Wheel ::: On Appearance

[a line drawing of two self-portraits side by side, one is kicking the other].

This is going to sound odd to some of you and others of you will know exactly what I mean: I am legitimately super confused by my physical appearance. This has been going on at least since adolescence and maybe before, but I've only recently articulated it this way. I am just. So. Confused. I don't have a clear sense of what I look like to the world even though I look at myself all the time and obviously 'know' what I look like. Sometimes I am debilitatingly self-conscious about my appearance (to the point where it prevents me from doing things I want to do), and other times I kind of love my appearance. Either way, I am always shocked to catch my reflection.

This weird appearance confusion doesn't upset me as much as it used to, and in fact some good things have even come out of it. It's kind of what got me into drawing; I got more into art when I started creating all these self-portraits. Without really knowing it when I started, I think I was looking for a way of translating the lines of my body that I so disliked into something I could look at less painfully. And maybe this is because I'm just not that good an artist yet or maybe it's a symptom of this appearance-confusion (or maybe both), but none of my self-portraits really look like each other and none of them really look that much like me, as far as I can tell. But this is another good thing that's come from it - I love to get all philosophical on this and be like 'WHAT AM I TO MYSELF? WHAT AM I TO OTHERS? WHAT IS A BODY? WHAT IS A SELF?!” If you know me you've probably heard me ranting about the unknowability of self. I freaking love that shit.

I admit it's weird to have chosen a thing (performance) where I continually put myself in front of people to be looked at if I'm so anxious and confused about my appearance. I wrote about that briefly here a few months back (thinking about seeing and being seen). Also relevant is this piece on being a 'spectacle'; I'm looked at pretty often and in pretty specific ways in public and don't have a choice about it, so it can be kind of cool to be in a situation where I've at least chosen it. I'm not looking for validation - theatre is generally not the place to have your beauty affirmed unless you are already beautiful in a very specific way. I think what interests me more is expansion – exploring the selves I perform in life and on stage and the ways in which they can continually be expanded, challenged, broadened, deepened. How can I play with and against the expectations that my appearance generates for a myself and for an audience? How can I complicate it? How can I celebrate my body and everything it offers in the context of performance and also challenge it?

Sometimes I'm really grateful for this confusion I have because I get to revel in the fact that I don't even know what I mean. What does this line mean, what does this angle mean, what does this size and shape and wheel mean – what does this mean?! And if I don't know, I get to make it up.

And that is freaking improvisation.