Today we sit down with a new daughter of 'The House. Meet Frankie Tan. She will be joining us for the first time at A New Baptism on October 2nd at Pico Union Project.
Photo by Bobby Gordon.
1. Describe who you are and your art.
I am a multidisciplinary performance artist working in mediums of ballet, contemporary dance, neoburlesque, aerial, and somatic movement. My work examines the function of trauma in interpersonal experience & strives to heal the self & the audience simultaneously.
2. What drew you to the work of The House of Red Velvet?
The House of Red Velvet feels close to my own artistic goals & style. The unflinching examination of the darker aspects of human experience feel like vital & compelling work, and I love the focus on stunning visual tableau.
3. What has been a seminal experience?
One seminal experience that comes to mind is losing my ballet coach of almost ten years to incarceration when I was 19. I had believed I was tied to other peoples’ influence, mentorship, opportunity providing, or belief in me to be successful, and his exit from my life forced me to ask what’s important to me as an artist, and what I value as a human being- from how I express myself, to how I care for my being, to what stories are important to share. Since then, and because of that (which at the time I perceived as a loss), I’ve become a stronger, braver, more impassioned, more successful, more honest, and more compassionate artist that I ever believed possible.
Photo by Gianina Monroe.
4. What art do you most identify with? Who influences you?
I identify with art that is unafraid to look at the intimate, that asks what needs to be heard & creates a platform for it, art that surprises, & I love a little tongue-in-cheek symbolism. I’m inspired by original showgirl Josephine Baker, performance artist Marina Abramović, my mentor, the late Kathleen Hermesdorf, painter Frida Kahlo, musician Shirley Manson, writer & activist Alice Walker, and my best friend Karolina Lux- unapologetic women who lean into vulnerability & authenticity, & challenge social expectations.
5. What memorable responses have you had to your work?
One memorable response to work I’ve created was sitting in a late-night cafe after a burlesque show, re-watching a particularly vulnerable piece I’d done, with another performer who hadn’t been able to see it live because she’d been in the show as well. She cried watching it on video, feeling that it expressed “all the things that really happen, but are so hard to describe”.
Another response I loved was when a stranger came to a femme-centered show I produced & later called it “scary, sexy, weird, violent... I don’t know when the next one is, but I’m going”. I loved how it had them reflecting on that side of femininity.
6. Name something (anything!) you love and why.
I love the ocean! I learn so much from its rhythms, power, fragility, constancy, and unpredictability.
Photo by Matthew Freiheit.
