In May of 2008, Devil Bunny was commissioned to create a new solo work entitled “Big Pink,” which premiered at Yerba Buena Center for the Arts in San Francisco as part of “Identity Shifts: Bay Area Response,” one of the performance programs that took place during the exhibit, “The Way That We Rhyme: Women, Art and Politics.” In this interactive video-based performance, Devil Bunny encounters Big Pink, a pink gorilla which symbolizes a conflation of stereotypical notions of femininity, colonialist constructs of the “primitive,” and addiction / substance (ab)use. Approaching substance (ab)use from a hybrid (fe)male perspective, Devil Bunny ruminates about the complexities of being a well-healed woman in a world in which ideas about “femininity” exclude those who choose not to be well-heeled, all the while attempting to balance multiple perspectives and experiences only to find herself caught in a perpetual state of addiction to substances, patriarchy, expectations of “ultimate” forms of femininity, and the many other internalized ism’s and phobias that obstruct women’s empowerment.
Since its premiere, “Big Pink” has also been presented at Highways Performance (Santa Monica, CA), The Claremont Colleges (Pomona, CA), Sushi Performance and Visual Art (San Diego), San Francisco Public Library/Koret Auditorium, University of California Los Angeles, University of California Santa Cruz, and Galeria de la Raza (San Francisco).
Written and performed by: Devil Bunny (as pink-haired lady and Big Pink)
Videography: Pam Dore
Photography, sound engineering and styling: Heather Carducci
Music: George Michael, Basement Jaxx, and Sacha (Global Underground SF)