Shawanda Corbett
And her ability to render me silent for 6 weeks

This post is way overdue. Almost 6 weeks after the event I have only just been able to assimilate it, unable before to even explain it to my She Performs ladies let alone get it done in writing.

Allowing my mind the time to percolate is always something I find necessary when moved by things and Shawanda’s performance hit me, like really hit me. And at first, although I was able to ask her questions and listen to others, and had an intellectual comprehension of what I had witnessed, I couldn’t quite put my finger on what it had made me feel or why.

When I entered the performance space, a room in Oxford University’s Lady Margaret Hall, I was met by a pregnant silence and a red glow - which we later found out was to connect with our root chakra, the life force, grounding us and connecting us to the earth and ourselves, transporting us to new territory. The room was full of people sitting on chairs and on the floor in a circle surrounding the artists and the viola player, Andrea Fortier. As I walked in I was told that Shawanda had requested that we all sit on the floor for the duration of the performance.

One moment I was wrapped up in my own awkwardness, the next I was entranced by the fact that nearly 30 people were here, listening, breathing, waiting. All eyes on Shawanda and her unwavering stillness. This stillness allowed us time to view her clay mask and wonder the relation between it, her and the performances title Haar Wese. All I knew about Haar Wese at the start was what Shawanda had written in her invitation “haar wese is a cyborg traveling throughout time to escape genocide against the disabled by artificial intelligence. she was once a functional human being living amongst society, but became a subject in an experiment that involves AI becoming human.” most of Shawanda’s recent work has been focussed around Cyborg Theory (see Donna Haraway - A Cyborg Manifesto), something which Shawanda defines as “anything mechanical that is created to enhance one’s life”(this-girl-makes.com). “In relation to cyborg programming, performance is used as a form of coding. The cyborg is programmed by a violist. This references the relationship between human, god, and technology.”

​Fifteen minutes in and I realised the performance had begun, with no set beginning.

The viola player began, her breath dictating Shawanda’s movements in seemingly perfect synchronicity. Born without legs and with one arm, Shawanda asked us the questions “what does it mean to be?” and “what is the body, what is the complete body?” Shawanda gave movement to her still left sleeve during the performance; stretching, cradling and twisting it, stating after when asked of this that “everyone else has two of everything”.

Shawanda Oscillated between quite and vehement, still and frenzied movement. Shifting seamlessly between erratic movements, as if involuntarily controlled by the music, and control, when drawing in on a member of the audience. She harnessed the power that invading one's personal space has, getting close enough to touch, staring deep into your eyes, but never quite making contact, a technique which she mentioned later had been inspired by Greek theatre. Two members of the audience attempted to reach out to touch shawanda during the performance, more said they had wanted to afterwards.

The performance felt deeply personal, as if Shawanda was performing not just her own body, but the collective body; the audiences and the disabled community’s. If there had been a different audience present the performance would have been totally different. Each movement and look Shawanda made was in response to the music and the people. Each viewers reaction seemed to dictate her counting movement.

I wonder as to whether Shawanda saw Haar Wese as a performative artwork, a choreographed dance or a theatrical production, as it had elements of each within it, and if that mattered to her. She mentioned that she had trained and rehearsed for the events but that it was not a choreographed thing, her movements were improvised, again adding to the personalisation that comes with the attending audience.

This is where I really felt the people who had chosen to go against Shawanda’s request of sitting on the floor. The thirteen people who sat on chairs ended up looking onto and down on the performance and felt detached from any connection with Shawanda. One audience member remarked that it felt as if those sitting on chairs were maintaining the status-quo.