Get Ready with Me: Performance Piece

This performance piece is inspired by “Get Ready with Me/GRWM” videos that are posted on social media but with a twist. I begin the performance by entering the space wearing only some small shorts and a short tank top. I begin putting on clothes that are on the clothing rack, observing how I look in the mirror in a critical way, and then removing the clothes only to begin the entire process over again. This cycle of getting dressed/undressed happens several times with various clothing combinations and each time I remove the clothes they are left scattered on the chair and floor. The performance concludes with putting the first outfit back on and leaving the room. Clothes are left scattered on the chair and floor as a remnant of the performance.

The “Get Ready with Me” performance is a recreation of a behavior that I have participated in numerous times. The act of getting ready has felt impossible in the past due to how I felt about and viewed my body in the past. No matter what I put on my body, no matter how many times I changed clothes, I still hated what I saw in the mirror. Sometimes I would give up and decide that going out wasn’t worth all the trouble of going through this ritual. Other times I would end up back in the first thing I put on feeling as though I was just settling on an outfit but still not enjoying how I looked. These days, I rarely engage in this kind of behaviour. If I do find myself caught up trying on several different outfits, it is because they all look great and I cannot decide which to wear. It is almost the opposite kind of problem compared to what I used to struggle with when getting ready.