Dr. Hannah Ballou, holds PhD from Royal Central School of Speech and Drama, title: hoo:ha: Illuminating and exploiting a dissonance between funniness and sexiness with the female comic body in performance www.hannahballou.com
The Doctor Is In is a feminist investigation into the performativity of the comic pedant by way o... more The Doctor Is In is a feminist investigation into the performativity of the comic pedant by way of an autobiographical neo-burlesque re-imagination of Il Dottore (the archetype from the commedia dell'arte) as La Dottora, who must negotiate a contemporary landscape of casualised labour, sexism embedded in the academy, and the student-as-consumer model of higher education. How might the scholarliness within feminist comic practice as research produce the very comic material it pretends to analyse? It is an artistic intervention in the conversation surrounding inequality for female-identified academics that phthonically targets hetero-patriarchy induced 'impostor syndrome'.
NOTE: This document accompanies the practice-research performance project, goo:ga (2016). Watch ... more NOTE: This document accompanies the practice-research performance project, goo:ga (2016). Watch it here: https://vimeo.com/174036595
goo:ga (2016) is a performance practice research project within the discipline of stand-up comedy that investigates the potential of a dissonant manifestation of the comic and the erotic by pregnant artists to challenge heteronormative, postfeminist and patriarchal configurations of ‘funniness’ vis-à-vis ‘sexiness’. It was also a feminist reclamation of fertility-as-spectacle, a queer resistance to the guilty pleasure of binary foetal gendering, and a neo-burlesque attempt to exploit multiple aesthetic modes of sexiness (Lintott and Irvin, 2016), while harnessing the comic abjection of pregnancy. It investigates pregnant embodiment and subjectivity in the context of live comic performance. The comic novelty in the unconventional approach to prurience staged by a pregnant performer allows the practice to intervene in a wider discourse around the comic and the maternal that mainstream stand-up comedy is only beginning to address; for example, the commercial success of Ali Wong’s two stand-up specials that coincided with the late stages of her pregnancies. goo:ga (2016) pre-dates the release of Wong’s work and draws upon additional disciplines to investigate further the potential for pregnant comedians to deploy the erotic in service of the comic; neo-burlesque, alt-cabaret, and live art form a lineage for the work. The praxis also articulates new devising methods, as the artist grapples with what Iris Marion Young termed the ‘doubling’ of the pregnant subject. Devising performance with/about a body that is rapidly changing affords complex insights into the lingering embodied practitioner knowledge of the pre-pregnant body, as a heavily pregnant artist attempts to access comic/erotic proposals in the studio and on stage.
NOTE: This document accompanies the practice-research performance goo:ga; watch it here: https://... more NOTE: This document accompanies the practice-research performance goo:ga; watch it here: https://vimeo.com/174036595
goo:ga (2016) is a performance practice research project within the discipline of stand-up comedy that investigates the potential of a dissonant manifestation of the comic and the erotic by pregnant artists to challenge heteronormative, postfeminist and patriarchal configurations of ‘funniness’ vis-à-vis ‘sexiness’. It was also a feminist reclamation of fertility-as-spectacle, a queer resistance to the guilty pleasure of binary foetal gendering, and a neo-burlesque attempt to exploit multiple aesthetic modes of sexiness (Lintott and Irvin, 2016), while harnessing the comic abjection of pregnancy. It investigates pregnant embodiment and subjectivity in the context of live comic performance. The comic novelty in the unconventional approach to prurience staged by a pregnant performer allows the practice to intervene in a wider discourse around the comic and the maternal that mainstream stand-up comedy is only beginning to address; for example, the commercial success of Ali Wong’s two stand-up specials that coincided with the late stages of her pregnancies. goo:ga (2016) pre-dates the release of Wong’s work and draws upon additional disciplines to investigate further the potential for pregnant comedians to deploy the erotic in service of the comic; neo-burlesque, alt-cabaret, and live art form a lineage for the work. The praxis also articulates new devising methods, as the artist grapples with what Iris Marion Young termed the ‘doubling’ of the pregnant subject. Devising performance with/about a body that is rapidly changing affords complex insights into the lingering embodied practitioner knowledge of the pre-pregnant body, as a heavily pregnant artist attempts to access comic/erotic proposals in the studio and on stage.
The Doctor Is In is a feminist investigation into the performativity of the comic pedant by way o... more The Doctor Is In is a feminist investigation into the performativity of the comic pedant by way of an autobiographical neo-burlesque re-imagination of Il Dottore (the archetype from the commedia dell'arte) as La Dottora, who must negotiate a contemporary landscape of casualised labour, sexism embedded in the academy, and the student-as-consumer model of higher education. How might the scholarliness within feminist comic practice as research produce the very comic material it pretends to analyse? It is an artistic intervention in the conversation surrounding inequality for female-identified academics that phthonically targets hetero-patriarchy induced 'impostor syndrome'.
