Dancing on a Plate: Performance and Installation
Rita McKeough
2000
Rita McKeough's performance and installation Dancing on a Plate was held at the Grenfell College Art Gallery in 1996. Dancing on a Plate included three audio tapes and an opening night performance for six performers. As the audience moved through the gallery, the spring-loaded floor would drop under them and contact switches would turn on the audiotapes. The images of large knots on the floor and the vocals and sound of the audiotapes referenced a square dance with the dancing enacting the indecision and difficulties associated with departures. In the catalogue text, Barbara Lounder writes with the strategies of the feminist linguistics she finds in McKeogh’s performance and installation, the anti-authoritarian aesthetic of which uses elements of maritime culture and de-emphasises technical virtuosity. Lounder addresses issues of gender and power in McKeogh’s work, which explores the theme of escape from intolerable domestic situations.
Rita McKeough
Rita McKeough