BWW catches up with Eloina to chat about bringing High Steaks to the 2023 Edinburgh Festival Fringe.
Tell us a bit about High Steaks.
HIGH STEAKS is a show about labia, labia-shaming, labiaplasty (the surgery to make the labia smaller/more symmetrical) and fundamentally, vulva variation celebration and body lovin'! This show is a call to raise a glass to your labia and the labia of your loved ones.
It is a mix of performance art and comedy clowning where I hang two beef steaks from my labia. I butcher them up. I cook them. And I serve them to the audience. And...my mum is in the show with me.
It is a mix of voices from multiple labia owners - including my mum, non-binary people, trans men, cis women and myself - about their experiences of their bodies and shame. I perform this solo, however my mum is with me on stage and the voices of all the other labia owners feel very much present.
Why was this an important story to tell?
I wanted labiaplasty when I was 10. In 2019, I made a short scratch of this show expecting it to be 'too niche' and a one off. Afterwards, more than 10 vulva owners in the audience came up to me and said they'd asked their parents for money for this surgery when they were younger/they'd considered it/they'd experienced long-term labia shame.
After looking into this further, I learnt that the number of young people requesting labiaplasty is rising. 9 year olds are receiving this on the NHS. Medical professionals say this rising number is due to the lack of visibility of varied vulvas in porn, popular media and even anatomy textbooks.
This is not a show against those who have had/want labiaplasty. There are many reasons why people get it. This show does, however, rebel against the information we are fed about our bodies which can lead to these decisions, from doctors who do not get enough gynaecological training to education, parents and pornography.
Despite these numbers rising, the shame that young people experience (that I experienced!) is never spoken about. Since that scratch in 2019, I have dedicated the last 4 years to interviewing vulva owners, from my mum to trans men to non-binary people, weaving their stories into the show alongside my own.
I share my own vulva on stage so that others can see a variation of their own.
After the show, audience members report looking at their vulva for the first time in a mirror, speaking with their children, partners, friends about this for the first time in their lives. People have called it "life-changing" and said they "wish (they'd) seen this fifty years ago". So, it feels pretty essential to keep spreading it.
How important is the staging and performance art to the story?
The staging is a mix of stainless steel and dust sheets. It looks like a surgeon's table/a chef's kitchen. The steaks which hang from me are placed onto the surgeon's table and the surgery/food prep begins. The table is filled with knives, needles, egg timers, salt, pepper...
Around the space hang pieces of meat, like an abattoir, which I then try on as a gallery of my ancestor's labia...
The hanging of the meat from my own labia and the butchery of it feels like the main performance art elements in the piece. The idea that the 'ideal' labia is small and tucked in is defied by the fact that I hang the steaks from my own each night, lengthening them in the process. The butchering of this meat (my metaphorical labia) is reinforcing the lengths which we go to to change our bodies for an 'ideal' that has been created, usually from external sources. I define this as performance art and not theatre because of the liveness - we are very much looking at real bodies experiencing these things in real time.
Also - DON'T FORGET ABOUT THE CLOWNING HERE! This. show. is. fxcking. funny! I am a clown and use a lot of humour in my work - otherwise what's the point! I feel like people may not realise, when they hear about the content of the show, that this is a really fun show. Like yes, I am hanging steaks from my labia to speak viscerally about a political issue but also like hello how silly that I am hanging steaks from my labia! I wear an accordion as a dress. I make chimichurri out of my pube bush of parsley. This show is made to make people smile, make people fall in love with themselves and laugh at how ridiculous any of the hate for ourselves we have been made to feel is!
Who would you suggest maybe doesn't come to see it?
Misogynists. Homophobes. Transphobes. Perverts.
First of all, this show does not tell the stories of women. It tells the stories of labia-owners (non binary people, trans men, cis women, gender-queer people).
Second of all, this show is looking into deep shame that is rooted in our society and how we treat others. This is a vulnerable thing to unearth for most people in the audience so if you are a d*ckhead, you can leave.
Lastly, THIS IS NOT A SEX SHOW. Some people come to nude performances expecting to be turned on. With HIGH STEAKS, they are usually disappointed in the first five minutes. I am also quite aware, within the first five minutes, if that predatory energy is in the space. The aim is for you to forget that I am naked in those first five minutes, for you to just see my body as the neutral, un-sexy, functioning flesh machine that it is. If you are in the audience for sexual gratification, you are not welcome. I have set up multi-tiered safeguarding policies and practices, followed by my team and venues to deal with any inappropriate situations if they arise so really, if you're a pervert, don't bother coming.
What would you like audiences to take away from it?
This is a nice question to answer after the last one!
The people I have described above will feel uncomfortable. But for the rest of you, I just want you to feel safe and comfortable dealing with potentially uncomfortable topics. I want you to know that this is going to be a tricky, vulnerable ride but I am buckling your seat belts and I am holding you the whole way. I want you to laugh with me.
Some people come and they have never seen another vulva than their own and they think theirs is weird and then they look at mine and think "oh they're all weird!" and that's what I want. I want people to open up these conversations in their everyday lives, in the hope that we can take away any shame that secretly hides in those around us. If we are open and neutral with our bodies with our friends, children, partners and always tell people their genitals look nice, then we can change people's lives, truly, I know, because that's what happened for me.
