Shy Therapy at a Nude Beach - Brian Scott Fine Arts - THEATRE ADDICTS VANCOUVER

THEATRE ADDICTS VANCOUVER

Shy Therapy at a Nude Beach - Brian Scott Fine Arts

11/9/2018

~ reviewed by Mattias Martens

Korky Day link

14/9/2018 06:23:09

The last 2 shows of this run of 'Shy Therapy at a Nude Beach' are 2018 September 14, Friday, 9 pm, and
September 16, Sunday, 4 pm,
2227 Granville Street at 6th Avenue, Vancouver, BC.
Tickets at the door.
If you have no cash, pay us later, when you can.

Many thanks, reviewer Mattias Martens, from me, Korky Day, the director and co-star, for your delightful and accurate review of our play 'Shy Therapy at a Nude Beach'. We presented it last October and now. Sadly, in all that time, no one else has reviewed it (besides 2 cast members).

The rest of the media, mainstream and alternative, seem to be deathly afraid of us, but you deserve a medal. I would pin it on your sun hat, but, unfortunately, I'll have to settle for your shirt.

You felt uncomfortable, you say, and well you should, as that will be a motivator for you to overcome your clothoholism, about which you still seem to be in denial. I'm a little dissatisfied with theatre that motivates no important change, that challenges not their audience.

You were brave enough to attend and not walk out (few did), so I deduce for you a great prognosis. Please attend again at no charge. Or meet us at the beach or indoor nude pool party, etc., for further therapy or just you confronting your own shyness and/or fears without our aid. By your name I suspect you have many nudist relatives, close or distant.

Despite some discomfort and perplexity on your part, your smiling face and keen insights hinted that you were not totally disgusted and do not regret attending (even if you weren't reviewing us), that you did learn something about yourself and society from of our show, in spite of saying you cannot recommend it.

If you had stripped off, you would have found that the environment there would have been very encouraging. You would have likely have felt liberated and likely would have given us heartfelt thanks. But you are not there yet, which is common. That is because our heartless society has failed miserably to make you comfortable in your own skin before now.

There are books on nudism at the library that you can read for further information, including for your interest in our history. Or write to me at KorkyDay @ yahoo . com .

To expand on your description, I would say that our play is a combination of theatre, public discussion, nudist outing, public change room, 12-step meeting, public protest, birthday suit party, group therapy, and peer psycho-analysis.

More in Facebook at our play name or www.korky.ca (click on 'Nude events'), including dozens of coming events related to nudism in BC.

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Korky Day link

14/9/2018 07:11:33

In spite of the 'tumult', this show assuredly will have a rush line for free admittance for all Fringe volunteers, performers, etc.

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Danielle

14/9/2018 10:43:06

I'm sorry, I can't let this go. I know this is probably going to turn into a fruitless argument, but I have to say it.

Korky, I am glad that you are passionate about your cause and, as it happens, I agree with almost all of your values when it comes to nudism. What I disagree with, vehemently, is the way you go about sharing your beliefs with others.

Therapy is not the right word for what you do, unless you are likening it to that "cure being gay therapy" that we see in certain, less tolerant, parts of our society. What you have is an agenda. Therapy is about supporting individuals in healing and navigating their own way through life and owning their choices, whether you agree with the or not. The therapist is as impartial as possible. For you there is no choice, you are right and there is no room for other points of view and while you occasionally give lip service to "safe space" and "support" and "respect" that was absolutely NOT my experience of this show. I felt pressured and bullied and while people were encouraged to share viewpoints that differed from yours, they were always subject to being told they were wrong and you know better after they had.

Please do not take attendance to your show as "consent" or interest in being "therapied" into your point of view. I do not attend a play about Hitler to become a Nazi or a play about surviving abuse because I want to take part. We attend theatre to witness, to appreciate art and sometimes to engage, but it is not a sign of some deep, concealed need. It is interest. The theatre is usually a place to explore ideas in a safe, non-threatening way because they are wrapped in character or narrative or dance or poetry or whatever and this distance allows us to go further and deeper into dark or uncomfortable topics than we would typically let ourselves in our day to day lives.

