Phils Tattoo Joynt

Okay. Since my first post it has become obvious that I need to make a list of all of the links and connections with Sam Steward that are on the web. The first is this amazing blog that was created by a writer who blogs about Steward’s life and his own interests and connections to Steward’s life. It is a really interesting project. He says about it…

TRIBUTE TO SAM BLOG

Tributetosam.com is a beyond-the-grave dialogue with one of the most intelligent, charismatic, and complicated American scholars – Samuel M. Steward.  In an effort to understand this analogous life of ours, the posted pieces create dialogues with Mr. Steward about life.  To add, since Mr. Steward enjoyed company,  [the author] thought it proper to invite anyone who feels connected to these experiences to join in with their comments, critiques and stories. The goal is to find a common human connection that transcends generations.

I will be attending this symposium next week on Sam Steward

Queer Places, Practices & Lives

A Symposium in Honor of Samuel Steward

The Ohio State University
Columbus, OH

May 18-19, 2012

This 2-day conference provides a forum for scholars, creative writers, performance artists, archivists, and others to present and discuss their work relating to queer issues. Comprised of a number of concurrent sessions, two plenary panels, a roundtable on collecting and archiving LGBTQ materials, and a keynote address, the conference aims to take stock of recent trends in queer studies scholarship and to open up new avenues of inquiry, research, and expressive practice.

Why Samuel Steward?

It is fitting that the first, full-scale, academic queer studies conference at OSU should be made possible by, and in commemoration of, one of the university’s former graduates. Born in 1909 in the small town of Woodsfield, Ohio, Samuel Steward enrolled at Ohio State University in 1927 and earned a BA in 1931 and a PhD in 1934, both in English literature. Steward went on to teach literature at OSU and other colleges for several years, eventually abandoned academia and became a well-respected tattoo artist under the name Phil Sparrow, and later on wrote a number of erotic novels, using the pseudonym Phil Andros, as well as other books.

In 1995, the estate of Samuel Steward, at his bequest, donated funds to the Department of English at OSU, which were meant to further research on lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgendered, and queer lives and issues. These funds have only recently resurfaced and are now being put to their intended use. In keeping with Steward’s proclivity for traversing the academic and the popular, this conference seeks to create spaces where scholars, students, community members, artists, and performers can interact and converse with each other.

HERE IS A VIDEO ABOUT  SAM STEWARD

AN INTERVIEW WITH SAM “A VERY MAGICAL LIFE”

Over the past year I’ve been in the research phase for my next Queer history performance project titled Homo File, chronicling the life of Sam Steward, (1907-1994). I will write, create and direct an ensemble of multidisciplinary performers/artists/collaborators in my new Queer history performance project titled Homo File, chronicling the life of Sam Steward, (1907-1994). Steward was a college professor, a prolific author of homoerotic fiction, an influential tattoo artist, and Queer sexual maverick who lived his last 3 decades in the Bay Area. His artistic development and Queer self-awareness evolved through friendships with Alfred Kinsey, Gertrude Stein and Alice B. Toklas, Thornton Wilder, George Platt Lynnes as well as numerous other LGBT luminaries.

The performance will feature Steward’s steadfast practice of documenting his sexual experiences and the development of his alliances amongst Queer artists in an era of few civil liberties. Steward and his circle helped shape contemporary Queer culture despite the repressive climate they existed in. The threat of being outed, tried and jailed were always imminent. Steward was a Queer maverick and one of many lost LGBT histories. Homo File will explore and contrast the lives and relationships between our contemporary Queer culture and that of the early-mid 20^th century artists that required significant risks for survival.

Homo File will combine puppetry, live music, video, movement and physical theater. The piece will continue Eye Zen Art’s tradition of creating visually dynamic, interdisciplinary work with a focus on Queer history, aesthetics and sensibilities. The piece will work to raise awareness about Sam Steward and his Queer and artistic milieu of the 1930s-through the 1970s. With Homo File, Eye Zen Art continues to harness and reclaim historic traditions of Queer culture to provoke community development, encourage essential dialogue, and promote social research into the lives of LGBT ancestors.

I will incubate this new work-in-progress with a small cast of multidisciplinary performers who will become part of the development of the ideas. Together we will work with the historical data, stories, music, visuals and ephemera that will become the raw material of the work-in-progress. The piece will combine puppetry, live music, video, movement and physical theater. My intention is to develop the piece in a primary phase of development for the 30-minute version to be presented at CounterPulse in mid-September. I intend to complete the piece as a full-length work with additional support at a later date.

