PIPORNOT: Division of Labor Uniforms

PIPORNOT: Division of Labor and TANGO by an interdisciplinary artist, aricoco, in collaboration with Miwa Kaneko

Zoom event happened on Sunday, December 27th, 2020

Video screening of a virtual runway-performance show, featuring participants’ Tango-inspired performances that were recorded and collected via zoom meetings during the COVID pandemic. The video introduced a series of uniforms created by aricoco, that were tailored to fit the needs and roles of insect-human hybrid colony members whose specialized tasks were divided according to Division of Labor. Following the video screening, Miwa hosted a “virtual milonga (Tango dance party)”, where audiences were invited to try some Tango moves if they wished, or just listen to traditional Tango music. During the “milonga”, there was a short Tango Barre performance (pre-recorded video) by Leah Barsky (Professional Tango dancer). Subsequently, aricoco performed her new piece live from her livingroom.

This final event culminated our experiments with Tango movements and attempts to integrate them with aricoco’s personal fear of insects, her contradictory interest in social insect colony, and scientific knowledge of Division of Labor in ant society gleaned from communicating with a biologist. Leading up to realization of this event, we had created several online programmings including, streaming of Tango follower’s step instruction video by Miwa, zoom workshops by our contributor, Leah Barsky and her interview video, and interview with a biologist, Dr. Daniel Charbonneau. Those recordings (except the zoom workshops by Leah) are available for viewing through the project website: www.pipornot.com