- Max Vos
Body Map
The show had started, the lights dimmed, mist poured from the smoke machines, and suddenly the audience was witness to a barbie doll ripping off its limbs to sexy music to reveal Glitta Supernova. What followed was energetic dancing/jiggling, dazzling make-overs, somewhat-relatable anecdotes, and a rabbit-out-of-the-hat trick where the rabbit was a banner and the hat was a… part of the body.
Glitta Supernova has performed at Fringe before. Her show Let’s Get Metaphysicalin 2015 received very positive reviews. Glitta’s attitude to performance apparently remains the same – smash those who wish to control your sexuality, your personality, your body, between your proud-to-be-bouncy thighs.
On this road trip cabaret, Glitta was our official tour guide to the “off-road body reality tour.” Much like a safari through the savanna, our journey was wild, untamed, eye-opening, and very educational. The entire act was an exploration of body and society, mixed with unconcealed humour. Her eyeshadow shimmering and lipstick brilliant, Glitta fluffs her lemon-yellow hair and prepares to educate. “As I have not yet been appropriated, normalised or groomed into shame,” Glitta declares, “you’ll be accepting some risk of objectionable, offensive, unlawful, deceptive or harmful content to be known hereon as an authentic human experience that’s not been sanitised & curated for likes.”
She investigated her relationship with her body, her sexuality and her life, and how society and her surroundings had influenced all three of those things. A person’s relationship with their body can often be a complex and difficult one, and being in the audience, knowing that you weren’t the only one feeling like there was something a little screwed up with how society looks at bodies, was refreshing. As the whole enactment was presented naked, the audience was forced to confront the truth – the naked body is not automatically sexual. The naked human body is a bumpy, wiggly, cellulite-riddled, fat-laced, stunning machine.
The stage went blue, she ducked behind a speaker, a hanging bulb was swung over the stage and Glitta strode out, a skeleton in her arms. It was a meaningful, humorous dance that summarized Glitta’s boldness in her body and life. A danse macabre expressed her message perfectly.
“Don’t ask me,” she laughs and puffs, “why I had to go behind the speaker to do that.”
The authentic human experience followed a map of skin and flesh and chub, from the ‘melons’ to the ‘meat flaps’. On the road, there were stops at Honesty Street, No-Shits-Given Corner, Shameless Avenue, and a surprising serious turn at Mortality Close. Glitta detailed her near miss with death, and her dedication to her body and her personality was inspiring – through her ordeal with a rare stomach cancer, she nonetheless requested that the surgeons cut around her tattoos.
Glitta Supernova’s Body Map was a performance of utter body positivity and reclaiming of sexuality. The unbridled, unclothed, unapologetic speech about the human body and society’s chokehold on its meanings was something that exposed the truth that everybody knows.
I can’t say I understand society’s motivation for the utter obsession with the human body (of any gender), but I will say this – I was laughing the whole time, and the show’s brilliance cannot be summed up in any single article. Go see it – all of it. Burn the images into your retina.
This article originally appeared in Colosoul Magazine.
Body Map showed at this year’s Perth Fringe World Festival from 7th–12th February.