Message lost in critique of porn

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 21/02/2020 (2361 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Winnipeg choreographer and dancer Ming Hon is known as a performance artist, so it shouldn’t be surprising that Exciting Consequences, her Leap Series show at Prairie Theatre Exchange, is more performance art than play, without the attendant constraints of narrative or dramatic arc.

Even with that stipulation, however, Exciting Consequences, which opened Wednesday night, feels under-developed and scattershot, a mish-mash of mixed messages.

Hon’s hour-long work (no intermission) aims in part to examine the way pornography, especially in the age of the internet, has become a perverse form of sex-ed, delivering lessons to young people on how intimacy and intercourse should look and feel that are wildly at odds with reality.

Hon uses the formula of heterosexual porn — foreplay, penetrative sex, switching of positions and external ejaculation — as a framework for the piece.

Camera operator Hayley Mummery films Hon as she moves about the stage for a live video that’s projected on a large screen (it also shows pre-recorded video from Hon’s longtime collaborator, production designer Jaymez). Also onstage are makeup artist Rachel Lynne Jones and assistant stage manager Paige Lewis, there to highlight the artifice of performance by doing in front of the audience what would normally take place backstage.

Some of Hon’s scenes are cheekily irreverent, such as when she uses Barbie dolls and dildos to put the “play” in foreplay, or the clever use of bananas and sex-ed stereotypes to comment on porn’s fellatio tropes. One wishes there was more of that wit; there’s a certain grimness to much of Exciting Consequences that, while it may reflect the humourless reality of porn, isn’t fun to watch.

When a scantily clad woman in thigh-high boots is writhing on a fur rug and simulating sexual acts without any context beyond a soundtrack of fake orgasms, it seems less like commentary and more like exhibitionism.

Artful exhibitionism, to be sure, presented with the rigorous approach of contemporary dance and without the winking subtext of burlesque. But then the question is: so what? Are we meant to be titillated? (It’s oddly boring, so possibly not.) Is it meant to be a stand-in for the joyless choreography of porn? (If so, point taken, but it goes on for too long.)

There are also sight-line issues: Audience members on the left side of the theatre may find their view of the screen substantially impaired by a mirror hanging from the ceiling; the action is further blocked by the furniture on the set — a bed, dresser and chest of drawers arranged in a semi-circle around the front of the stage — and occasionally by Mummery’s body.

There’s almost no live dialogue; instead, the work relies on voice-over narration (from renowned choreographer Stephanie Ballard) and videos with scrolling text or subtitles apparently intended to replicate the live-blogging of Tumblr (formerly a popular site for porn sharing).

However, if you’re going to use the written form to deliver a message, missing words, random capitalization and erratic punctuation only serve as a distraction and give the production an unprofessional air.

These are not insignificant issues, but other elements work nicely. The dramatic lighting gives the steep planes of Hon’s face an almost fierce beauty and a scene where she’s silhouetted behind a sheet is compelling.

And Hon is a charismatic performer, even when her only expression is a cocked eyebrow. Her deadpan demonstration of the various substances used in porn shoots as a stand-in for semen is unforgettable.

But the work detours from the dangers of easy access to porn into a critique of how consumers’ unwillingness to pay for it hurts the people who make it. Hon attempts to make that bridge using a banana, not as a prop, but as an analogy.

“People want what they want when they want it,” the screen reads, after a lengthy discussion of banana monoculture, to explain why the public is willing to put up with a single variety of banana, even though it might not be the most delicious kind.

The metaphor, however appealing as a phallic throughline, doesn’t stand up under scrutiny. The online porn industry is essentially a monopoly, but it doesn’t survive by offering people a one-flavour-fits-all service — quite the opposite.

Like much of Exciting Consequences, the idea isn’t fully fleshed out.

jill.wilson@freepress.mb.ca

Twitter: @dedaumier