All Night Check:  Beautiful Young Ladies to Perform for You

Created by Victoria Pettersen Lantz, Angela Sweigart-Gallagher, and Melissa C. Thompson

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Devisor/performer​

 

Original Devised Piece

 

Baltimore, Nov. 2014 (Installation/Live)

Chicago, Summer 2015 (Installation/Live)

Festival of Original Theatre, Toronto 2016 (Installation/Live)

MN Fringe 2016 (Live Interactive)

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STATEMENT: Inspired by the writing on an historic brothel coin, All Night Check:  Beautiful Young Ladies to Perform for You takes the form of a sales pitch for the Brothel of the Future, a place where the sexual commodification of the female body hits a fever pitch in the effort to give the customer what he really wants.  Given the way in which male fantasy, desires, and dreams (as well as fears, repulsion, and nightmares) often dehumanize women, reducing women to figments of the male imagination or mere body parts, we challenge the objectification of women’s bodies and their sexuality through the medium of choice.  We highlight the ways in which women “perform” within and against the male gaze and seek to explore the ways in which popular male fantasies have colored the discussion of women’s social value, their sexuality, and their rights, as the complex intersections of power, desire, and agency that appear when one attempts to control the female body and its desires.