My residency @ CounterPULSE

CounterPULSE has played a seminal role in my artistic development in the Bay Area. Early and recent projects were incubated there. Since my first solo performance at 848 in 1994 it has provided artistic roots, a creative lifeline and community. The piece I want to make will mark the beginning of a new era for my company, Eye Zen Art. Coming out of a 3-year solo project it has been my dream to create and direct a full-length piece with an ensemble. I plan to direct the piece but not play a lead role as a performer. This residency will provide the extraordinary opportunity of time, studio space and support to develop this new work that would be otherwise impossible in the current economic crisis. I am so damn excited to begin!

The residency began a couple weeks ago with my Call for Artists/Audition. It was amazing! 12 people showed up and helped me kick start the process of incubating the themes, stories and ideas surrounding Steward and his peers. It was wonderful to get into the space and with so many fun and talented folks willing to tell their own stories and jump into the process. There were some really great images that came out of that afternoon including an operatic, risqué shadow play with Emily Park, Elana Isaacs, Charlie Gibson and Rich Hutchinson illustrating Steward’s early affair with Rudolph Valentino. A powerful and eerie performance involving a dance of  hands that never touch by Neon Weiss and Harold Burns was a bathroom scene depicting an erotic anonymous pen pal Steward had. He exchanged notes left in a slat in a bathroom stall for months, though they never met.

Another great scene with Lori Higa as Alice Toklas and Jason Torres Hancock as Gertrude Stein with as Jed Barnum as Frances Rose and Brian Delp as Steward was hilarious– a mad dive into their life Bilignin, France. The scene took place at country house when Sir Francis Rose brought Hemingway to dinner and he got so drunk that Steward, Stein, Toklas and Rose lead a town wide search in the car when they discovered a life size puppet on the side of the road that they bring to life.

NEXT Audition on Sunday May 27^th 1-4 pm

It was very helpful to be able to play with this great crew and I will have call-backs and extend the next phase of the Audition on Sunday May 27^th 1-4 pm. If you or someone you know is interested please have them contact me. If they are not able to make that audition have them contact me anyway. seth(at)eyezen.org

I am looking to cast a diverse group of men, women and trans-folk, ages 25-75 who have an interest in Queer History, social justice and creating work in an interdisciplinary creative process. I’ll direct this ensemble of multidisciplinary performers/artists/collaborators and together we will create the new piece. I’m looking for folks who will be committed to the project and willing to work within an ensemble. The development process will require about 6 hours of rehearsal/development a week minimum from late May through late September with 3 Works-in-Progress public showings and four performances. Artists/performers/collaborators will receive an honorarium and the opportunity to work on this creative project with the possibility of a tour and longer run.  I am seeking artists with some combination of at least 2 of the following disciplines or other skills you might tell me about:

• Performance/ Dance/ Theater/Circus
• Improvisation
• Puppetry
• Music (play a instrument or sing)
• Visual Art

Also looking for collaborators in the realms of:

• Set design
• Costume Design
• Video Art
• Puppet building

If you are interested in attending the workshop or in collaboration, contact Seth to confirm or to discuss the possibilities.

seth(at)eyezen.org

I did not know that it would lead into such a process of inquiry.

I am struck by Gaultier’s interest in difference –of shape, size, age, color and culture – which he celebrates in an irreverent but generous way. Playing with cultural costume (including counter- and queer-cultural costume), he creates a collage – layers of meaning and provocation. One of his favorite phrases is ‘Why not?’, which speaks to a spirit of inclusion.

In response, I have attempted to create a performance collage acknowledging and celebrating difference instead of any kind of ‘blindness’.

I gathered a group of people – people I like, people I wanted to get to know better, people from different places than each other, and than me. I wanted them for their skill, but also because of who they are (and am very blessed to have them together for this process).

I remembered something my ballet teacher exclaimed during class once, as praise – ‘Ah, yes, that’s it! It is the dance of our people.’ That became the title and premise for making the work. It is also my contribution to Bay Area Dance Week, a major project of organizational partner Dancers’ Group. ‘What is the dance of your people?’ I asked at the outset, and we came up with a host of answers, source material, questions, and problems with the question.

Who are my people? Do they have a dance?
What if they don’t have a dance?
What if I feel alienated from my people?
Who are my people?

What are the tensions and commonalities between our given and chosen people, families, tribes, and scenes? How do we proclaim, hide, contrast, and combine our cultural experiences and histories through self-presentation? How do we make it up?

I called the evening Making Scenes, with multiple meaning. Of course, if you put a bunch of dramatic types in a room together, drama might ensue. To make a scene is also to upset the status quo. But I am really interested in the making part. How do we create our worlds? Sometimes a ‘scene’ (pejoratively, something shallow) becomes a tribe or a family.

