HARRIS’S LIST OF
COVENT-GARDEN LADIES:
d An Augmented Reality Performative Walking Tour
d Concept, Costume, Editing, Narration by Michelle Buckley Performance of Heritage 2021
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Harris’s List of Covent Garden Ladies, the salacious pocket-sized guide to the sex workers of eighteenth century London, is brought to life through the means of dance and technology.
w With the aid of an Augmented Reality application, this performative walking tour invites viewers to visit the sites where these women once lived and plied their trade, much like the way List readers did centuries ago.
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In addition to an exact address, every List entry included informative details, such as prices, physical appearance, and special talents. With this candid text embodied through dance, the performative context allows for an objective insight into an individual’s story, and reveals the broader socio-economic conditions of the day.
w It is easy to pass judgement upon these fille de joie, reactions may lie somewhere between pity and contempt. However, I invite you to look more closely at these characters of London’s streets who would have frequented back alleys and likely may have also graced the corridors of fine establishments. Each entry illustrated a brief moment of a life driven by circumstances often beyond the subject’s control.
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These vignettes are not meant to assuage very real scenarios often connected to prostitution such as destitution, disease, and death. But each entry in The List must be observed objectively to understand these women’s socio-economic surroundings, conditions which we hope are vastly different to that in London today. At a time when a woman had few options to better her social standing or monetary future, many turned to prostitution.
Some possessed enough business savvy and had the right amount of luck to become fixtures in London society with property* and money to boot. *In the 18th century, a woman and her dowry would become property of her husband once wed. However, an unmarried woman had the oopportunity to retain control of her own possesions.
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MAN OF PLEASURE’S KALENDAR Much about the identity of these women has been lost to history, and surviving details remain fragmented. The embodiment of this text, made viewable through Augmented Reality technology, will encourage participants to view their predicament without bias. This may reveal the cultural heritage of this city’s streets, and also expose how the commodification of women was utilised, in turn allowing the List’s characters a bit of strength and power in a patriarchally, material driven world.
a FURTHER READING: https://michellebuckley.dance/post2.html
RELEVANT RESOURCES: • Brecht, B. - Brecht on theatre: the development of an aesthetic. • Denlinger, E. C. - The Garment and the Man: Masculine Desire in Harris’s List of Covent-Garden Ladies, 1764-1793 • Diamond, E. - Brechtian Theory/ Feminist Theory: Toward a Gestic Feminist Criticism • Lister, K. - A Curious History of Sex • Nicholas L. - Walking and Dancing: Three Years of Dance in London 1951-53 • Porter, R. - English Society in the 18th Century • Rubenhold, H. - The Covent Garden Ladies: Pimp General Jack Harris and the Extraordinary Story of Harris’s List • Whybrow, N. - Street Scenes : Brecht, Benjamin and Berlin
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This project has been supported by...
...who have offered time, space and resources in its early development.