SHAWNÉ MICHAELAIN HOLLOWAY and Julie Tolentino

JULIE TOLENTINO The first time I saw your work, I felt I understood something about your method and how you were pushing things. It was your multichannel installation DOG WHISTLE at The Kitchen in 2019.

SHAWNÉ MICHAELAIN HOLLOWAY I hope I always leave people with the impression that I like to push things. It’s important to me that people walk away from any work I make with an impression of how it was made and a sense of who made it. Especially if you don’t relate to the work, or if you relate too much with it, it can be hard to sort through the content at face value. Maybe this is also why we’ll see things three, four, even ten times. And with live performance, it also changes over the days.

You saw the dress rehearsal of ._SUITABLE_FOR.EXE[CUTION], it was definitely a shaky run. I’m very curious about the impressions you were left with. And in your own work, what do you hope to be the takeaways over those crucial steps toward the final result?

JT I’m just gonna muse a bit and you can always draw me back if I’m missing your questions. I’m going through a period of growth literally right this moment. But growth isn’t like “getting better.” Growth is uneven—it’s this slamming to the ground, trying to pick yourself up again, not even knowing where the language is, not even knowing your material. That’s when everything is mirroring back to me in a really new way. Of course, I want the thing I’ve been working on to come forward. But sometimes I have to stay open to what the thing to come is. So I’m asking the work, the materials, the people on all sides to help me understand what the fuck I’m working on. I don’t know if that resonates with you at all.

SMH It does. Absolutely.

JT Honestly, SHAWNÉ, I don’t think I ever know where I am in that process. And sometimes that is, um, scary.

What especially interests me about your work is that you’re not simply offering a “performance” or theater or choreography; it is set up so we learn what it is as it happens. I am not into the term performance art. Is that in your vocabulary? I feel the work you’re doing in both the live and digital realms is trying to displace language and the body, and take up or haunt spaces. You’re offering up the erotics of the felt digital space, making us aware of the way we’re being intervened by technology. I experience all those forms of moving penetrations in your work.

SMH I do try to displace both language and the body. I’m trying to find that liminal state that describes the bit of living we do when we’re in the midst of translating ourselves into an online presence and doing that same translation work when we’re receiving that of others. It’s not quite spirit, but something else. Maybe that’s where you pick up on the haunting. There is a lot of grief in the process of constantly dematerializing and rematerializing.

JT I’m interested in how you work in terms of direction. What is directed by you, the texts, or the performers? Knowing how much work you make that comes from your own physical body and encounters, what matters to you in the translation process? I’m super into the construction—the structure—of performance, so seeing your work, I sensed how you cared about where things were, including where you put us, the audience, into view. Everybody was pretty much in the “front row,” with the performers making a loop. I felt they were creating an interior space among them, with or from the audience.

Sometimes I wanted the work, ._SUITABLE_FOR.EXE[CUTION], to be more difficult, if that makes sense. The fucking thing about the demand of the stage for some performers is that we’re trained to know, or are disciplined into, stage time, and I hate that. It’s just so hard to break the habit. Like, it’s an accident when that happens, and I just love it when it does.

SMHThe obviousness of the erotics and the minimal architecture of the performance were about setting that desire for more—and subsequent lack of satisfaction—in motion, for the performers via a specifically loose style of direction, but also for the audience. By asking questions like, What does the live quality of the performing body do in the face of the similarly live quality of the processing computer? The stage direction was built on a system that mirrors dog training (another place where humans control beings that have a different language than ours) because it can’t be predetermined if we are to stay true to the question. Rehearsals were very exploratory so I could assess how the environment was also coming alive. I needed that stage time you mention to be broken by the fact that the words were always scrolling—like in a computer, the code is always running. If there’s so much code running on a computer at a certain time, it will get too hot. Your computer will say, I need to shut down, it’s too much. I needed the performers to act like that was at stake. I know that’s how I felt in terms of my headspace if I tried to push choreography: I literally cannot process this. If I had treated the direction more like dance or theater, it would have been too much processing.

It’s important for me to mention that I don’t fully understand bodies. I don’t understand haptics. I don’t understand proximity. I only understand thinking about the potential or eventuality of haptics or thinking through that of proximity, which is kind of antithetical—thinking-haptics only exist in poetry. (laughter) They exist in my poetry at least. When I make my work, I realize the space, as you were saying—the spatial proximity of not only the stage, but also the objects and the words. When I’m feeling confused, I rely on composition and on being reactive—which is a kind of touch-point. We always revert to our basic training—mine is in music, theater, and painting. And the basic parts of those disciplines are composition, right? We say “yes, and” when we’re doing improv, and we say, “the golden ratio is the perfect ratio.” So I try to replicate that and maybe that’s also the reason why I enjoy minimalism, because it’s the only way I do understand the body. I believe that minimal artwork allows us to have a one-to-one relationship to a certain form that we realize is different from our form. That is what I tried to set up in the literal direction, too. We had a book we were reading from that explained the concept of work in relationship to the body. It talks about how to assess the body as an object and the labor it takes to both exist in that state but also nurture it.