This resonates especially with our lecture by longtime activist and bartender Waiyde Palmer, Schooling the Children: It Came from Club Häagen-Dazs. What started out as a bunch of kids literally making a scene in their workplace, gave birth to nightclubs that many queer folk would call home and refer to as ‘church.’ This community-creation is one of the main tenets of organizational partner CounterPULSE

When telling a friend about the beginnings of ‘Our People’ he reacted with: ‘Ooooh, girl, It’s a Small World After All! United Colors of Bennetton!’ and I thought: ‘Noooo! Not clichéd togetherness!’ And then I thought: ‘Why not?’ I can’t deny the formative power of ‘It’s a Small World’ or Bennetton. When I look at them both with the critical eye of my 90s education in identity and difference, it’s easy to be cynical, but when I look deeper, I have to credit them with shaping my politics. (And deeper still, I realize that the similarities between the Gaultier exhibition and the Disney ride are uncanny.)

Just when I think that many questions about diversity and difference might be kind of tired, I realize that apparently they are not exhausted. Achieving harmony in difference is a major theme right now.

The early 90s were also the height of a vibrant and irreverent club culture that I basically missed because I was reading and arguing with my housemate in a very politicized living room about all the things that we found ‘problematic.’ These were crucial discussions to have, but they left me petrified.

When I started really going to clubs, relatively late in life, I experienced a vital culture shock. Suddenly, I found myself in the midst of a group of all kinds of folks who were irreverent, smart, powerful and free. It wasn’t that nothing was problematic, it was just that this culture seemed to value the project of seeing the problematic from all of its angles without trying to smooth all them out. This is also Gaultier’s world. From my former vantage point (early 90s politics), it is easy to find much of his work problematic. The truth is, I still do. And I love it.

Homo File

 
Drawing and tattoo by Samuel Steward

Over the past year I’ve been in the research phase for my next queer history performance project titled Homo File, chronicling the life of Sam Steward, (1907-1994). I am thrilled to tell you that I received a four month residency at CounterPULSE to develop the project. I will be creating, writing and directing a new ensemble performance piece with the help of CounterPULSE’s Artist Residency Commission Program from May -September to premier September 20th-23rd 2012. So exciting!

Samuel Steward was a college professor, a prolific author of homoerotic fiction, an influential tattoo artist, and Queer sexual renegade who lived his last 3 decades in the Bay Area. His artistic development and Queer self-awareness evolved through friendships with Alfred Kinsey, Gertrude Stein & Alice Toklas, Thornton Wilder, George Platt Lynes as well as numerous other LGBTQ luminaries. Steward was a Queer maverick but one of many lost LGBTQ histories. His steadfast practice of documenting his private experiences and the development of his alliances amongst Queer artists in an era of few civil liberties, are of primary interest to me.

Casting Call for Audition/Workshop

April 29th from 2-5  CounterPULSE
1310 Mission St. @ 9th St. San Francisco, 94103

I’ll be holding an exciting and wildly creative 3 hour audition/workshop in search of collaborators and performers on the project. This is a great opportunity for you to see how I create work and check out what the project is about. Come for the experience and creative exchange even if just for the 3 hours. It will be generative and inspiring even if just for us to check each other out and see if it feels like a good fit. We will spend time working with improvised and set scores using text, music, puppetry, object manipulation and movement.

I am looking to cast a diverse group of men, women and trans-folk, ages 25-75 who have an interest in Queer History, social justice and creating work in an interdisciplinary creative process. I’ll direct this ensemble of multidisciplinary performers/artists/collaborators and together we will create the new piece. I’m looking for folks who will be committed to the project and willing to work within an ensemble. The development process will require about 6 hours of rehearsal/development a week minimum from late May through late September with 3 Works-in-Progress public showings and four performances. Artists/performers/collaborators will receive an honorarium and the opportunity to work on this creative project with the possibility of a tour and longer run.  I am seeking artists with some combination of at least 2 of the following disciplines or other skills you might tell me about:

• Performance/ Dance/ Theater/Circus
• Improvisation
• Puppetry
• Music (play a instrument or sing)
• Visual Art

Also looking for collaborators in the realms of:

• Set design
• Costume Design
• Video Art
• Puppet building

If you are interested in attending the workshop or in a collaboration contact Seth to confirm or to discuss the possibilities.
AND FEEL FREE TO FORWARD THIS TO OTHERS WHOM YOU THINK MIGHT BE INTERESTED…
seth@eyezen.org  415-786-9325

- Seth Eisen