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O’ Pierrot

19 September 2019

Run Time

13 mins

The life goal of Pierrot Mulatto (played by the artist) is to catch a giant sycamore seed that spins down every day from the arms of Harlequin Jack, a crazed black man in whiteface, driven mad by his own quest for British acceptance. Jack toys with Pierrot throughout the story, performing a satirical essence of white British sensibility whilst referencing early minstrel troupes’ caricatures of the post-slavery, black populace. Mixed-race Pierrot is encouraged to strive for her ‘white potential’ whilst battling rejection, rage and the bending of time amidst the English countryside. Is British assimilation merely a pipe dream for queer people of colour?

O’ Pierrot emerges from Sasraku’s four months at Academy Costumes, in South-East London, as part of The New Flesh Artists’ Residency. Through the design and fabrication of her own costumes, set and props, Sasraku engages in a re-telling of Kenneth Anger’s pioneering avant- garde, queer film Rabbit’s Moon. Costume drives the narrative of Sasraku’s silent fairy tale as the black, British grind enters the realm of the surreal.

O’ Pierrot

O’ Pierrot treads the stock, pantomime narrative of Pierrot the Clown, told this time from a lesbian, mixed-race, British perspective. The quest for British identity, so often played out in too-real grey-scale is here translated in glowing colour via 8mm stock.

Director

Country

Year

2019

Premiere

Subtitle Language

Duration

13 mins