Gotta Work With What You've Got

In February 2020, after an awesome audition process (that every company should model!), I was selected to become a member of Degenerate Fox. Degenerate Fox are a theatre company who make work in the NeoFuturist aesthetic. NeoFuturism essentially removes all artifice. When you perform in this style, you are you (Amy Marie Elizabeth Fleming in this case!), you are here (currently at my kitchen table typing), the time is now (currently 14.25 at time of writing) and I am doing what I am doing (I am drafting a blogpost and not shaving a gorilla).

The company creates and performs a regular stage show called 'The Dirty 30’ in which they make a valiant attempt to perform 30 plays in 1 hour - the order of which is selected by the audience. I was very excited, as well as absolutely bricking it, about doing the stage show but sadly ye olde pandemic waltzed into town and killed that dream (for now!).

However, the company, being creative dreamboats, decided to start making work to put out online. To date we have created over 60 short plays which you can watch on our YouTube channel.

In the NeoFuturist style, I initially found the “you are here” tricky. How many times can I show our one bed flat? Also, how much of our flat do I want to put out online? So, my brain decided it could use other things as a visual aid for my plays and my first stop was my body.

I have never used close ups of my body in my work before. The first hurdle to jump over was how much the camera actually picks up - each individual pore apparently! I was surprisingly not bothered by this, probably because I have spent a lot of time agonising over every little imperfection I have.

The second was seeing all my wobbly bits on screen. Again, this didn’t bother me at all. It was actually a great marker of how far I had come. I enjoyed making all my bits wiggle and when I realised that some of them didn’t wiggle half as much as I wanted them to for the shot, I was furious; which is such a weird turn of events but a big indicator of how much bullshit I have been telling myself over the years.

The part I found most uncomfortable was when I had to isolate parts of my head for ‘18.A deconstructed presentation of a personal Fox poem’. It involved close-ups of my ears, mouth, eyes etc. I really didn’t enjoy this at all. I think that since I am moving past hating my stomach and below my neck generally that my brain is now turning on my head. I was grossed out by my inner ears - seeing them up close for the first time was weird. Ears are weird. I am really struggling with my teeth at the minute. There are so many gaps and I need braces but they are too expensive. Seeing them up close and isolated so that all I could see was them was really uncomfortable. And my nose… my big, old witchy nose…

It’s funny because I didn’t realise that I hadn’t focused on my head at all during this whole process. I have been so busy trying to accept and appreciate what’s below my neck that the hero who has been exposed my whole life was forgotten. I know, on an intellectual level, that my head is as worthy as every other head on this planet but it’s embodying that fact that’s the difference. I have said that about my body and now I need to apply it to my head.

It’s also interesting that without realising it, this entire time that I have been talking about my body, I have been exploring it like some sort of headless horseman. Why, when I say my body, do I not include my head or my brain? I find it weird that I have this disconnection between the logical and feeling sides of me in this way.

I really found the chats I had with my friend Joe on my Instagram account were really great in helping me to reconnect with these body parts and see them as part of the whole. Talking about each body part individually, I realised how each story involved all of me and not just that body part. I also included some specific exercises to do with my head in the 30 Day Connection Challenge in the hope that those things would also help me rebuild this bridge between my head and the rest of my body.

If it works, remains to be seen...