself,
could feel accepted
and wanted
and listened to,
could feel rage and fear and pain when I wanted it,
and feel justified in how I felt.
I wanted to be good, to have fun, to love it and love myself-
And for a moment, maybe I did.
