The issue of gender neutral toilets is being tackled in a more creative way by Caroline Plummer Community Dance Fellow val smith. Smith tells Rebecca Fox about the forthcoming performance.
A composting toilet sits in its cardboard house.
A disco ball dangling from its ceiling swirls its multicoloured lights.
A muted soundtrack emanates from the box.
It and four others sit in a large empty underground concrete-lined space.
A red hairy figure (think lots of red wigs attached to a onesie aka Star Wars' Chewbacca), their "protector'', wanders around the toilets.
It is the creation of Caroline Plummer Community Dance Fellow val smith, a dance graduate with a mission to engage the Dunedin queer and transgender community in a discussion through performance about their relationship with public spaces, such as toilets.
The issue hit the headlines this year after a Bill passed into law in North Carolina, United States, requiring people to use public toilets that match the sex on their birth certificate rather than their gender identity.
Then last month an Auckland school made the news when it installed a unisex toilet for a 6-year-old.
Meanwhile, smith decided to tackle this issue during her fellowship in a variety of ways which culminate in her final performance piece This Cloud is at the former Underground Market space in George St.
"I'm looking at it from a creative point of view so I've got a bit more freedom to do weird things.''
First up smith invited people from the queer and transgender communities to go on walks "following familiar pathways'' around the city.
What was experienced and talked about on those walks was mapped and videoed to see whether or not public spaces were suitable for gender or sexual minorities.
"With harassment and unsafe spaces, ideas around invisibleness and access especially to bathrooms.
"I found it interesting what people noticed about spaces.''
Parts of those videos will be projected on to the walls during the performances.
"Some of those sensations, feelings and experiences from the walks into the space with the idea that the audience can be part of that retracing the layers of experience over the top of each other.''
Smith then did some research down at the fellowship's dance studio and held workshops in outdoor spaces.
"I was thinking about creating temporary spaces for people to interact with, hence the cardboard.''
The composting toilets were usable and had their first outing for Diversity Week on Otago University's lawn.
There was a lot of discussion about gender inclusive toilets and the Clubs and Societies building had all of their toilets over that week turned into gender neutral toilets.
They had since decided to keep a set of them gender neutral.
"People were using them. I was really pleased about that. It is one way to engage a community in a personal experience.''
Smith partnered with Urban Dream Brokerage to find the right space to create the final performance.
When the Brokerage's Tamsin Cooper showed smith the space for the first time, the dancer was not keen.
As smith did lots of work with people lying on the floor, the vast expanse of concrete posed heating problems.
"But I came round to all the possibilities.''
One of the adjacent rooms will be turned over to a sound artist and another will be turned into a blackout room.
"I have lots of ideas . . . the work will unfold over time.''
Smith was hoping members of the public would wander down during the two weeks before the event to say "hi'' and see how it was unfolding "and be part of that''.
Mixing dance, performance and current events is not new for smith.
"Words do not come as easily to me as expressing with my body.''
She did not discover dance and performance until studying philosophy, politics and gender studies at university.
"I got into political activism and did a lot of street theatre.''
It was then that smith realised dance and performance was what she wanted to do and she decided to study dance at Unitech.
"It has looped back around to my work engages with political ideas but in an embodied way.''
When a favourite dance teacher moved to Dunedin, smith followed.
In one of smith's dance classes was the late Caroline Plummer for whom the fellowship was named. ‘‘Caroline was quite sick - a group of us danced at her funeral - so I feel a personal connection with the fellowship.
"I love the vision she had for dance and share that. That you can engage with yourself and heal yourself through movement.''
After smith finished her master's degree at Auckland University, it seemed a good time to apply for the fellowship.
"I was interested in working with the queer and transgender community and given how much media the whole bathroom Bill is getting right now.''
Smith's practice is informed by some of those Buddhist ideas around being present to this moment, listening to the body, trying to come from a place of compassion for yourself and compassion for others.
"In some sort of weird way, that is informing all of this stuff. So how can we be on the experience of the performance and accept who we are right now and somehow that allows for an expanding of who we can be.
"That is lofty idealism but someone has to be that way I reckon.''Smith created a ‘‘dramatic'' costume of red wigs attached to a "onesie'' as the "protector of the toilets''.
"Its an idea I'm playing with around homoshamanism and this will feature in it somehow.''
The costume started out as smith's perception of a drag performance and had become "something unto itself''.
"It's quite intense being in there.''
The cardboard boxes came from a retail space so there is a connection there to the whole capitalist world but they can be turned into really interesting performance things.
"Somehow in this space the cardboard makes sense.''
There has been a lot of interest in her work and people had been asking a lot of questions, she said.
"On the whole, there has been curiosity about what it is all about.
"It brings people together to have a shared experience to maybe think about those ideas in a slightly different way as well.''
To see
• This Cloud Is, roaming installation event, George St's Underground Market, June 19, with collaborative contribution by local performers and artists.
