The Brooklyn Rail

I first saw Kat Sotelo perform last October at Offerings, an intimate performance series in the Church of St. Mary the Virgin just a half block from Times Square. This place of worship, steps away from a bygone red-light district, was in many ways the perfect setting for a work-in-progress showing of A DEVOTION TO SERVICE.

Sotelo’s biggest-scale work to date draws from their Catholic, Filipino-American upbringing to investigate and satirize the boundaries between eroticism and servitude in performance. It premieres in full at Abrons Arts Center on September 26 and 27 following a banner year for Sotelo: she’s had not one, not two, but three artist residencies at Center for Performance Research, GALLIM, and Movement Research, as well as a Theater Mitu fellowship.

A DEVOTION TO SERVICE promises to subvert expectations around looking in the tradition of iconic feminist performances, like Yoko Ono’s 1964 Cut Piece or VALIE EXPORT’s 1968 Touch Cinema, that expose how audiences treat the female body as a site of transaction. It also has much in common with the work of contemporary artists like Xandra Ibarra and Narcissister, who use pin-up aesthetics to peel back the racialized power dynamics at play in kink and voyeurism.

In the following conversation, Sotelo shares some origin points of the performance, how she juggles her various references, and her tips for safely engaging with childhood dance videos.

Dylan Sherman (Rail): It’s around a month and a half until the premiere of A DEVOTION TO SERVICE at Abrons. What are you working on in rehearsal and, generally, how are you feeling?

Kat Sotelo: I can’t help but be in a state of frenetic panic, which feels actually weirdly good. It’s the second week of my residency with GALLIM dance company and I’m working on solo stuff for the show. It feels really good to think about what I’m embodying and bringing to the table. Thinking through my solo work usually comes last in my process and I just wing it, but now I can actually hone in on my own choreography.

Rail: I’m glad you have some time to center yourself this week! To take us back in time for a bit, I know that your childhood dance recitals are an important reference point for you. How did you feel dancing as a child and what makes you want to revisit these moments now?

Sotelo: The bottom-line answer is TRAUMA.

Rail: Isn’t that right? Dancers who are traumatized by their training unite.

Sotelo: Yeah, very, very, very much that. To go a little deeper without unloading, I was bullied a lot in my dance school. And that really informed my experience. I started when I was three or four years old, right when I was getting a hold of my limbs. And then I went until I was fifteen or sixteen.

I feel like it’s important for me to revisit my training now because I’m understanding how it settled into my body and informs everything I do as a performance artist, as a stripper, as a sex worker, as the dancer I am today. It’s something that I’m working out and I’m reclaiming with some sort of pride.

This whole process started because my parents still have all of my costumes from that time. I wondered if they fit me and started trying them on. Then I was like, whoa, this feels fucking intense. And I wanted to follow that path because I felt something was there.

Rail: I think that’s almost a universal experience for people in dance. As young children and teenagers we were told what our bodies should do without really knowing alternative ways to be in relation to them. How have you been working through this embodied history?

Sotelo: My practice in getting this show together has been to rewatch these videos over and over again and get that choreography back into my body. And I’ve learned that it’s dangerous for me to do this without a safety net, right? I have to put mental health practices in place in order to not completely spiral and lose myself in the memory. There are so many meta layers of voyeurism and re-embodiment.

I recently found more video tapes in my parents’ basement. And as I was sitting there digitizing the tapes, my eyes kept crossing and I had to stop for a minute. So, breathing, taking breaks, and releasing yourself from the portal are basic safety practices. Cheeseburgers help, too.

Rail: Okay, I’m taking notes. You’re making quite the useful little self-care kit for watching childhood dance videos. Thanks so much for sharing that.

I wanted to touch on another reference that’s in the title of the work itself, which is service and the various power dynamics in relationships of servitude. How long have you been thinking about that and how did it first show up in your work?

Sotelo: When I was in school in Baltimore, I conceived of these performances called “Pizza Surprise,” where I would order a pizza and then put on a whole production for the pizza delivery person, even though it would only last for five minutes tops. That’s when I first started thinking about power dynamics in performance and the audience versus the performer. Who’s holding the power and who are we catering to?

It’s still an amorphous relationship for me. I think about who I am servicing as a performer, as a stripper, as a dancer, and especially as a Filipino American woman who has experienced every stereotype in that realm: caretakers, nurses, maids, cleaners. It’s been very real for me to experience how we exist in the American landscape, outside of our own land.

And in stripping or exotic dance, you’re serving fantasy, right? You’re understanding people’s desires and you’re acting to them. I always describe the process as energy work. You’re a chameleon to someone else’s fantasies and you’re giving it to them. I’m interested in this currency of energy and how it’s transacted or exchanged in performance.

Rail: I love the idea of the chameleon. It really is present in all performances, whether we see it or not. I’m grateful for you teaching us about that and I’m excited to see how that shows up in the work.

You’ve already touched on a lot of your themes and reference points. Do you have any strategies for juggling all of these, especially given your background in film?

Sotelo: I start my process with writing and collecting scenes. I have like three hundred notebooks where I compile and write down so many things, like what I observe on the street, dreams, or ordinary moments that look like they’re out of a movie. I then throw these references in a pot and mix them up and see what goes next to each other.

When I’m coming close to producing a piece, I usually do have a very visual production schedule or notebook. And it comes from the film world, I was in set decoration for over ten years in New Orleans. All of that also translates into how I build sets and source costumes, props, and materials.

