How many Alvin Ailey Dance trained performance artists do you know who have the hutzpah to audition for America’s Got Talent in a plastic Barbie Doll like mask — or multiple masks for that matter? I can name only one. “She’s a doll. She’s a puppet. She’s a bodybuilder.” She’s Narcissister, the Brooklyn based artist and performer whose “reverse striptease” act (in which she pulls pieces of clothing from her “private parts”) as well as her bold videos and art installations, have made her an international sensation.
Mixing performance art, burlesque, and choreography, the always-masked Narcissister takes control of her own destiny. Her body is her canvas but nudity, for her, is complex; the spectacle of striptease, the coyness of the cover-up, the plastic face with its frozen stare and lipsticked mouth, all remind us that the body is never bare and that our identity is what we make of it.
Her latest show, Organ Player, which finishes its two-week run at Abrons Arts Center this Thursday through Saturday, promises to be a large-scale performance that “stretches the limits of spectatorship.” Complete with the usual dose of dance, music, and vaudevillian trickery, you should expect the unexpected.
Narcissister: Organ Player / Abrons Arts Center / Thursday – Saturday, March 20 -22 / 8pm / $15 / For mature audiences.
