Art Analysis: Tiller Girls

The piece “Tiller Girls” is set in a 1930’s night club, where men are seen drinking and watching the show. When seated, the stage appears eye level to the audience members. The piece opens up with six women running onto a small stage. The backdrop of the stage is a shimmering black curtain. Red and white light bulbs frame the stage. The club is dimly lit and acts as the clubs main source of light. The dancers and the musicians are dressed provocatively with little, to no clothing on. In addition, they are wearing a lot of makeup covering most of their natural features, making them look as if they are wearing masks. The girls dancing are wearing red dresses with black feather trim and a yellow feather placed just above the buttock. These dresses …show more content…
As the piece progressed, this formation did not vary, other than to switch lines. Once on stage, I would describe the music to be happy, lively and carnival like. The dancers threw confetti onto the audience and began their overly dramatic variations of shimmying and hip thrusting. These movements were highly sexualized as each seemed to have been choreographed in order to make the dancer’s body shake. The dancers constantly switched between frontal and backward facings, displaying the entirety of the female body. The camera often focused only on the female’s buttock as it was shaking. As the piece progressed, colored streamers flew down from the stage as the dancers walked dramatically in unison across it. The dancers also used their voices during the piece. Their vocals included a range of moans, squeals, and laughter. Finally, for the first time, a single dancer was seen breaking away from the group unison. The dancer who broke away from the unison was seen allowing a man to touch her bare leg, and then she playfully scolded him for doing so. The audience laughed and the dancer moved across stage to provoke another