NOTE:On this week’s podcast, skip about 10 minutes in if you don’t want to hear my spicy take on what’s been going on in the world of NFT art.
The majority of work I have done on a purely creative level in the past couple of decades, has been collaborative in nature. Without community, most performance, installation, and live art in general is not viable, and tends to be unfulfilling. Along the way, I have had the opportunity to meet, connect with, and most importantly: grow with some amazing folks. Margherita Tisato is one of them.
Margherita is a very multifaceted artist that wears quite a few different hats. On her website, she states that she is a dancer, teacher to teachers, movement enthusiast and a passionate change-maker. Knowing her really well, I know that this list falls short of the magnitude of her work and capabilities as a creative spirit, but it’s a good place to start.
Our journeys are both very different, and yet, we also have some very similar things in common. We are both first generation immigrants to the USA; she is Italian, I am Turkish. We both grew up in Europe for the most part, exposed to street art, party life, punk music genres, and Mediterranean culture. This, however, is just a small part of why we are such tight friends, and collaborators.
Being the extremely unconventional artists that we are, we stayed on brand, and did not explore Margherita’s life and art in a linear fashion. We started with the history of Butoh, which is a very big part of her life. Through this topic we explored her approach to performance art, and I found her attraction to this type of dance and body movement is very reflective of who she is as an artist, and social disruptor.
By touching on the topic of censorship early on, she painted a picture of how problematic social conventions are, even in seemingly liberal mediums like dance. This also brought us to the topic of nudity, and how it can be inconvenient, or just unnecessary. Personally, this resonates, because a lot of people sexualize my work with suspension, which is partially why the vast majority of my work with suspension does not show exposed nipples or butts.
From talking about our distracting and inconvenient floppy bits that tend to get in the way when we’re naked, we continued to circle around the renegade roots of what Butoh is. This was fascinating to me, considering how traditionally conservative culture has always been in Japan; that something so “punk” can come out of such a quiet culture is beautiful.
Margherita very elegantly breaks down the context of presentation & provocation. There is a very important point here about how the difference between shock value and presenting a provocative narrative. As performers that are want to to encourage the viewer to process things on a higher level, provocation is the hook to engaging our viewers with our higher conceptual frameworks.
Subsequently, we touched on discomfort, because that is a large part of meaningful performance art. A performer may not ever fully and accurately express an otherwise easily explicable message in their art, but there are ways in which observers can be ushered into liminal spaces that encourage understanding. In Margherita’s case, a large unifying element in her work is empathy.
Dipping quickly in and out of the important question of whether Jesus’ crucifixion was basically body suspension minus the fun, I decided there is good reason to share this absolute s-tier shit post from Hard Times: “We Sat Down With Body Modification Legend Jesus Christ. Covering the important questions here on this very serious podcast, I know.
Another topic we leaned into was the concept of appropriation; there is bad cultural appropriation, and there is the good kind too. I agree with Margherita’s assessment that adopting other peoples’ spiritual practices, and essentially commercializing them is bad appropriation. It’s a tough topic, especially when we both practice various forms of art that are rooted in other cultures that precede us.
It’s culturally complicated to talk about political aspects, and we both prefer to stick to the creative side of things. Besides, it’s where we are best versed, in our respective mediums. And I entirely agree with her, that it is absolutely illogical to gatekeep creative practices like dance. Another great example from Margherita of non-spiritual practices being gatekept is Shibari - Japanese rope bondage work was a product of sex work, and not some spiritual practice.
And of course, this brought us to something that I love hearing her flesh out: the unbalanced oppressive nature of societal structures we live within. Appropriation does at some point have the potential to turn into a mechanism within systems of oppression. Telling folks that something from another culture is bad, can be used as a way to keep folks from those cultures in a box. And if we never open the box, then its contents will gain negative connotations, which in turn can be transformed as a stigma towards the peoples associated with those contents.
As is an inevitable outcome on these podcasts, we found our way to social media and cultural learning. Margherita sees both the good and bad in it. It’s a tool for learning, though it isn’t used as such. And it’s important that we can keep teaching the roots of practices, so it’s up to us to decide to use these digital tools to perpetuate that.
When Margherita began explaining what embodiment actually means, I feel like we entered the realm of the prolific. I was really blown away by her explanation of how embodiment is SOMATIC. These are complicated topics that are crucial to trauma resolution, personal healing, and spiritual growth, and I think her comprehension of the topic is extremely advanced. To quote her:
“Embodiment is the sum total of our physical, psychological, and emotional experiences, in the context that we’re in, with the history that we carry.”
-Margherita Tisato
Talking about her history a little bit, she laid out some really fascinating aspects of her life that shaped who she is today. I can relate to a lot of it; we are all sensation seekers, just some of us more intensely than others. While I think that as humans, our relationship with pain is important, most folks don’t really dwell on it because it’s uncomfortable to think about it. Margherita has always been the opposite - sensation is a spectrum of pain and pleasure after all.
Speaking of pain and pleasure, we poked briefly at my genesis NFT on Foundation, Phasing 01 - Indolence. That’s her suspended in my OG spinny cube, now in the provenance of Cryptopathic. This topic allowed us to break down the nature of suspension, and how it’s about pushing boundaries. But it also allowed us to explain that it’s not always about using the medium on such a high level; sometimes we just do things for recreational purposes.
Working with folks like Margherita is very different, because she is so in tune with her body, so she can process more through experiences like suspension - she is constantly experimenting in ways most people don’t during a session. Most folks learn to let go, and have a release, while Margherita leans into the experience and keeps going deeper both mentally, and physically.
I would like to have more one-on-ones with Margherita, because talking with her is so natural, and being able to do it in person makes everything so much more fluid. Besides, she’s one of my best friends, and I love working with her on creative projects, suspension or otherwise. I hope you felt our connection, and encourage you to ask us questions for future discussions!
Next up will be my interview with the phenomenal Nihil. His style and presentation are otherworldly, and our discussion was very insightful into what one’s creative process can look like, when faced with various challenges in life. He’s one of my artists in the “dark” art realm.
FRACTALS x CODE claim for holders is today, but that doesn’t mean you can’t mint one for yourself if you haven’t already. Grab one on Foundation, and read about this project here on my substack!
Transmission 11 - Margherita Tisato