"Original, inspired and fantastically talented" Total Theatre
"F’ing excellent, Like watching Nureyev and the Divine David on mushrooms! Book now, like NOW" G Scene
"Cultured magpies" Exeunt Magazine
"I love it... I’m literally craning my neck to get closer to the stage" British Theatre Guide
"A subversive delight" ***** The Stage
"No-one makes work anything like this" - BachTrack
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
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
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
FURTHER READING:
Music & Camp, edited by Christopher Moore & Philip Purvis 2018
Camp: Queer Aesthetics & The Performing Subject – A Reader, edited by Fabio Cleto 1999
Guilty Pleasures: Feminist Camp from Mae West to Madonna, Pamela Robertson 1996
Queer Voices from Japan: First Person Narratives from Japan's Sexual Minorities, edited by Suganuma, Welker & McLelland 2007
English Eccentrics, Edith Sitwell 1933
Powers of Horror: An Essay on Abjection, Julia Kristeva 1982
CAMP QUESTIONNAIRE
• What is the campest object in your room? Why?
• Which colour is the campest of them all. Be specific in hue and reasoning.
• What is the campest drink you could order at a bar/pub?
• What is the campest speed to move at?
• List all the ways that makes this track camp… https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q6sJL_kuLdM
• List all the ways that makes this track non camp… https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hKtP8GMM7Bg
• What is the campest track you know?
• Historically who is the campest dictator/villain and why?
• Give an example of a perfect camp one-liner…
• Which animal makes the campest noise? Explain yourself with an example of the sound on You Tube
• What is the campest decade of the 20th Century? Why?
• What is the campest part of your body?
• What is the campest fruit? And Vegetable?
• Who is the campest Queen?
• Who has absolutely no camp sensibilities?
• What is the campest plant?
• Who is camp but doesn’t know it?
• What is the campest building existing or destroyed?
• What is the campest accessory you can adorn?
• What is the campest letter in the alphabet?
• What is the campest word in the dictionary?
• Which camp-idol do you most identify with?