This week I am not performing with Mad King Thomas for the First. Time. Ever. (Sort of.) Tonight, I’ll be in the house watching the incredible Joanna Furnans do my part, because I’m still healing (but! My scab fell off last night. Progress!)
The first time we performed Fish on Bikes: A Picture of Free, Untrammelled Womanhood, we were right after a dance by Ikwewag Waci/Terri Yellowhammer. It was our biggest show yet, a full house at the Walker Art Center, and I’m wearing an American flag string bikini and a bicycle helmet. Before or after the Ikwewag Waci/Terri Yellowhammer piece, there was an announcement that their dance was a type of blessing, and if I recall it, a prayer for healing.
Um. Yeah, did I mention the bikinis? It felt a long way from healing and making the world better, and I felt a little bad about that, but as I sat in the dark waiting for our cue, I did what I often do in those dark, quiet moments before performing. I tried to think of why I was doing this, and really, healing seemed like a pretty good answer (even though it sets off all kind of cynical post-modern atheist alarm bells). Maybe it’s a little about healing our sad and angry thoughts about our bodies. Letting all my jiggliness and all my love ricochet right on out of me and directly into all 700 people we performed for that night. My body works! It’s wonderful! It bicycles! It dances! Fuck yeah!
Now Fish on Bikes is always that kind of dance for me. A big party, a celebration, a dose of medicine that tastes so, so good, like blueberries.
Come see us! By us, I mean, Theresa & Monica & Joanna! Details here.