And I’m addicted to mood boards, which I build on my computer. I love piecing things together and then taking a step back to help hone the vision. I also write all my scenes on Post-It notes and lay them out on a board. All that paper can be a little unmanageable, but I just love a visual, tactile scene.

Rail: Totally. I’m always interested in all the material detritus that goes into planning a performance but that doesn’t end up on stage.

Speaking of set design, I’m really intrigued by the form of the peep show you’re using. Can you say a little more about how you’ve developed the booths and what inspired you to mount a performance in this setting in the first place?

Sotelo: I’ve never worked in a peep show myself, but I love the idea of revealing and concealing. That’s where the idea really started: who can see what, at what time, and what do we get for how much money?

Someone was telling me about these peep show booths in Japan, where there are three levels: there’s you and the screen, there’s you and the dancer, and then there’s you and the screen and the dancer. I think that is so interesting, and that’s the kind of layering I want to bring into the show. Like, what is real time, what is past, what is future? How do we feel the illusion? How do we suspend disbelief as in cinema? And that’s why I love video, too: it creates another world that is also manipulated and designed for consumption.

I’m building the booths with my longtime friend and collaborator Pete Razon. I designed them with these three fractals of self in mind: the cleaning lady, the angsty teen girl, and the industrious kitchen maiden, which I am not, but wish I could be. So there are three avatars but they’re all part of the same character. We’re all one. They’re each these tiny worlds.

Before the show starts, I’m inviting the audience to come see the booths up close. And then when the show begins, the audience will be seated in the theater but the booths will be moving through the space.

Rail: So the audience is in a sort of merry-go-round—I can’t wait to see that.

The peep show is loaded with plenty of baggage around a passive male spectator consuming an active female body. I’m wondering how you relate to that history while replicating the form of the peep show booth itself?

Sotelo: That’s an immense question—I’ll do my best to answer! I’m still learning about my own history and my own body, as much as I am learning about how that relates to broader histories of gendered identities, sex work, and service. And, of course, there are layers here, right? There are not just gendered identities, there are also cultural and racial identities. There’s a lot mixing together here, and it can be overwhelming.

But it also feels important to fuck up this history a little bit, you know? I like to take these erotic or sensual performances and flip them on their head and do something disgusting. Yes, we are talking about the male gaze, but we’re also talking about how we can reclaim it. One way I do that is by incorporating male service providers, but not in a sexual way.

Rail: That’s a clever way to make people question their expectations of who is going to be behind that curtain. You’re not hiring a male exotic dancer instead of a female one, you’re doing something more coy and subtle.

Speaking of, I’m curious about your collaborators, who include your long-time friend Gigi del Rosario, your father Juanito Sotelo, two Taskrabbits who you’ll hire day-of, as well as several other collaborators. What’s your casting process like?

Sotelo: I started working with my childhood friends in this body of work about two years ago. My other best friend, Marjorie Milloria, is not able to participate in this iteration of the work, but she’s been in many of the others.

These two friends have very similar experiences to me. Marjorie and I grew up together and went to the same dance school. So we started from a point of figuring out what we can do to heal. I completely trust these people with my life. And so I trust them in diving into this work with me.

Then there’s my dad, who has actually been in a lot of my shows. We first worked together for my college thesis at MICA, which was a one-night-only show where he sang the final song. He’s also a musician and performer; he’s loud and obnoxious. That’s where I get it from—he’s the life of the party and I’ve always admired that about him. I feel like I get my courage from him. It’s really fun to see him in my work because I also like to see him sweat a little bit.

Rail: Speaking of subverting power relationships!

Sotelo: That’s exactly it! Him and I have a very complicated relationship, but I feel like this is him in service to me. I’m like, you fucked me up and now you owe me! Performing together really connects us, even though he doesn’t usually have a larger context for the show.

It’s been interesting because a lot of this performance relies on… I wouldn’t say chance, but uncertainty. There’s a certain sense of balance and play in casting strangers in tandem with people I have known my whole life.

Rail: I’m also very interested in this element of surprise that comes with casting these people from Taskrabbit and other places the day of the performance. And I’m curious how you may be preparing for the potential chaos of the setup and whether you’ve done this before.

Sotelo: I love throwing a wrench in my plans! I love being my own villain. I love embarrassment and I love that moment when things feel out of control. It’s like I’m telling myself, “Oh you think you know everything? No you fucking don’t!” I want to try something new and scary that keeps me at the edge of my seat. That’s why I love throwing some “non-performers” and moments of chance into the mix.

And I’ve done it before: I’ve had food couriers disrupt one performance several times and I’ve hired people off Craigslist and then rehearsed them three days before the show.

Rail: So it’s not your first rodeo, but it’s still not something you can guarantee will go smoothly. It’s inspiring to hear how you’re still challenging yourself.

You shared how your collaborators have helped you develop this work. Is there anyone else you want to shout out or pay homage to who we won’t see onstage?

Sotelo: Holler at my ancestors! They’re the reason I’m here and it is them who I attribute this life, this vessel, and this art to. This is for everyone who came before me, especially the women in my lineage. The devotion serves as a ritual to honor them and to explore how we as a community are in service to each other.

And all of this work I’ve been doing is under the umbrella of Filipino Futurism, which is a movement, manifesto, and collective. It’s a concept that I’m still developing with friends from the diaspora and folks back home in the Philippines. We’re thinking about how we pay tribute to ancestral histories while forging radical, queer, and bombastic futures.