Shade at Silai 2007
Shade – a performance by Jacky Puzey BETWEEN 12-2PM
Come and join me for tea, chat, and ‘Shade’….. suits, passports, and dressing to pass in a globalising world…….
This first performance of Shade took place at Silai for Skills, Easton, Bristol as part of the Easton Arts Trail 2007. For this project, I wore the Hostess costume from the group of Shade suits.
The Hostess is based loosely on the tightly buttoned hostess of English colonial myth. ‘There would be no incidents over the food at least today…everything was compromise spiced to suit all tastes’..but she also acknowledges the roles of all matriarchs in arranging social gatherings,from African family gatherings to English tea dances. She sends herself up, setting up her bright umbrella, covered in garden party pictures, folding out her teatrays, to which she is attached firmly at the hip, and inviting people to join her for tea and a social discussion. But she is also more thoughtful, about shared histories, coming together for food and discussion….. inviting people under her umbrella to share space and shade. At Silai we had conversations about travel, home, passports and family, many of them triggered by the details and embroideries on the Hostess suit as I invited people to join me in tea and cake, a convivial space to share cultures. “you should go to the airport” suggested one guest – with others we talked about monsoon rains and smells of home, as it rained outside the performance venue, and dress and identity in relation to the global business uniform of the tailored suit – politics, power and access to networks…..