NOTE: This document accompanies the practice-research performance project, goo:ga (2016). Watch ... more NOTE: This document accompanies the practice-research performance project, goo:ga (2016). Watch it here: https://vimeo.com/174036595
goo:ga (2016) is a performance practice research project within the discipline of stand-up comedy that investigates the potential of a dissonant manifestation of the comic and the erotic by pregnant artists to challenge heteronormative, postfeminist and patriarchal configurations of ‘funniness’ vis-à-vis ‘sexiness’. It was also a feminist reclamation of fertility-as-spectacle, a queer resistance to the guilty pleasure of binary foetal gendering, and a neo-burlesque attempt to exploit multiple aesthetic modes of sexiness (Lintott and Irvin, 2016), while harnessing the comic abjection of pregnancy. It investigates pregnant embodiment and subjectivity in the context of live comic performance. The comic novelty in the unconventional approach to prurience staged by a pregnant performer allows the practice to intervene in a wider discourse around the comic and the maternal that mainstream stand-up comedy is only beginning to address; for example, the commercial success of Ali Wong’s two stand-up specials that coincided with the late stages of her pregnancies. goo:ga (2016) pre-dates the release of Wong’s work and draws upon additional disciplines to investigate further the potential for pregnant comedians to deploy the erotic in service of the comic; neo-burlesque, alt-cabaret, and live art form a lineage for the work. The praxis also articulates new devising methods, as the artist grapples with what Iris Marion Young termed the ‘doubling’ of the pregnant subject. Devising performance with/about a body that is rapidly changing affords complex insights into the lingering embodied practitioner knowledge of the pre-pregnant body, as a heavily pregnant artist attempts to access comic/erotic proposals in the studio and on stage.
NOTE: This document accompanies the practice-research performance goo:ga; watch it here: https://... more NOTE: This document accompanies the practice-research performance goo:ga; watch it here: https://vimeo.com/174036595
goo:ga (2016) is a performance practice research project within the discipline of stand-up comedy that investigates the potential of a dissonant manifestation of the comic and the erotic by pregnant artists to challenge heteronormative, postfeminist and patriarchal configurations of ‘funniness’ vis-à-vis ‘sexiness’. It was also a feminist reclamation of fertility-as-spectacle, a queer resistance to the guilty pleasure of binary foetal gendering, and a neo-burlesque attempt to exploit multiple aesthetic modes of sexiness (Lintott and Irvin, 2016), while harnessing the comic abjection of pregnancy. It investigates pregnant embodiment and subjectivity in the context of live comic performance. The comic novelty in the unconventional approach to prurience staged by a pregnant performer allows the practice to intervene in a wider discourse around the comic and the maternal that mainstream stand-up comedy is only beginning to address; for example, the commercial success of Ali Wong’s two stand-up specials that coincided with the late stages of her pregnancies. goo:ga (2016) pre-dates the release of Wong’s work and draws upon additional disciplines to investigate further the potential for pregnant comedians to deploy the erotic in service of the comic; neo-burlesque, alt-cabaret, and live art form a lineage for the work. The praxis also articulates new devising methods, as the artist grapples with what Iris Marion Young termed the ‘doubling’ of the pregnant subject. Devising performance with/about a body that is rapidly changing affords complex insights into the lingering embodied practitioner knowledge of the pre-pregnant body, as a heavily pregnant artist attempts to access comic/erotic proposals in the studio and on stage.
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Papers by Hannah Ballou
goo:ga (2016) is a performance practice research project within the
discipline of stand-up comedy that investigates the potential of a
dissonant manifestation of the comic and the erotic by pregnant
artists to challenge heteronormative, postfeminist and patriarchal
configurations of ‘funniness’ vis-à-vis ‘sexiness’. It was also a feminist
reclamation of fertility-as-spectacle, a queer resistance to the guilty
pleasure of binary foetal gendering, and a neo-burlesque attempt to
exploit multiple aesthetic modes of sexiness (Lintott and Irvin, 2016),
while harnessing the comic abjection of pregnancy. It investigates
pregnant embodiment and subjectivity in the context of live comic
performance. The comic novelty in the unconventional approach
to prurience staged by a pregnant performer allows the practice to
intervene in a wider discourse around the comic and the maternal
that mainstream stand-up comedy is only beginning to address; for
example, the commercial success of Ali Wong’s two stand-up specials
that coincided with the late stages of her pregnancies. goo:ga (2016)
pre-dates the release of Wong’s work and draws upon additional
disciplines to investigate further the potential for pregnant comedians
to deploy the erotic in service of the comic; neo-burlesque, alt-cabaret,
and live art form a lineage for the work. The praxis also articulates new
devising methods, as the artist grapples with what Iris Marion Young
termed the ‘doubling’ of the pregnant subject. Devising performance
with/about a body that is rapidly changing affords complex insights
into the lingering embodied practitioner knowledge of the pre-pregnant
body, as a heavily pregnant artist attempts to access comic/erotic
proposals in the studio and on stage.
