I’m delighted to share with you the showreel of Bound Feet Blues from the work in progress performance back in March.
Enjoy!
You can see what the audience said about the show at the Audience Reviews page
The video was filmed and edited by the very talented Claudia Rocha and her team
In the Cinderella fairy tale, when the Prince finds the glass slipper dropped by Cinderella, he travels around the kingdom trying to find the woman whose foot is the perfect fit for the shoe. Many women long to marry the Prince, including Cinderella’s ugly sisters but their feet are too big – so they resort to chopping off their toes and their heels to make their feet fit into that single perfect glass slipper.
You think this is a fairy tale.
Well, think again.
It seems that women today are having foot surgery so that their feet fit more easily into high heel shoes or sandals, according to an article on Shape magazine on Cinderella Foot Surgery.
They are asking for toe shortenings… nail re-sizing, “foot facelifts,” “toe tucks,” and foot narrowing… [and] “toebesity” surgery [liposuction on fat toes]
Having spent so much time researching the brutal Continue reading
I am now working on the second half of Bound Feet Blues. There is very little factual information or evidence in our family stories about my great grandmother. All we know is that at some point, as an adult, she left China and travelled to Malaya where she would meet the man who would become my great grandfather. We have no information about where she lived in China or which port she would have left from or arrived at.
I want to insert a line in Bound Feet Blues about how long the journey by sea would have taken her eg “It was a ….. days or …. weeks journey”.
For that single sentence, I looked at Continue reading
via Flickr http://flic.kr/p/ngZ4Hw
This photo hangs on the wall in my study. It reminds me of my freedom to walk where I choose, to stride through my life, to stand on my own two feet
This is a fascinating article about Chinese photographer Ji Yeo and her project to photograph women in the recovery room just after cosmetic surgery – See http://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/womens-blog/2014/mar/18/ji-yeo-cosmetic-surgery-frontline
According to the Guardian, she hated her body when she was younger – which was tied into her low self esteem – and looked into having cosmetic surgery.
She didn’t have the surgery but started the Beauty Recovery Room photography project instead, taking photos of women just after cosmetic surgery.
As I’ve been thinking about bound feet and why women in China did that to themselves for my story performance Bound Feet Blues, I’ve been so much more aware of issues around women and their self esteem, body image, the role of fashion as power and body mutilation/ modification.
This project is particularly striking for me because it involves Chinese and East Asian women – symbolically making Continue reading
Ever since I’ve been working on my story project Bound Feet Blues, I’ve been drawn to news and other matters to do with women’s feet and shoes – especially anything that hobbles us, limits movements and involves pain.
I am excited to see a Guardian report on the rise of ugly – but comfortable – shoes.
The article quotes Natalie Kingham, head Continue reading
Bound Feet Blues - A Life Told in Shoes 