Devin Koppel started her journey with us in 2019 when she debuted in The Attic edition. Today, we ask her about what memorable responses she has had to her work, and what she loves about The House of Red Velvet.
1. What drew you to the work of The House of Red Velvet?
A couple years ago I lived in North Hollywood within walking distance of a small and fascinatingly obscure venue called The Other Door. I was invited to attend HORV one night, and I went in blindly not really knowing what to expect. The entire experience was visceral in a way I had never experienced from a live performance. Witnessing these women revealing their passion, their pain, their vulnerability, their beauty - I was transfixed. I felt something open within me that night, and I saw a new possibility for what intimacy can look and feel like between performer and audience.
2. What has been your favorite moment performing in The House of Red Velvet?
The rituals that we perform to open and close the space. In those moments, it doesn’t feel like a performance or an act. Those moments feel sacred, and as I reflect now what's resonating loudly is the feeling of safety and trust. We are inviting you to be more than an audience member, because as you observe and experience the acts you are holding space for what is being created in the room.
3. What has been a seminal experience?
I was at a particularly low point in my life when I was led to a transformational leadership training that took me through a process of discovery and breakthrough, where I uncovered and dismantled all of the self-limiting beliefs I had about myself and about the world. I began to discover my answer to the question: “What is a life worth living?” Since then I have dedicated my life to helping others heal from internalized oppression, transmute pain into power, and experience forgiveness, self-recognition, and love.
4. What art do you most identify with? Who influences you?
I’m inspired by art that works to reframe conversations around sexuality, gender, power, domesticity, and the roles people are expected to play within society. As for the aesthetic and feel of the art I create, I’m most influenced by John Willie’s classic Bizarre magazine. There are reprints available today from Taschen, but it was originally published during the “nostalgic era of closeted normalcy” from 1946 to 1959, (which was also the favorite period of satirists like John Waters and David Lynch.) I highly recommend giving Bizarre a google search if you aren’t familiar.
5. What memorable responses have you had to your work?
A few years ago, I performed a ballet burlesque piece at an intimate gathering and was approached the next day by a body painter, Nicolette Spear, who said that while she was watching my performance she had a vision of me as an intergalactic ballerina. I gave her a pair of my pointe shoes, and we met up in LA where she painted me into the most beautiful galaxy from head to toe. We have continued collaborating over the years, but most recently she took some nude photographs of me to use as reference for a painting. She then hosted an art show where the muses for her paintings were body painted to look like the paintings in real life, and we posed in front of the canvases on pedestals at a gallery show. The reactions that evening were priceless. I love how art imitates life, and life imitates art. Things can get pretty meta.
6. Name something (anything!) you love and why.
I love dance in all forms. I particularly love ballet, because it taught me to be prepared for a bit of pain for the sake of beauty. What this means to me, in the metaphorical sense, is one must sacrifice something to make something sacred.
