AN EFFORT IN CAMP

In 18 Attempts

Part of

Third Year Graduation Works

London Contemporary Dance School

Created during the Covid 19 lockdown

Thick & Tight have had the pleasure of working with fourteen fabulous students and together we've plunged into five weeks of research, experiments, reading and recording. Unable to be in the studio, we had to reassess our way of working; rather than coming in with set ideas, choreography, score etc. as we usually would, we decided to lead the students through a series of creative and research exercises so they could understand how we begin making work, before we even step into a studio. It has been wonderful to be able to share our work in this way and to learn from this new generation of dance artists.

Our work is often labelled as ‘camp’ and for a while we have wanted to understand the meaning of the word a little better. We devised a sort of ‘Course in Camp’ which has culminated in a film; an ode to all the wonderful work the students have produced and all the works we have studied.

Design by Tim Spooner

Polari Sound Recordings by Thom Shaw

Music by Warren/Brown/Free/Deutsch, Olivier Messiaen, Nino Rota, Shim Sang-gun, Stefan Prins, The Tornados, NASA Voyager Space Craft, Richard Strauss, Gina X Performance, Barbra Streisand, Sol Kaplan, Brian Eno, Neu!, Sohail Rana, Leroy Anderson

Camp texts and references

Camp Questionnaire!

STARRING

Verity Wright

Elyssa Sena

Angelina Gorgaeva

Zakarius Harry

Milo Aylward

Annabelle Peach

Giorgina Pini

Evie Jackson

Thea Kallhed Gadefors-Möller

Tania Chua Wei Ning

James Healy

Margherita Giuliodori

Jessica Van de Koot

Freya Lawson

CAMP TEXTS & REFERENCES

REFERENCES & RESEARCH

FOOTAGE/SOUND USED IN

AN EFFORT IN CAMP

Quentin Crisp Interview

Royal Vauxhall Tavern in the 1960s

June Jordan poems

Death on The Nile

Rebecca

The Wizard of Oz

Saint Joan

Whoopi Goldberg

Eastenders

From Russia With Love

Carmen Amaya

Disney's Alice In Wonderland

Nicola Adams

Sunset Boulevard 1950

Supermarket Sweep

Marilyn Monroe in Niagara

Andy Warhol Screen Tests

Bernstein on Mahler

FURTHER REFERENCES AND RESEARCH

Butch Camp Instagram

Paris Is Burning

The Importance of Being Earnest

Tod Papageorge

Ivor Cutler

In Search of the Great English Eccentric

The Evolution of Stop Motion Animation

Samuel Fosso

Claude Cahun

I Love Lucy

Divine David

LIST OF TEXTS STUDIED IN THICK & TIGHT'S

'COURSE IN CAMP'

Notes on Camp, Susan Sontag 1964

Notes on Camp/Anti Camp, Bruce LaBruce 2013

Notes on Dyke Camp, Mikaella Clements 2018

"The Booty Don't Lie" and Other Camp Truths in the Performances of Janelle Monae, Francesca T. Royster, in 'Music & Camp' edited by Christopher Moore & Philip Purvis 2018

Disneyworld Company in 'Screened Out', Jean Baudrillard 2002 (p.150-154)

Dream Kitsch, Walter Benjamin 1925

From Interiority to Gender Performatives in 'Gender Trouble', Judith Butler 1990, in 'Camp: Queer Aesthetics & The Performing Subject – A Reader' edited by Fabio Cleto 1999

Watch My Lips: The Limits of Camp in Lip-Syncing Scenes, Freya Jarman 2017, in 'Music & Camp' edited by Christopher Moore & Philip Purvis 2018

A Brief History of Polari, Paul Baker 2017

Introduction: Low Theory, in 'The Queer Art of Failure' by Judith Halberstam 2011

The Jewel in the Gutter; Camp and the Incorporation of Dirt, Ingrid Hotz-Davies, in 'The Dark Side of Camp Aesthetics: Queer Economies of Dirt, Dust and Patina', 2018, edited by Ingrid Hotz-Davies, Franziska Bergmann, Georg Vogt

Slave Chains and Faggots and Camp... Oh My!, Noah Fields 2015

Age, Race, Class & Sex, in 'Sister Outsider', Audre Lorde 1984

Bodies That Matter Introduction, Judith Butler 1993

On Queer of Color Criticism, Communication Studies, and Corporeality, Jesus I. Valles-Morales and Benny LeMaster 2015

'A Stoat Came To Tea: Camp Poetics & Masculinity, Antony Rowland 2010

STARRING​