After its first creation, Sexpectationspresented in 2017 at the Fringe festival, the artist Maxine Segalowitz returns with a new proposal, Ad-Hoc Dimension, to discover from November 26 at Tangente. After several years practicing stripping, she noticed many similarities between the codes of an “institutionalized” show and the relationship between a stripper and her client. An observation that she decided to stage.
Financial security, sense of belonging to a community, self-respect… That’s all Maxine Segalowitz experienced when she started practicing striptease. “I felt viscerally in my body my empowerment, but also the financial valuation of my time and emotional labor. I gained a lot of confidence thanks to that,” she says.
Indeed, in 2015, Maxine Segalowitz is looking for a job, her job as a dance performer unfortunately not paying enough. It was finally while visiting a friend at the Kingdom club, on Saint-Laurent, that she discovered the profession of stripper. An avenue that “corresponds to his skills”. “I worked for many years in reception services, which required being friendly and approachable with strangers,” she explains.
She also adds that seduction is far from new to her. On the contrary, it is a habit in his daily life. “I am a very sociable woman, I am used to people flirting with me, and I have my methods to deal with it: either by calming them [les soupirants], either by ignoring them or by rejecting them, she adds. It’s a problem I deal with every day, so the prospect of making money every time a stranger flirts with me was appealing. »
Decriminalize sex work
Right from the start, Maxine Segalowitz enjoyed her new job. She “dances, organizes her schedule as she sees fit, works with friends and earns money”. However, all is not all rosy in the middle. “There is a lot of rejection from customers, and sometimes there are predators… Managers and bouncers, too, are not always on the side of the dancers; this is also a problem. And since sex work is criminalized in Canada, it is sometimes difficult to find your way around, ”explains the one who has taken a break from this environment since the start of the pandemic.
“There is no law guaranteeing the safety of strippers,” she says. In addition, the dancers are hired as contractors, self-employed, and there is no hourly rate to respect for the bar. “We have to pay a night rate to be able to work in the club. Additionally, one cannot unionize, and there are many other loopholes that create spaces where one can be exploited. It’s a problem,” she continues.
Thus, with his piece Ad-Hoc Dimension, Maxine Segalowitz hopes to get the public to advocate more for the decriminalization of sex work in Canada. “I hope people will reevaluate what they want from sexuality and sex appeal, and that they will consider the performativity of sexuality as something accessible to all, and not something to be expected from some. I also expect them to see the value of emotional labor as skilled labor in all forms of interactions and to question whether they have any internal assumptions and judgments about sex workers,” she explains.
Indeed, strippers are considered sex workers in Canada, even though they do not always have physical contact with clients. A dialogue is currently taking place in the community to produce a better definition of what sex work is and is not.
Maxine Segalowitz took as a starting point for her creation the similarities between a dance show and a strip performance. According to her, they are multiple. “The audience expects some form of entertainment, or some predetermined form of presentation to be delivered. There is a deep listening on the part of the performer/stripper to know how what is presented is received. From there, there is already a negotiation or conversation about who is in charge of deciding how the performance is presented, and this role of power comes and goes through the generosity of the artist/stripper towards the public/customer”, specifies the one who has notably been the interpreter of Helen Simard, Yannick Desranleau and Chloë Lum or even Ingrid Bachmann or Dora García.
Mme Segalowitz worked for over a year to create Ad-Hoc Dimension, his first major project. Surrounded by many artists, but also by organizations and support networks linked to the striptease and sex work, she has built a show that addresses her stripping experiences, but also certain discomforts. “I was hurting that there was so much shame, stigma and incorrect assumptions surrounding a job that’s been around since the job is paid,” she says.
In addition, she also looked at the social dynamics that animate the environment. “They are complex and intertwined within the club: it’s a fantasy world in which everyone participates, customers, staff, dancers, lights, music, everything… But within this fantasy structure, the interactions and connections are very real, and we don’t talk about it enough, she concludes. I am interested in this space where fantasy and reality meet and mingle, but also where they coexist, side by side. »