The leather community has a fundamentally different rhythm of navigating and experiencing life. I don’t think we understand proximity in the same ways as others either. One of the rhythms that belongs to a new era of kink is actually one of the only rhythms I understand: that of continuous labor. Work, with a capital W. Work is the foundational tool I use. So, in rehearsals for ._SUITABLE_FOR.EXE[CUTION], to perform Work, even just to warm up, we did exercises that were about things like, What hand gesture is the command for “stay,” what gesture is “go,” what gesture is the command for “return”? First, we did them as a group with me in the lead, and then I taught Miguel Angel Guzman, the performer who played the Handler, to do the exercises with the rest of the cast. That dynamic fundamentally changed the way we did it. We then translated that capital W Work into, What does Work feel like inside of the body? How does Work warm us? How does Work exhaust us?

That exercise reoriented the entire piece and that’s why the cast was all so engaged with one another. Not only did they learn how to communicate nonverbally, but that communication was very exacting every single time—in the same way that a composition of a minimalist sculpture is exacting. And that has nothing to do with bodies, but everything to do with bodies in a system, you know?

JT Totally. There’s a methodology there that I recognize. I might describe it differently. For me, the embrace of distance is actually the same as what you describe as these continuous rhythmic proximities. I’m not trying to suppress, but I am trying to figure out what the baselines are that we might hit. Like, how do you keep hitting the floor? There’s something in what you say that’s creating the condition for presence.

I do two kinds of warming. One is like, Go away and do whatever you have to do to get yourself in the room.

SMH(laughter) Yeah.

JT And then do whatever you need to feel good, something so you don’t hurt yourself. Go feel good for a minute in this plane or on this side of the performance. Then, whatever might happen next can occur fully on the other side. I think neither of us are interested in these binary proclamations, like, “Oh, yeah, we’re all so relaxed in the preshow circle.”

The non-bodiedness you’re talking about is something I’ve been growing—by experiencing the body as in fact not so “natural” to itself. You are not just producing the labor or forging the image but instead it’s where these forces are converging, holding, making way for what is moving through. I find that’s a really hard space to talk with movers. Many movers are fully convinced they know a lot about their body, that it is about getting it right. I am sure they do know, but there are unknown parts. I find juice there.

SMH Yes, in theory there are always unknown places. I hope through my work that everyone involved can find one of those.

JT I inherently had a sense in your work of something that is being given, that transmits this “Okay, now I’m open.” Like a feed and shut time, feed and shut, and then real things happen. There is a literal processing happening, with a literal glitch. These are not metaphors. What I am looking for in performance is to get away from that metaphoric space—although, of course, it’s haunting performance all the time. But not to believe in it so much because there’s more than metaphoric space.

SMH Maybe it’s not the metaphor we’re after. Maybe we’re looking for beauty. We know that science is not a concrete practice at all. Engineering is an extremely literal practice. But Ada Lovelace, for example, who is regarded as the mother of programming, is the daughter of Lord Byron, the poet.

So it’s actually just the poetry in the connections and the convergences of all of these things—the work of machines and the work of taboo. And that’s where we get erotics, when we notice something that just feels clicked into place, or something that—I don’t want to use the word authentic—naturally runs in parallel with another thing. Observed synergy, I suppose. Movements between bodies that unintentionally create a beautiful shape—we can speak about it as a metaphor of the machine and the processing, but it’s literally just these two things running in parallel.

And maybe that’s also where we get the building of intensity. One thing I know of your work is that it’s running in the space of intensities. There was a lot of critique of ._SUITABLE_FOR. EXE[CUTION] like, “I wish you would have pushed the intensity between the bodies harder.” But from my perspective within the process, I think the performers’ dedication to finding their footing and their spot in parallel with the work and the direction, or even just the intensity of the entire production as it came together, was enough for me. I resist sensationalism and I reject violence in spots where it doesn’t want to manifest. However, I am interested in pushing intensity to make up for the distance that I inherently have from the performance as a creator. You once said that I’m interested in illustrating those distances. But I think I haven’t gotten there yet. I’m really afraid of pushing it right now. I’m still in that stage where I’m listening to everybody and everything.

JT Good! Keep listening. You’ll get better at saying, Okay, that’s not what I need. It’s difficult to work with performers, not because they’re difficult, but because sometimes people are already making the work without you. People who work with their bodies won’t say they don’t know. I mean, I’m talking about them like they’re some strange people—

SMH (laughter)

JT But it’s part of being trained: you are already supposed to know what you will produce. And then you hope that starts to happen with the person you’re working with, right? So they’re like, “Yes, got that. Okay, got that.” And then that “got that” takes over everything.

