cbeta - A light in a dark childhood
Photographer: Rafaelle Lorgeril
1. What significant life experiences or events have influenced and shaped your artistic vision?
I’d say it's first and foremost my childhood in Russia. I grew up with an aesthetic that was supposed to be refined, but in reality was mostly kitsch and absurd. I was also accompanied by a world of fairy tales as magical as were witchy, stories as ironic as melancholic.
It was when I arrived in France at the age of 12 that I resiliently discovered activist art groups such as Pussy Riot and, later, the Las Tesis collective, which were a great source of inspiration. Discovering performing arts artists like Sandrine Juglair, Nadia Beugré, Marion Siéfert, Rébecca Chaillon, Laurene Marx and Hannah Gatsby was a source of documentation and immense strength, because knowledge is power.
Music, with queer punk artists like Delilah Bon, Camion Bip Bip, IC3PEAK, THEA and Virgin X; artists somewhere between rap and hyperpop like Joanna, 070 Shake, Flohio, Chéri, Amaarae, Leikeli 47, Kalika and BabySolo33 ; neo-perreo artists such as Bad Gyal, Tokischa, Lizz, Isabella Lovestory and Six Sex; artists who embrace political hyper-femininity such as Kim Petras, Nathy Peluso, Arca, Charli xcx, Kali Uchis, Doja Cat, Sevdaliza, Eartheater and Ahnikko have been and are an inexhaustible source of inspiration.
2. Collaboration often sparks fresh creativity. Can you share an example of a collaboration that led to an unexpected and exciting artistic outcome?
My professional studies in dance and contemporary circus have opened up possibilities I'd never have imagined, as these two environments are not accessible in the same way, depending on one's socio-cultural privileges.
I've had the immense luck to get to know and work with internationally renowned figures in the dance world, such as choreographer Ohad Naharin or the dancers of choreographers Lucinda Childs, Trisha Brown and Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker.
This was both a blessing and a curse, as the scene was and is still very bourgeois, elitist and white, a world I would never have been able to access from my social class without one of my training courses.
My circus training marked a turning point in my artistic vision, because I had the feeling that I was getting closer to Russia. Over there, circus has a much more a central place than in France. Unlike dance, the circus is a very popular art form, where the so-called “technical” and “artistic” professions merge, and there is very little hierarchical system.
The fact that I specialized for several years in fixed trapeze and then in acro-dance enabled me to oscillate between rational and absurd.
This duality, moving from one level to another, has inspired me as much in my physical work. It also very much helped me in my psycho-emotional and intellectual development, as it has allowed me to shed light on the gap between personal and systemic realities.
3. Walk us through a specific project that challenged your creative boundaries. How did you approach it, and what did you learn from the experience?
I immediately think of the creation of my solo show « Choosing not to choose » (“Faire le choix de ne pas choisir”), which lasted three years. This project challenged the limits of my creativity in terms of material and financial means at my disposal.
Despite several co-productions and a grant from the French Ministry of Culture, I had to make difficult choices in order to give birth to this creation.
This project challenged the limits of my relationship with work, as I was in transition during the creation process. This had a huge impact on the show, as well as on my personal life, of course. I learned a lot from this experience, both on a human and professional level.
I taugh myself several administrative skills such as production, communication and distribution, while working on this project to take it further and further.
I also had to put together, manage and guide an artistic team made up of people who are minoritized and discriminated against in terms of their gender and sexual identity, and who didn't know each other before coming together to create this project.
Seeing the blossoming birth of a group alongside the birth of a project was very enriching, powerful, empowering and beautiful.
4. In the ever-evolving art world, what do you believe sets your work apart and makes it unique or groundbreaking?
I think that everything has already been done and redone, and I believe that it is precisely thanks to the precious work accomplished by others that mine can exist today.
My work is neither unique nor innovative, I'm simply trying to ensure that it can see the light of day, exist and circulate to share my cry of anger. Because not to be angry at society today is an extraordinary privilege.
5. As you reflect on your journey, are there any specific goals or milestones you've set for your artistic career in the coming years?
I've got plenty of goals, I think I've even got too many, and that's the problem!
Today, living and surviving as a queer artist and Franco-Russian sex worker who takes a radical political stance in an increasingly far-right capitalist system, requires the implementation of commercial strategies. Like so many others, I need money, legal work and stability to be able to continue to perform and renew my professional status.
I continue to make my way in a multidisciplinary expression as honestly and authentically as possible. So I'm trying to get closer and closer to sound making, music clips and film, which are areas of artistic exploration that appeal to me more and more.
I'm quietly working on a single and its video clip that should be out next year. I'd love to do more incisive, ardent performances at porn-slut-freak-queer festivals in Europe, and I'd also love to play in a social film that would resonate and resonate within me as a concerned person.
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Model: Lé Henry-Serebryakov
Photographer: Rafaelle Lorgeril
Wardrobe Stylist: Vêtement Fragile
Accessory Designer: Lance Victor Moore