‘Brave’, ‘Graphic’, and other opinions; NAKED LADIES and The Art/Porn Binary

A month before my flight, the Singapore Fringe told me my show did not pass the government censorship board. I was touring my solo show NAKED LADIES, a layered history of the naked female bodies in performance. A combination of storytelling, performance art, and historical homage, the show asks questions around the 'nature' of the female body, trying to understand its contested position between stigma and celebration. Singapore’s Infocomm Media Development Authority (IMDA), which is the government body responsible for issuing arts entertainment licenses, had some concerns. They were not worried about me being naked, per se, but rather how I was naked. It’s not what I did; but how I did it. In the end, my art entertainment license was refused, and my performance was, as I colloquially put it, banned in Singapore.

This presentation explores the double edge sword of using the body as material. Through NAKED LADIES, and its content, censorship, audience reaction, and media coverage, I discuss the irony of being censored for the same arbitrary distinction that the show unpacks. By exploring the strange what/how binary that the IMDA sets up, I question the curious ideology behind either protesting or blinding supporting nudity in artwork. My project has been deemed either the epitome of inappropriateness or the height of bravery; either art or porn. This presentation invites the collapse of these binaries, asking for a nuanced and contextual reading of the body as medium, and the naked female body on stage.