I’m thinking your great experiment was in asking, How can the performers get behind and under these words, get behind the technology, get behind the platform, get behind the leather? And then squeeze that stuff out, instead of just being had.

Everything that creates that intensity or that gravitational force that’s propelling us and pushing us away from each other are the things I’m interested in. Even boredom, or, “I’ll be there in a minute.” Dancer people are often unwilling to take a minute because they’re ready to go. And what I’m saying is, “We’re not ready. Just wait.”

SMH All of this possibility is the roughest place to occupy. I try.

JT I know that we’re not all perfectly good for those spots. What I care about more is what’s happening to get us all kind of perfectly good and bad for each other. It’s like a tiny line more. Do you know what I mean? It’s more playful maybe, but not like total sex play.

SMH Yes, that’s right.

JT It’s grinding a gear or something. It’s terrible for a minute, then you’re like, Oh, I got it.

SMH One of the things I was doing in ._SUITABLE_FOR.EXE[CUTION] was telling the performers, “Don’t think, just do.” And they were the ones saying, “Let’s take a second.” And this happens also in my teaching, through the pace at which I work. Because I have a new project every month at the very least, I’ve never taken that time. Maybe that’s also because my training was in this thing we call “dirty new media.” It was literally like, “What’s your goal? Slap it together. It’ll work. If you daisy-chain one hundred different HDMI cords together, it’ll be forty-five feet. You’ll be able to reach it, and it’ll be fine.” (laughter) And it always fails, right? Because that was the point.

Now that I can work with that time, I am curious to see what will come of it. You were saying that letting go is something that you’re trying to do. How do the space of that extra second and the letting go come together for you?

JT I’m really interested in the way we think about what we’re doing. I’m a very good overthinker. I have a terrible sense of insecurity when I am trying to push something but not say what it is. I’m often never wanting to say what it is as some kind of testament to my making. It’s all fucked up what I’m doing to myself. You might know what that’s like!

SMH Yes, I do. (laughter)

JT I think that explains that hot mess mix. Sometimes I’m like, Whoa, I have a few more tricks up my sleeve. When I’m with students, I never know how it’s gonna work out. And then, all of a sudden, I can’t stop talking. It’s like, Oh my God, I didn’t know I have all this shit to say. There’s something about understanding that accumulation in myself, and about not taking myself too seriously. I’m not saying I even know how to do that. But the letting go part is also playing with that in the moment when I feel the accumulation. I’m like, Wait, hold on. It doesn’t have to even be a gesture that looks like “hold on.” It can just be in my headspace so that I don’t use accumulation to start cloaking up my body. Because that accumulation can be a protection. You’re like, Oh, I got it, I’m feeling it, I know what to do. I know how to get with that person. Or you start getting ahead of yourself. And maybe that’s just because I’m a fucking nervous fool. I know what that’s like. I want everybody to get chill. I don’t mean chill out, but just—we don’t have to know. I think it’s worth it to get smart. Let’s get smarter.

The way you’re talking about decolonizing our practices—by reimagining science as our only way forward—is a way of saying yes to anatomy but no to dance or theater. And then to ask anatomy to not just be science; it can be a system, or it can be forty-five thousand systems all on top of each other. That’s busy enough for me. It’s enough to be thinking about how I encounter another body just on the level of the circulatory system. It sounds like somatics, but for me, it actually has more constraints. It does feel more like my complete and utter understanding of myself through S/M. Do you know what I mean? I have to know the system so that I can keep producing. I want to be and produce in the system. People never really wanted to talk to me about this.

SMH Mm-hmm.

JT I heard you speak about this once in a talk, and I was like, I finally met the person I’ve been waiting to talk to. I come from a community that doesn’t know how to embrace me as a mixed-race person. As somebody who, especially in my time, was willing to break the rules. I was drinking whiskey when I was supposed to be in a sober space. I was bad sometimes, you know? (laughter) I mean, I’m big picture bad. I was terrible at sex and whatever, terrible at things. But I feel like that’s what makes me understand other people, too. That’s not dance, not somatics, even though these are all practices I touch. The piece I did at Performance Space, Slipping into Darkness, was all about consensual drowning, and the encounter with strangers.

SMH I’m sad I was not there.

JT I’m sad that you weren’t in that pool. That work is very, very hard for people to get into. It’s just easier for them to think they went to the spa or something, you know what I mean?

SMH Yes, I do.

JT But it’s also fine if that’s the closest we can get to like, “I don’t have to be worried about my body—about what it looks like, how it acts, and gets to react.” That’s not bad.