I agree with Mattias on this being a branding issue and I would also call it a misuse of the medium of theatre. If you called it Nude Evangelism and did not make a pretence of being a theatrical performance but rather an intro session or an unusual town hall, I think your audience would have a better idea of what type of event they are attending and will be more likely to engage in a positive manner.

I am glad to say the the majority of my experiences with nudism, sex positivity, fetishism, polyamory and other alternative lifestyle practices have been much more gentle, respectful, safe and pro-consent than the aggression and righteousness I experienced from some of the individuals at Shy Therapy at a Nude Beach. I wonder how the event has affected the viewpoints of people in attendance who do not have prior experience with the subject matter.

I have no interest in continuing this conversation. I am shaking from the fear of confrontation just writing this comment. But I had to say this as I didn't feel safe enough to object while I was trapped inside the gallery at your performance and I worry that if we who feel scared don't get brave enough to speak up when we feel bullied then the people doing it (intentionally or not, I am very certain that you 100% believe you are doing the right thing) will never get the feedback and have the choice to adjust their behaviour.

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Korky Day link

14/9/2018 11:52:09

You were not a captive, Danielle. You could have left any time. Nevertheless, thanks for your courage to express yourself here, just as others do in our shows and at Wreck Beach.

Yes, we are passionate. We think we are right and you are wrong, just as you feel the opposite. We are in the minority in society. So they call us edgy. Much other theatre is timid, pointless, or fluff. Not us.

Money back guarantee. Even if you got in free, I'll give you 15$.

My father was a victim of gay therapy. He didn't want to be gay because society was so anti-gay. They had persuaded him that he was sick. He killed himself in 1964. His therapists, nevertheless, honestly thought that they were right, almost certainly. As both of us do now.

You wrote, 'Therapy is about supporting individuals in healing and navigating their own way through life and owning their choices, whether you agree with them or not.'

If someone is a wife-beater, most modern therapists will try to cure them of that. Some religious fundamentalist therapists might slap him on the back in congratulations. Neither way is neutral. There is no neutral. You can choose your therapists for your and their moralities. You may reject us as therapists or as performers.

Society is wrong, I think, including how it makes us hate our own or others' nude bodies. And how it makes men think they have a right to women's bodies.

Even at Wreck Beach, women tell us that if there were not so many clothed men looking at them, they would feel more free and safe to go nude. They feel bullied into staying clothed, like almost all women almost all of the time in almost every place. So, who are the bullies? Us or the patriarchy?

We relieve the pain that many want us to help them relieve. But you seem to think that nudism is just an option. That being a clothoholic is just as good. We disagree. Each of our cast might have a slightly different view of that and of how far we should go, though. That makes for compelling theatre. You felt compelled to react. You didn't just forget us.

I guess you saw most or all of our show. So, yes, you consented, though you might have changed your mind later. You stayed, I guess, because you were curious or daring or wanted to confront us later. Own it. You got a real experience, a real emotion. As we did.

Protesters and counter-protesters are more alike than complacent people who stay away.

You said you were shaking. So am I. Because on such issues rests the future of humanity.

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Danielle

14/9/2018 12:05:41

Wife beating is not equivalent to my choice to wear clothes or not. It is a personal choice that affects no-one else but me, not an act of physical violence on someone else.

Korky Day link

14/9/2018 12:02:00

(My 3rd to last paragraph above, revised:) I guess you saw most or all of our show. So, yes, you consented, though you might have wanted to leave. You stayed, maybe, because you were curious or daring or wanted to confront us later. You got a real experience, a real emotion. As we did.

