As part of the Gender Performance exhibition and talk at Royal College of Art
I was sat in a padded room while art students peeped at me and found 'the meaning'
to it all.

Their View -


My View -


Image by Ben Walters.

Eat Your Heart Out is not funded.
We do not rely on ticking boxes for the Arts Council.

We believe in creating work that we believe in, not work that has been pre-politically examined, decided by a panel of people who think the National Theatre is the dog's b*ll*x.

We have set up the pin club to make your life easier - cheaper entry, advance booking, members only tickets & more

Our Donor Card scheme is to make our life easier -
offering you free entry, advance booking, members only, birthday perks and more as well as being vital to our own survival.


http://eyho.bigcartel.com


Do what you can.  Thank you. EYHO Family. X

(or click here)

Internals.
My performance collective Eat Your Heart Out is kicking off. We've been commissioned to create a new show for The Hospital Club in May and Junction Live Art festival in Cambridge in the same month. We launch our first London show of 2010 on 26th March at a new venue on Brick Lane and we have secured funding for Edinburgh!

We're looking for new members to join our creative family - Video artists, Film makers, Reportage photographers, Stage production & online creatives.

If you fancy joining the circus email eyho@scottee.co.uk - these positions are unpaid but we cover all expenses to various towns, chip shops and off licenses.

Eat Your Heart Out London is back with a new home, new night, new time and new agenda.

This year we hit Bristol, Brighton, Cambridge, Edinburgh & a few festivals.

26th March. Be There.

Click here for full line up and EYHO blog.

Help the Ages - Elder Workshop.
As part of my 'Help the Ages' year, last Friday I ran a workshop for elders in Battersea. The workshop focused on love, passion and romance and asked the participants to share their stories with each other.

The group was split into three smaller groups, Each group focused on a different theme of love. Some were asked to share their memories of love, people they had fallen for and poems, songs or verses they remember, others were invited to recreate famous scenes from romantic films and create stills.

Some remembered Brief Encounters, others preferred anything with Elvis, Robert Redford was suave  but John Wayne was the clear winner - he stole the hearts of every woman in Battersea!

Other members of the group were invited to share stories of personal love. Toni (left) married a Polish man in the 50's. '..we were both so passionate, he would come home so late and I would be so angry, I'd smash things and he open his arms and sing 'Bye Bye Blackbird' to me, I would start to laugh, he knew how to make me smile'

The rest of the group began to sing 'Bye Bye Blackbird' - Toni said '..i never could remember those bloody words!'

Participants were then asked to create these stories into images with Simon and Dr J.


In another group the elders shared their thoughts on paper. Collecting stories of verses, poems, love songs or any thoughts of love they wanted to mark. Alot of people agreed that it was hard to remember any poems but songs were greatly recalled.

My favorite written quote is -
''Picked up a man at 15 - We danced at the Social Club. Got engaged at 21- a week after he was signed up to the army, away for three and a half years and only had 7 days leave in all that time! We were married for 43 years'

We also collected sound clips and group discussions, the work collected will be shown at 'Valentines Grand Ball' at the Grand Hall of BAC on 14th Feb. I will also be collecting stories of love from all ages at the event, drawing comparisons and matching older and younger people on the night to get them talking to each other, the idea is to use love as common ground - everybody love's something or someone and regardless of age we have similar experiences.



Thanks to the members of LARA.

Images by Dr J - AbsolutQueer Photography




Commissioned by BAC & Duckie.
bac.org.uk
duckie.co.uk

Bob Downe & Lily Savage live - the best piece of avant garde theatre I've ever seen (on VHS). Bob Downe should be as critically acclaimed as Michael Clarke in my book, does anyone remember his Saturday night show on ITV?

Why is performance art always so serious? Is it rule of thumb? Must it be serious, in a white space and performed by someone with piercings to a group of middle class white people?

Someone in Bristol once said to me - 'Scottee most people think, well that your a bit a naff, you do cabaret and club stuff too' - to which I replied '..the problem is, I couldn't care less'

I am one of those men in a dress you refer to, and we will make sure your 'trans mission' isnt heard.

Sex change surgery is unnecessary mutilation' and so are your commissioned thoughts absurd.

'Sex change surgery is modern-day aversion' and our community have an aversion to you, so continue to write your ideas on 'I hate..." & remember us Trans think the same of you.

Burlesque? No Thanks. 1913 - Suffragette activist Emily Wilding Davison throws herself under the Kings Horse in protest of Parliaments decision not to allow women the right to vote. 2010 - Women entertain city boys by taking their clothes off to a vintage record. Something doesn't quite add up there for me, over a 100 years ago women were violently & passionately protesting for equal rights often loosing their lives, jobs & families, all for the right to have their say about their future - fast forward to the 21st century and have we taken two steps back? For those of you who haven't encountered a burlesque show it usually consists of a performer seductively removing their clobber using a feather boa, fan or possibly something a little more conceptual if there's a gimmick involved, the big revel comes at the end when she/he flashes their mammary glands at you but their nipples are covered in something fancy -yes it can be a little more complex than this but you get the gist. For months I've been banging on about my disgust in its popularity on the London cabaret scene, your never more than 6ft away from a burlesquer in this town and personally I couldn't sit through another karaoke version of a well known song with a 'fascinator'. The harder and longer I thought about my stance on this the more confused I got, surely feminists around the world are in support of the resurgence of bra-less women liberated by their bodies? What gives me the right to comment on how people earn a living? I'm hardly the measure of moral guidance. I think my problem may lie in the exploitation of women on the circuit, new comers are often ripped off, fee's disappear and I've been told stories of ladies paying for the privilege of stage time. I spent my early career working for a womens lib theatre company where I was educated about my fore-sisters and the importance of equal rights and burlesque just doent sit right with me, isnt it just the same as stripping or (for effect) prostitution? A strong statement i know but badly paid women, heckled by pissed up punters, taking their clothes of for the sexual gratification of others isnt what I feel should be the common denominator of cabaret. Cabaret should be progressive, political and sometimes pretentious... am i being a little bit BBC about this whole thing? at the end of the day I suppose Its just not my cup of tea. Burlesque? No Thanks. Scottee. ♥

Since I first set foot into a nightclub I've always been fascinated by the world of Princess Julia. Aside from the well documented appearance in the Visage video, she's had an ever so colourful past - DJ, artist, brief lesbian spell, dj again, writer, editor, performance poet, indie it girl, zine maker & gay royalty (none of which she has told me herself, it took years of drunken conversations at various '80's' peoples homes).

She's now dabbling with blogging and photography - check her new blogger out, its quite something.
The World of Princess Julia

Help the Ages continues.

This years project to improve inter-generational relations (see here) continues this week. I'm facilitating a workshop for Elders in Clapham on Friday in association with Battersea Arts Centre. Over 2 hours I'll be collecting stories & creating work using creative writing, sound and stills based on love, lust and lewd conduct. The documentation will be shown at Duckie's Valentines Ball on 14th (sold out) and some of the work will appear on here in a few weeks. Hopefully the Elders will gain something from the workshop, learn something new about each other & show me, my peer and my audience they really aren't that different. Fingers crossed.

In the meantime here's an image from 2002, starring alongside Enid. We were performing to groups of social workers showing them the best way to work with Elders. What a shocking hair do/n't!