goo:ga (2016) is a performance practice research project within the
discipline of stand-up comedy that investigates the potential of a
dissonant manifestation of the comic and the erotic by pregnant
artists to challenge heteronormative, postfeminist and patriarchal
configurations of ‘funniness’ vis-à-vis ‘sexiness’. It was also a feminist
reclamation of fertility-as-spectacle, a queer resistance to the guilty
pleasure of binary foetal gendering, and a neo-burlesque attempt to
exploit multiple aesthetic modes of sexiness (Lintott and Irvin, 2016),
while harnessing the comic abjection of pregnancy. It investigates
pregnant embodiment and subjectivity in the context of live comic
performance. The comic novelty in the unconventional approach
to prurience staged by a pregnant performer allows the practice to
intervene in a wider discourse around the comic and the maternal
that mainstream stand-up comedy is only beginning to address; for
example, the commercial success of Ali Wong’s two stand-up specials
that coincided with the late stages of her pregnancies. goo:ga (2016)
pre-dates the release of Wong’s work and draws upon additional
disciplines to investigate further the potential for pregnant comedians
to deploy the erotic in service of the comic; neo-burlesque, alt-cabaret,
and live art form a lineage for the work. The praxis also articulates new
devising methods, as the artist grapples with what Iris Marion Young
termed the ‘doubling’ of the pregnant subject. Devising performance
with/about a body that is rapidly changing affords complex insights
into the lingering embodied practitioner knowledge of the pre-pregnant
body, as a heavily pregnant artist attempts to access comic/erotic
proposals in the studio and on stage.
goo:ga (2016) is a performance practice research project within the
discipline of stand-up comedy that investigates the potential of a
dissonant manifestation of the comic and the erotic by pregnant
artists to challenge heteronormative, postfeminist and patriarchal
configurations of ‘funniness’ vis-à-vis ‘sexiness’. It was also a feminist
reclamation of fertility-as-spectacle, a queer resistance to the guilty
pleasure of binary foetal gendering, and a neo-burlesque attempt to
exploit multiple aesthetic modes of sexiness (Lintott and Irvin, 2016),
while harnessing the comic abjection of pregnancy. It investigates
pregnant embodiment and subjectivity in the context of live comic
performance. The comic novelty in the unconventional approach
to prurience staged by a pregnant performer allows the practice to
intervene in a wider discourse around the comic and the maternal
that mainstream stand-up comedy is only beginning to address; for
example, the commercial success of Ali Wong’s two stand-up specials
that coincided with the late stages of her pregnancies. goo:ga (2016)
pre-dates the release of Wong’s work and draws upon additional
disciplines to investigate further the potential for pregnant comedians
to deploy the erotic in service of the comic; neo-burlesque, alt-cabaret,
and live art form a lineage for the work. The praxis also articulates new
devising methods, as the artist grapples with what Iris Marion Young
termed the ‘doubling’ of the pregnant subject. Devising performance
with/about a body that is rapidly changing affords complex insights
into the lingering embodied practitioner knowledge of the pre-pregnant
body, as a heavily pregnant artist attempts to access comic/erotic
proposals in the studio and on stage.
goo:ga (2016) is a performance practice research project within the
discipline of stand-up comedy that investigates the potential of a
dissonant manifestation of the comic and the erotic by pregnant
artists to challenge heteronormative, postfeminist and patriarchal
configurations of ‘funniness’ vis-à-vis ‘sexiness’. It was also a feminist
reclamation of fertility-as-spectacle, a queer resistance to the guilty
pleasure of binary foetal gendering, and a neo-burlesque attempt to
exploit multiple aesthetic modes of sexiness (Lintott and Irvin, 2016),
while harnessing the comic abjection of pregnancy. It investigates
pregnant embodiment and subjectivity in the context of live comic
performance. The comic novelty in the unconventional approach
to prurience staged by a pregnant performer allows the practice to
intervene in a wider discourse around the comic and the maternal
that mainstream stand-up comedy is only beginning to address; for
example, the commercial success of Ali Wong’s two stand-up specials
that coincided with the late stages of her pregnancies. goo:ga (2016)
pre-dates the release of Wong’s work and draws upon additional
disciplines to investigate further the potential for pregnant comedians
to deploy the erotic in service of the comic; neo-burlesque, alt-cabaret,
and live art form a lineage for the work. The praxis also articulates new
devising methods, as the artist grapples with what Iris Marion Young
termed the ‘doubling’ of the pregnant subject. Devising performance
with/about a body that is rapidly changing affords complex insights
into the lingering embodied practitioner knowledge of the pre-pregnant
body, as a heavily pregnant artist attempts to access comic/erotic
proposals in the studio and on stage.