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Korky Day link

14/9/2018 12:26:22

Danielle wrote above, 'Wife beating is not equivalent to my choice to wear clothes or not. It is a personal choice that affects no-one else but me, not an act of physical violence on someone else.'

Not equivalent, but a similar situation. When a man always wears clothes at a nude beach, he is saying, 'I don't care if I make women feel gawked at, I've a right to be clothed!'

When a woman (or anyone) is clothed out of fear, she is the victim, not the perpetrator. That is why I, as a man, focus my therapy more on men, though all of us therapists talk with anyone who says they want to.

Even if no one is bullied either way (in theory), being clothed or not always sends a message. It is never neutral. There is no neutral.

I want men to send the message, 'I'm naked because I want to show reciprocity with nude women, to forsake my privilege.'

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Christina Lake

14/9/2018 15:22:40

Danielle, as one of the 3 co-producers of the show, I am glad you agree with Korky's values re: nudism. To sum up your comment, you felt uncomfortable during the debates that took part in that particular performance. You protest that you felt so uncomfortable that you did not dare to leave or speak up. Because of your level of discomfort, you decide that something happened in the play that you feel is not permissible in theatre. I encourage you to go deeper and look at reasons within yourself why you were unable to act on your discomfort. Our play is meant to generate responses, verbal protests, strong opinions. For instance, we have a strong desire to instill in the visitors at Wreck Beach the ethics to at least consider going nude to have that conversation that is the obvious elephant in the room. If clothed visitors to Wreck Beach do not want to talk about nudism, we leave them alone but we do not want to be blamed when we wonder what brings them all the way down there. Generalized anxiety disorder, lack of confidence, low self esteem and as a result an inability to perform adequately in a confrontation, are the problems we observe in society and they are the problems we try to address via nudism, and via shy therapy, to give individuals the strength to stand up for themselves in a way you did not during our play. Wikipedia defines Fringe theatre as theatre that is experimental in style or subject matter.
Fringe festival productions often showcase new scripts, especially ones on more obscure, edgy, or unusual material. The lack of artistic vetting combined with relatively easy entry make risk-taking more feasible. I feel our play qualifies on these grounds. You pinpoint Korky insisting on his opinion as your major source of discomfort. The play was his idea and I feel he is therefore entitled to guide the debate towards the major points of his value system around the importance of nudism, values with which you happen to agree or so you say. You are right in stating that Korky not a government endorsed therapist in the classical sense of reality. He is in this instance an actor taking on the role of a ficticious character with a ficticious job description: shy-therapist.I am sorry that the humour in this escapes you.

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Christina Lake

14/9/2018 16:54:57

As per my previous comment, I am one of three co-producers of Shy Therapy. I just laughed out loud several times as I listened to your review, Mathias. Clearly with our play we found a new type of docu x improv style performance that is perhaps not theatre but definitely art, so aptly it is being performed in an art gallery, and in addition now without Fringe support. So we gave ourselves the moniker "the anti-show that is Too Fringey for the Fringe". We clearly feel that any Fringe show, especially the European ones, would be proud to receive the number of "Uncomfortables" we got from you, an obviously experienced theatre attendee. I am positively glory basking. The Brian Scott Gallery by the way at 6th and Granville is unlocked on both ends during the entire performance, mainly because we want everyone to be able to exit safely at any moment during and after the performance. Or last two performances, for now, are today at 9 pm and Sunday at 4 pm. Tickets at the door. Korky has been talking to real Wreck Beach visitors with varying density of mind and clothing for 8 summers now and no intention to quit while he is ahead. He basically has his own script in his head which he uses over and over at the beach. He has doled out dozens of Bare Bum Certificates at the real beach. In other words, all he did was move his 9-5 job to the theatre, a bit like Mike Rowe's Dirty Jobs docu-comedy. His supporting cast are part: newly recruited assistants (I count myself among those), with considerably less experience with the philosophy and history of Wreck Beach and Nudism, and part: fellow members of a nudism club in Vancouver. As you, Mathias observed correctly, the dog Levee, is indeed the most qualified therapist in the cast. We pretend to be therapists, mostly we seek a conversation about nudism with those who attend a nude beach wearing clothes. We are nudists first, fringers second. We do what we can to make this stage production fun and, another important adjective used by you Mathias, DIFFERENT. We feel at this late stage the planet needs DIFFERENT more than anything else. As a visual and performance artist in the legacy of German Bauhaus and Degenerate Art, I have a specific goal, to make people uncomfortable and to step on their toes, to wake them up, to make them aware. So Mathias, I take your review as a huge compliment.

