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Three Creatives step into their own by exploring self-expression through movement, visuals, and sound
The Sassy Show is forever in pursuit of self-exploration. We make it our mission to find and promote art that welcomes us into fellow creative's personal worlds. We proudly connect with those who show their own unique interpretation of the female body, reflecting the respect we have for performance, music, sensual and sexual expression, and the female body. These areas of focus form the bedrock of our Video Channel where we support those stepping in front of the camera to tell their stories through creative expression.
The following three short films do exactly this. Spotlighting Natasha Natarajan, The Sound of Modesty, and Zoe Fayaud, watch as these womxn take inspiration from their upbringings and reinvent them to tell a story relevant to their understanding of life today.
Nataraj-an
Performed by Natasha Natarajan
Filmed by Eliot Gelberg-Wilson
I haven’t always loved and appreciated my body. But over the past 5 years my relationship with it has really changed.
In 2016 a couple of things happened: I spent a lot of time outside walking up hills, cycling long distances and running. I stopped wearing very tight clothes. I mostly wear loose things now. I stopped using a full length mirror. And I got a yoga app and started doing yoga a couple times a week on my own (and occasionally in a class).
I think this video is the culmination of a journey I have been on since then. I want to portray my body, not necessarily within the paradigms of beauty or strength but to celebrate it as the playful organism I live within. A reminder that I can jump and spin and roll around on the floor if I want to.
This video is also partly an ode to my surname Natarajan (the god Shiva incarnated as the Lord of the Dance) and my love for yoga practice. I really feel that the Vinyasas I learn are like dances and I wanted to play with that. The music is also based around playing within a cycle. It is a South African classical guitarist’s transcription of classical Malian music. If I dare, I might even call this video an exploration of my identity politics.
Anyway those are my thoughts so far in this process. I am working with the videographer, Eliot Gelberg-Wilson, towards creating a more explicit narrative about playfulness.
Check out our previous interview with Natasha Natarajan discussing her FML Comics here
As All Things Should Be
Performed by The Sound of Modesty
Filmed by Catherine Jablonski and Ed M
To begin with, The Sound of Modesty wrote music that was softer and reflective of pop ballads. But with time, a more progressive identity began to emerge inspired by her newfound love for rock music. “Rock became a way for me to present my louder persona. With the character I’ve made, she’s a lot more fierce, sharp, and intentional than my day-to-day way of being. I am a quiet person, I don’t speak a lot so my natural instinct is to be modest”. By embodying the character of her music, The Sound of Modesty has been able to resiliently kick back, refusing to conform to any one style.
A noticeable reference in The Sound of Modesty’s music is Japanese rock; a style that is typically understood to be more hardcore. A chillingly relatable scream in her track ‘As All Things Should Be’, and bass guitar melodies speak to the J-rock style. When asking about where this influence stemmed from, The Sound of Modesty explains that “I have a lot of appreciation for Japanese culture. I love their music and the syntax of language; it offers up so many different melodies than what we’re used to hearing in western music”. Having recorded the track ‘Warm Floors/Cold Bodies’ in Japanese, a language she’d never spoken before, The Sound of Modesty tells me that “with the genre of this track being very much like anime music, I felt it would only be appropriate to sing the song in the native language.” With an obvious level of respect, The Sound of Modesty explains how in Japan, their pop music has always been rock music, placing them at the forefront of the industry and allowing sub genres such as visual kei, indie rock, and math rock to be born.
An excerpt taken from The Sound of Modesty's interview on Reform The Funk
Read the full article here
ÔDE AU FÉMININ
Film by Zoe Fayaud
Music by Lous & the Yakuza, Massilia Sound System, Aya Nakamura, and Rosalía
Quotes from Jacques Brel, Christine Taubira quoting Aimé Césaire, and Lous & The Yakuza
This is a film full of room for interpretation. I’ve used footage of dancers from the countries I grew up in, from Mali and Cambodia as well as Cuban Rumberos dancers. Cuba is a country that left a huge impression on me as an adult.
Throughout the film, we see clips of Apsara dancers from Cambodia who I’d see when visiting the Angkor Wat temple with my parents. They were a big part of my visual imagination when I was really young. I also brought in Dogon dancers from Mali which we would go to watch in village ceremonies that completely transfixed me. There’s imagery of Tuaregs who are semi-nomadic traders and herders who live in Northern Mali and were part of my visual landscape of memories. And with my Mother being of Spanish heritage, there's also footage of flamenco dancer Carmen Amaya.
By compiling this footage, I was trying to dig into my own history, which kind of explains why I chose to include myself in the film (for the first time choosing to be my own subject). I made this during lockdown which meant I didn’t have other models to use and it transformed into something more introspective. A semi self-portraiture piece of work.
There’s a strong message of feminism and what beauty means, the power of the woman and sensuality. I took excerpts from Jean Luc Godart's films, (the black and white shots in which we see a man looking hungrily at a woman). He was renowned for his avant-garde approach.
The final piece is a mixture of what I have seen and been inspired by in my life; the people, music, and artists that I’ve been introduced to. It's also a homage to women all over the world, my ode to femininity.
Learn more about Zoe Fayaud's work by watching her documentary about Palestine here