Dragon Lady

Por assumido desinteresse, nunca soube q a moça tivesse disco lançado; parece serem discos, plural. Até recentemente trombar com “Blueprint For A Sunrise” (2001), cujo release por ela mesma lavrado achei pertinente nesses tempos de guerra:

“During World War II, St. Petersburg was surrounded by the German Army and cut off from other parts of Russia for months. Finally, there was no food. No heat. Just the sound of the German bombings. But the people of St. Petersburg did not surrender. They were determined not to give up their city. The radio DJ tried to cheer people up by playing music, talking and cracking jokes. Finally, he became lethargic as well. Nevertheless, he felt he could still do something to help people survive. Het let a metronome tick live on the radio. People lay down and just listened and held on to that sound of the metronome ticking through day and night. That’s how St. Petersburg managed not to fall.

During the same war but in Japan my brother and I were stranded at a farm in the country we had been evacuated to. We were starving. One day, I saw my brother looking extremely tired and sad. It pained me to see him like that. Usually, he was an active, jolly little boy who laughed at the drop of a hat. But now, he looked as helpless and confused as the rest of us. Suddenly, a good idea came to me. I explained to my brother that we were going to think of a dream menu. ‘Think of the dinner you want to eat’. He started slowly. ‘I want ice cream’. ‘But that’s a dessert. We should start with soup, of course’. We created an elaborate meal in the air. My brother’s face started to light up. Finally, he gave me the sweet chuckle I loved so much.

I recently did an art show – Herstory – in Berlin. A young woman journalist started an interview by saying that she thought it was interesting that I would bring back such an old theme in 2001. ‘Feminism is an old issue now, isn’t it? Women do not have to wave flags anymore. That was the sixties’. But I know women who are intelligent, powerful members of their communities who still live in fear because of the position they are put in as women in our society. To some extent, all of us women are living in fear, quietly exercising a caution known only to us, all the time, pretending to be sprightly and strong.

Sometimes, I wake up in the middle of the night hearing thousands of women screaming. Other times just one woman seems to try to talk though me.

As for sure, I wish you would read about the last Chinese Empress who became the first ‘Dragon Lady’, a name specially coined for her by the British Press at the time, fueling Britain’s then colonialism.
She died disgraced and brokenhearted.
Every day I tell myself,
I’ll survive.
Yeah, I will.

Art is a way of survival.
With this album,
I present you my metronome,
my menu,
my blueprint for a sunrise.

y.o. ’01“