NSFW Have you ever performed in the nude?

Topless with body paint for a butoh performance; stripped to my underwear for a theatre piece. Modeled nude for life drawing. Paid for the last two.

For the first, there was an interesting ritual of us helping each other put on the body paint (it’s impossible to reach your own back..); and the fact that there were eight other performers (of both sexes) made it easier.

The second was for a theatre piece- it was a scene where the female factory workers were asked to strip and then re-dress in a uniform under the scrutiny of their male bosses (and the audience). The director turned on the audience lights for this scene to make the audience conscious of their voyeur role. Electric scene; and uncomfortable for everyone (but that was the point).

Modeling for life drawing is interesting. It’s in a specific context, so it feels quite safe. I find it funny when some guys draw my boobs bigger than they are… they’re drawing their own fantasy of a woman, rather than me!

Yes, yes and yes.

I used to work in my home office nude until one day the UPS man caught me between my office desk and the hallway to my bedroom.

Every time I frolic twixt the sheets I perform in the nude.
(That probably doesn’t count.)

@Shippy What kind of performance? What kind of audience? How did you like it? These are not yes or no questions.

@lifeflame I’ve taken Butoh dance workshops and seen some performances, so I have a small idea of what you might have been doing. What did you feel in the body painting ritual? Was it curiously intimate, but not sexual? What got you interested in Butoh?

Also, what did it feel like to be a life model? Where did your mind go when you were modeling?

I worshipped the porcelain goddess in the nude last night. Does that count?

Was there an audience?

Thank god – no!

Then, I’m sorry, but it was not a performance, and does not count for purposes of this question.

But I do hope you feel better, now.

@burntbonez If I told you I’d have to kill you :P

Then by all means, do tell!

I like to hang out in the bushes totally naked, with war paint all over me. I have a spear. I huck it at people, then I run after em.

@burntbonez :
The body painting was intimate. At that point in my life I’d never taken my clothes off in front of a group of people, so it was quite a vulnerable feeling. At the same time, because all the performers were helping each other spread body paint on each other, there was a sense of camaraderie. This is a performance after a summer long residency in this farmhouse in Germany, so I’d spent all summer with these people dancing and making sculptures.

What attracted me to butoh? That’s a much longer question. I’m not sure—I think it’s how the movement comes from the imagination and imagery, as opposed to many other dance forms, where it’s outside-in.

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As for life-modeling; a lot of energy goes into keeping still, so I go into a sort of heightened state of being. It’s a very focused state—I try to spot something in space, and then like yoga when you are told to hold a pose, you keep the structure but you keep relaxing into the form. Usually it’s for about 20 minutes before you take a break; and then return to the same pose.

I’ve been to studios where the artists chat—I remember being in one where the artists were all retired people, and were expression political viewpoints very different from my own. So that was interesting to me, because emotionally it feels different to hear stuff when you’re naked and your sense are all aware.