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Karen Roller

14/9/2018 23:04:33

I can see why no one has taken the time to review your production before. They likely assumed, correctly, that their perspective would be challenged if not in agreement, as it sounds like it would have been during the performance.

I agree that theatre that challenges an individual to expand their mind is worthwhile but the fourth wall is there for a reason and any decision to break it should be handled with care and respect not to further one's own agenda or initiative.

Those are my thoughts and you are welcome to respond with your own but I can guarantee that I will not engage in a further response as I don't see a need to get into a debate of right or wrong over an opinion. I do hope the feedback helps you in your future pursuits. Best of luck.

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Korky Day link

15/9/2018 02:18:28

I hope you feel nice and secure in your little cocoon, Karen Roller, never attending anything with audience inter-action!

Even without voluntary audience participation, however, you might find one or two plays in the Fringe which 'further one's own agenda or initiative'. Come to think of it, I don't know where in the world you will be free of others' agendas. I guess you'll have to be a hermit.

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Christina Lake

16/9/2018 12:10:24

Karen, when Wikipedia gets around to publishing an article about "audience abuse" be sure that you tell them to put our foto in.

Your review denies our play the right to reviews because we would be audacious enough to challenge someone's perspective.

When I started producing the play, I never considered that challenging someone's perspective is such an evil thing to do.

You say you will not comment further. I hope you read this, because I feel compelled to urge you to reconsider.

Especially when it comes to nudism.

You make it sound like "nudism is bad enough but challenging someone's perspective on nudism, that is like burning a witch at the stake."

I happen to feel like a burning witch at the stake after getting kicked out of the Fringe after the second performance. I do not understand the grounds of the discrimination.

Wikipedia has a readable article on nudism, here it is :
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Naturism

Walt Whitman wrote: "Never before did I get so close to Nature; never before did she come so close to me... Nature was naked, and I was also... Sweet, sane, still Nakedness in Nature! - ah if poor, sick, prurient humanity in cities might really know you once more! Is not nakedness indecent? No, not inherently. It is your thought, your sophistication, your fear, your respectability, that is indecent. There come moods when these clothes of ours are not only too irksome to wear, but are themselves indecent."

All things considered and moving forward, I have to admit that the way you mean to accuse me of theatre crime, could be music in the ears of the most important theatre producers on this planet:
"You are breaking the 4th wall !!!" (as a West German who grew up with the wall between my country and East Germany, I am allergic to walls)

"You have no right to call yourselves a play (Artists like Picasso were labelled degenerate by the NAZIs) You violate every rule in the book, you are uncomfortable disturbing unwatchable intolerable."

Do you really think that this is something we had not considered before putting on the play ?

This is us putting ourselves out there naked and therefore vulnerable, articulately and with humour stating our cause.

Karen, you accuse us of having an agenda and initiative for more nudism in society. I completely stand behind this agenda now and for the foreseeable future. Nudism against terrorism, pedophilia, sex trafficking, human rights abuse - against anything we call despicable and human-despising.

Nudism for freedom, self-confidence, protecting the planet, live and let live, the art of living, life-affirming attitudes, etc.

Anyone who has any ideas re: this agenda that will not get us in jail, get in touch.

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Korky Day link

15/9/2018 02:24:30

My comment seems to have been lost, so I'll try again.