SMH When you reduce it to that, it’s the basis of what we’re looking for in all S/M work. And, in my opinion, also in artwork. I think we probably have similar dispositions. One of the things about being a part of a system, whether that system is S/M or the works that we make, is that everything belongs. And as someone who understands what a type of leadership is, you can arrange that belonging and also belong in a way where you don’t have to be seen. That is primarily what performance is becoming for me. I do perform, but I don’t like to do it. I always perform in a mask.

The first couple of performances I ever worked on was with a Chicago project we called D1TH3RD00M, we performed with this Iron Man mask Alfredo Salazar-Caro had rigged up with green LEDs. If I’m not mistaken, he’d painted the Iron Man masks for all six of us because I just refused to perform without anonymity. (laughter) It allowed us to switch performers in and out, too, which was cool. One time I switched out myself for someone else who ended up doing my part. And the guys I was making work with didn’t know until the end of the night because we had the same clothes on. I think the power of being seen or not seen, or feeling safe or not safe in a system, is controllable in a way that isn’t controlling of the entire system, per se. I reinforced that then by making systems for performance that anyone can use just like I did in SUITABLE_FOR. EXE[CUTION].

JT Yeah. You use a mask, and you can perform without using your face. I appreciate being displaced, decentered, disidentifying as the maker.

I once worked with this presenter in Greece who was like, Oh, we have this cool place for you. But the place was the shittiest, stupidest place I’d ever seen for doing a performance, so I ended up working in this nightclub that happened to be around the corner. I started the performance and it looked, you know, all pretty. (laughter) Then I began drawing the people out of the space and into the street. I was going really slow and they followed me, like a pied piper. But then at one point, I literally ran like a bat out of hell around the corner and up the street. The people started following me. By the time they got around the corner, I was around another corner. I had this red sequin cloak on, and I had someone prepared to lie down at the entrance of this new space, and I threw the cloak over them before I went downstairs. There I got my face changed to get started for something else. In the meantime, the audience finally made it and they’re like, We found her. But the person was four feet taller than me, Greek, and they had curly hair. And they still thought it was me.

SMH (laughter)

JT This is the example of the “theater happening to them.” It’s a kind of accident.

SMH Yes. It always is. A person who did a similar thing was actually a famous artist I had a crush on. So it was great to watch this happen. One of my first shows in New York was in a dungeon, in Paddles. I sat in a corner and literally no one spoke to me the entire time I was there, which I found funny. One of my friends finally recognized me and came up to talk to me. This famous artist knew her and, pointing to my videos, was like, “Oh my god, I’m glad I recharged my vibrator. This girl is so hot.” Meanwhile, I was standing right next to them. That kicked in for me and I thought, Okay, maybe I should do the headshot.

JT On one level, that hiding or opacity for the sake of lack of regeneration or expectation is super important to me. I mean, unfortunately, I have a mouth that nobody can forget, once you see my mouth, my chin, and my teeth, I’m fucked. I should wear a ball gag for the rest of my life.

SMH (laughter) I love this accessory for you.

JT I’ll still talk behind that thing.

But I was gonna say, about letting go and the desire to make, I didn’t have money for a rehearsal space when I was younger. I mean, I still don’t. (laughter)

SMH I’ve never had a studio or rehearsal space. Nothing.

JT It’s so insane. So back in the old days, when I ran the Clit Club, I could use the club space. But we were always pretty busy, and remaking the bar every night so it looked different. My friends, the artists Lovett/Codagnone, ran another party called Pork, which was the sister to the Clit Club back in the ’90s. Their space was in a leather bar; it wasn’t a dungeon but it had this particular type of audience. So I would come and do some of my projects there. For years I was just making my work to the back of a bunch of hairy ass leathermen—my “workspace.”

SMH Ah yes, the real capital W Workspace. Fitting.

JT I see the way you work with the computer as a commitment to much that’s hidden. For me, it’s like meridian work, scent infusion, body work, ghosts, and things that I don’t overtly name. I experience some of these layers in your work.

SMH You know, one of my most favorite things that came out of the ._SUITABLE_FOR.EXE[CUTION] show was actually the software we built for the live online version. With the help of the Foundation for Contemporary Arts Emergency Grant, I commissioned my friend Nick Briz to build software that opened browser windows in a sequence that I created for the show. The formal images we created, and the documentation of the performance condensed all the poetry of technology, control, and anticipation into a ten-minute span using a broken, depreciated feature of a thing we all use. And so if we can put that poetry into something we can all touch and understand, and make a little magic out of it ...

I think everybody involved in S/M is furthering or deepening the understanding of relationships between minds, bodies, and society. Proximity, geography. And I think that we both really do that kind of triangulation. I’m really glad we found each other because it proves that it works.