What You See Isn't Always What You Expected To Get - House of Larva

By -
When I walked into class and saw the three guest speakers, I knew I made the right decision to get to class that day. The House of Larva is a drag show that is intended to engage all of the senses. In class we did a few things that were much more about touch and smell. However, my favorite part was the real show that evening. The dramatic costumes and images and lighting are what made the entire experience so memorable.
The costume I remember the most was that of Anfanga Sphinx (my apologies if that is spelled wrong). The costume had no real organization to it but it immediately drew your attention. There was torn cloth, glitter, something that resembled flour, a marker, and cloth strategically stuck to cover the nipples. The look made a bold statement, which I am sure was the intention.
A statement I'm sure it wasn't planning to make but did an excellent job of doing so was to the young men who were clearly out of their element at this show. They had a bit of trouble figuring out the appropriate way to react to what they were experiencing. Due to what has become their expectation of societal and gender norms, seeing Sphinx be so open and comfortable with their body and the costume was new for them. So, Sphinx took it upon themselves to make sure these young men got to full and up close experience with the show. Which in the long run, I believe will help them with being exposed to these types of things again and again throughout their lives.

Comments

  1. Jonathan Brumberg-KrausMay 11, 2018 at 6:36 AM

    Glad you picked up on Enfanga [pretty close on the spelling!] Sphinx's performance. And glad you took full advantage of all House of Larva offered.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Jonathan Brumberg-KrausMay 11, 2018 at 6:36 AM

    This comment has been removed by the author.

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The most primitive sense

By -
Image
Smell the Flowers by Kirsten Star Smell, to me, is the most primitive sense. When most mammals are born, they immediately can recognize their mother’s smell and form an attachment to that smell. Mammals like puppies are almost entirely limited to only the sense of smell until they develop more of their other senses. The sense of smell also becomes the most primitive when considering humans and the phenomenon of perfume. For years, humans hunted certain animals for the purpose of obtaining the musk produced in the anal gland. This musk in small doses can act as an aphrodisiac when put into a perfume even though it has incredibly primitive origins. Though most of Western culture has an aversion to smells considered gross or undesirable, the wealthiest of women are still willing to pay heavy prices to spray a smell once obtained from the anal glands of other animals. The sense of smell is not something that humans can control and adjust but rather it is only changed by evolution over
Read more

Cannibalism and Symbolism

By -
Symbolism plays an important role in religious ceremonies because people cannot have the divine being where they want him all the time. So they start creating ways to be in touch with God. Such as in Christianity, eating bread is symbolized to be eating God-made flesh. There are similar rituals in Judaism where they eat the food of God. A big difference between taste and the other senses is that the object that is being sensed is internalized, whereas all the other senses use an external sensation. Taste cannot extend anywhere like the other senses can. This allows the humans to have no barrier between the divine (symbolized as food) and themselves. This is the closest they can get to God, but internalizing Him.  This thought of getting the closest they can to someone by ingesting and gaining power from it led my mind to wander to the thought of serial killers that also happen to be cannibals. I know that it might be a stretch, but there are some similarities. I als
Read more

Wrap-Up Post

By -
Image
Alright, let’s tie this up in a nice little bow. I genuinely did not know what to expect coming into this class. The extent of my knowledge of the senses comes from elementary school when we had to make it a little song to get the information through our tiny heads. Beyond that, everything seemed pretty cut and dry. We have five senses. We need to use all of them to survive. It’s as simple as that. I did not know how there was enough to talk about the senses to fill an entire college course, especially one specifically regarding the relationship between the senses and religion. But the fact that we were barely able to fit all the content in before the semester ended proves just how wrong I was. Let’s talk about why that is and what some of the things I learned were. First off, even the most basic assumption about the senses, that there are five of them, was questioned immediately. The sixth sense may not have been as clearly defined as the other senses, but there was certainly a lot to
Read more