Karen Roller, I hope you will be very happy as a hermit, as that is the only way you'll be free of the trauma of other people's differing opinions. Stay especially far from alternative arts.

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Korky Day link

16/9/2018 10:13:57

For more debates like this, see our Facebook group 'Shy Therapy at a Nude Beach'.

For more events, see www.korky.ca, then click on 'Nude events'.

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Frank McGinness link

21/9/2018 13:34:26

Thanks Mattias Martens for confirming what I expected after reading Korky Days’ posts and replies online.

I believe nudity is a fundamental human right and that no one has the right to forcibly change an adult’s appearance and no right to permantly change a child’s appearance. This is body FREEDOM.

On this, I give naked hugs to Gypsy Taub founder of the SF Bay Area Body Freedom Movement, who fought for our innate inherent human rights, while lovingly educating the public with all inclusive fun naked parades (clothing optional), nude public speaking, nude wedding in front of San Francisco City Hall. What better way is there to be educated that San Francisco’s namesake, Saint Francis of Assisi, was a well known nudist (which City Supervisor Scott Wiener, now Senator, did not respect by making nudity illegal in SF, permits excepted). Being a member of the (SF) Bay Area Intactivists, “Intact Genitals are a Human Right”, the insecurity that comes with unnecessary FORCED genital modifications (male and intersex) is apparent, in males like Mattias Martens’ hesitant reaction, and nationally our ubiquitous urinal partitions which are found not necessary in genitally Intact societies, compare urinal images of the Nertherlands. A factor of forcibly changing someone’s appearance is body dysmorphic disorder.

I read a lot of Korky Day’s posts and replies, that summarily his anger then strikes out uncomfortably for me (assume others). So I’m not surprised Mattias reports the play/town hall meet as being very uncomfortable and not necessarily in a good way. I suggest perhaps what I mentioned here accounts for his huge chip on his shoulder.

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Korky Day link

21/9/2018 23:38:20

Thanks, Frank McGinness. Did you attend our play? You don't say. I think if you had, you would be siding with us more than with the reviewer. We are no angrier than you. He thinks we should not be exuberant about the advantages of being nude over being prude. Just keep it to ourselves, like a dirty secret. Wouldn't want to offend a religious fundamentalist or a gawker!

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CHristina Lake

30/9/2018 17:23:50

I like the info that Frank brings to the table. I did not believe a word he said until: https://sanfrancisco.cbslocal.com/2014/06/19/nudist-claims-catholic-saint-embraced-body-freedom-plans-naked-march-to-religious-shrine

story about Saint Francis is that he was in trouble for stealing clothes from his merchant father to sell for the church, and upon being caught and prosecuted, stripped naked before the court, saying “I return not only my money, but also my clothes. I shall go naked to meet my naked Lord.”

and if that were not enough, St. Francis has another one up his sleeve: https://josephsciambra.com/st-francis-converts-prostitute-by-jumping-nude-into-a-fire/

As one of the producers of this show I would like to thank everyone for their comments, very enlightening indeed on many levels.

I too feel genital mutilation is not warranted for gender dysphoric individuals and to me indicates a possible diagnosis of borderline gender dysmorphic disorder, there are however instances where females with gender dysphoric symptoms want to show off artificial penises and I think at Wreck Beach that would be an ideal place.

Here a little bit more info on Gypsy Taub who by all accounts must be quite the character and I would totally comp her if she wanted to attend a performance of SHy Therapy at a Nude Beach. https://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/article/Naked-truth-behind-Gypsy-Taub-s-nude-nuptials-5070034.php

Instances of problematic gender identities are likely to increase as societal pressure and overpopulation of the planet continue to increase. Wreck Beach welcomes all bodies, amputees, wheel-chair-based etc. As does our show, we know everyone is a critic and after getting kicked out of the Fringe, how much more notoriety could a contrarian review create...

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