Performance with recorded/treated voice and remixed music.
Hair Cut Piece was a one-off performance commissioned by Armpits4August (A4A) for their launch party. The campaign raised money for and awareness of polycystic ovary syndrome, while challenging gendered expectations to remove body hair.
Reimagining Yoko Ono’s Cut Piece with queer feminist joy and community, I arrived naked to the stage with my body hair painted in Yves Klein blue by a member of A4A and invited the audience to cut my hair.
I remixed the song Venus by Bananarama for the soundtrack, which has been featured in adverts for the Gillette Venus Women’s Razor since 2001. The soundtrack also included a treated recording of my voice reading a series of imaginary adverts and announcements on hair removal practices throughout history, from the ancient Egyptian technique of removing eyebrows with shells to the full body shaving of accused witches for inspection in early modern Europe.
Between the recorded adverts and announcements I recited a series of simple lyrical statements and stories, offering a brief history of my hair as it was freed from my head.
Performed at the Armpits4August launch party, London, 2013.
Hazel McMichael 