The Cabaret is a Prison (The Cabaret is a Paradise)

A performance lecture that operates as a companion piece to The Ballad of Isosceles finished show and VR film document. In this performance lecture, I put my own work into dialogue with some its influences: the cult films der Blaue Engel (1930) and Blue Velvet (1986), writings by John Berger, Rebecca Solnit and Carlo Rovelli, as well as Mark Fisher's theory of 'the weird'. By unpacking these references through the performative modes of lecture and song, I hope to enact what Fisher defines as 'the weird' and Berger's critical observations about the power of song. This allows me to situate the chanteuse figure in The Ballad of Isosceles (the character of Isosceles herself) within a lineage of cultural artefacts that fetishise and mystify the female singer's body and artistry.