Friday, May 30, 2008
Merrybellies’ Underground Oasis studies attraction to the visceral
by Holly Leber
To Jillanna Babb-Cheshul, vampires are a metaphor for how humans relate to one another.
“I think the vampire theme explores human relationships, domination, who is in control, who do we allow to be in control, how we work with other people,” said Babb-Cheshul, owner of Merrybellies Dance Studio and choreographer of Underground Oasis: Morbid Cabaret Dance and Suspension Show, which plays Saturday night at Barking Legs.
Featuring bellydancers, suspension and body-piercing artists, vampires, zombies, fire swords, fake blood and heavy-metal music, Underground Oasis is not your momma’s cabaret.
The show, which Babb-Cheshul said was years in the making, is born of the Chattanooga bellydancer’s varied interests, including horror movies, the human body, birth and death. A visual artist and writer before embracing dance, she incorporated her interest in biology into art and often created paintings of bodily organs.
Underground Oasis explores the human attraction to the visceral, the relationship between predator and prey and death and mortality. In one portion, Babb-Cheshul dances with some of her students, members of the Graveyard Dollies fusion bellydance troupe, who are attached to her belt via chains. The chains, she said, represent the domination she holds as instructor and choreographer.
“I don’t crack the whip in a serious way,” she said, “but I have to do it.”
Underground Oasis also features metal/progressive/psychedelic band Hoth and suspension troupe Chaotic Necrotica.
Suspension arts involve piercing the body with large hooks from which the performer suspends.
Shaun Emory, longtime piercing artist and leader of Chaotic Necrotica, said the key to suspension piercing is to massage the skin so as not to pierce the muscle, pierce the skin with a needle and then stretch the skin with a larger hook so it won’t bleed or tear.
“It’s just like body piercing but with a bigger gauge,” he said.
Emory said while different suspension artists have different motivations, he pierces for performance. He learned suspension piercing after seeing it at a piercing convention in Las Vegas, and was then taught by a Vegas-based suspension expert in South Carolina.
Underground Oasis, a multihour performance, begins at 7 p.m. The evening is a benefit performance for Food, Not Bombs. A donation box for nonperishable food items will be at the door.
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