Holly Bass at Transformer

Tonight!

Transformer is excited to present Holly Bass in "Pay Purview," the second installment of Show and Prove:

Thursday, September 27, 6:30 - 8pm

Pay Purview is an ongoing multidisciplinary work combining live performance with original recorded music and video. Pay Purview is an exploration of the role of women in commercial hip hop music and videos.

In the live performance for Transformer, Holly Bass wears a "booty ball" costume piece made of playground balls to create an exaggerated, oversized, Hottentot-style derriere. Presented in Transformer's storefront window space, the audience, participating from the sidewalk outside the gallery, is asked to pay a dime for each viewing. A curtain opens for a short time and the performer dances to a selection of songs ranging from Rodgers & Hart's "Ten Cents a Dance" to Sir Mix-A-Lot's "Baby Got Back." The dance scenes range from mock burlesque to video-ho-booty-shaking to ethnographic display depending on the selected tune and the performer's impulse.

Show and Prove is Holly Bass' ongoing series of work presented in galleries and spaces traditionally dedicated to the visual arts. "Show and Prove," an old-school hip hop expression, means to demonstrate. In this case, there is the visual documentation ("show"), such as video or physical performance remnants as well as the live performance, often accompanied by an artist talk ("prove"). The first installment of Show and Prove titled "In Sect/Communication" was presented at Dissident Display Gallery in April 2007.

This work is funded in part by the DC Commission on the Arts & Humanities, an agency supported in part by the National Endowment for the Arts. Bootie Ball image by McKenzie Johnson.