What House?

Oct 28, 1978
Field:

Performance

Location:

Western Front

Description:

What House? is a theatrical dance work that follows three working female waitresses played by performers Fern Friedman, Terri Hanlon, and Deborah Slater, who together, collaborated as the performance group The EVA Sisters.

What House? is composed of eleven short segments that dramatize the labours of the hospitality and service industry. The piece integrates various props (a tea trolley, dishware, menus, serviettes), movements (setting up, preparing, folding, serving), and social interactions (gossiping, ordering, day-dreaming, complaining) associated with the profession into a choreography that strings together spoken word, dance, and physical comedy into an acerbic critique of gendered labour and performativity. 

Video documentation is available upon request.

Western Front is a non-profit
artist-run centre in Vancouver.

We acknowledge the xʷməθkʷəy̓əm (Musqueam), Skwxwú7mesh (Squamish), and səl̓ílwətaʔɬ (Tsleil-Waututh) Nations as traditional owners of the land upon which Western Front stands.