BDSM RTV MEDIA NEWS!!!!


02 september 2009


Tied up: A second look at Art of Restraint


Source: www.sfbg.com San Francisco Bay Guardian - USA


Art of Restraint, a quarterly event held at Femina Potens Gallery (2199 Market St), was quite a tranquil affair, given the subject matter of all the artist performances. A well-heeled audience, many of whom had "Do not photograph" stickers adhered to their gallery finery, milled around drinking champagne and wine while bondage artists Fivestar, Judy Minx, Madame Butterfly, Midori, Lochai, James Mogul, and Madison Young performed one after the other in a calm, albeit kinky, manner. The somber atmosphere was reinforced by the music accompaniment, most of which was ambient and mournful. Ms. Young and Mr. Mogul's performed to the sad, falsetto trilling of Sigur Ros, a band whom I have never before listened to in the context of bondage arts but which in retrospect seemed a strangely fitting choice for this real-life couple.


The night wasn't without its moments of humor though. Judy Minx had her red velvet cake and ate it too, whilst suspended two feet off the ground in a complex pretzel of hanging rope (created by the nimble Madame Butterfly). The cake eventually made its way into the audience, where ambitious attendees challenged themselves erotically by eating with bare hands. Another highlight of the evening: Midori's performance was interrupted by a masked intruder (which sounds more erotic than it was), who was immediately tackled and rougly escorted out by the San Francisco Police Department. After three glasses of bubbly, I was sufficiently tipsy enough to think (and hope) that we were all being held up by gun point. Unfortunately for my more dramatic side, the whole thing was revealed as a hoax devised by Midori herself -- and the SFPD was in on the joke. With the inclusion of the police in her performance, Midori wanted to illustrate that real people were held in literal bondage all over the world. Amnesty International pamphlets quickly made their way around to the audience.

The last performance of the night -- a highlight, in my opinion -- was by the beautiful and svelte Margaret Cho (the "celebrity guest" that Femina Potens referred to cheekily on their website). To be honest, I had no idea that Ms. Cho was scheduled to perform, and given that she is currently suffering from nodes on her vocal chords (which she discusses at Tweet-length on her Twitter account <http://twitter.com/margaretcho>) I knew she would be unable to regale us with a stand-up act. But Cho did not disappoint in making us laugh, when she tickled the audience with a bit of feather -- waltzing out in a vintage slip and two enormous red burlesque fans, she fan-danced to opera while slowly slipping off pieces of her uniform like an Asian, tattooed Gypsey Rose. When, at last, she had stripped down to the very, very barest of essentials, the audience clapped and cheered as the red fans parted to reveal Ms. Cho, two nipple pasties, and a glued-on softpack.

See this article with many more photo's on sfbg.com: