better to be alone than wish you were (2016)
Allie Hankins
Prop Design
Performed at the Time Based Arts Festival for Portland Institute for Contemporary Art in Portland, OR
All photographs by Chelsea Petrakis
About better to be alone than to wish you were
Part lecture, part choreographic exposition, better to be alone than to wish you were is a solo performance that affirms the anticlimactic futility of lust, from its first intoxicating charge to its subsequent, stumbling pursuit. While slyly humorous, Hankins unabashedly exploits and strips her body of its poetic nature as it is offered up for consumption, judgment, and of course: desire. Created with an all-female production team, better to be alone… weaves seduction, stand-up comedy motifs, and forced voyeurism in an attempt to exhibit the extraordinary and cumbersome illogic of love and sex.
Allie Hankins is a Portland-based performer who makes works that toy with the destabilization of persona through uncanny physicality, layered imagery, and a biting wit all while trying to suppress her contentious eagerness to please. Her current collaborators include Physical Education (Lucy Lee Yim, keyon gaskin, and Taka Yamamoto), Rachael Dichter (SF), Morgan Ritter, Rose Mackey, and Maggie Heath. Most recently, Hankins has performed with Julien Prévieux (Paris), Morgan Thorson (Minneapolis), Tahni Holt, and Suniti Dernovsek. She has been an Artist in Residence at the Djerassi Resident Artist Program, the Robert Rauschenberg Residency, and the New Expressive Works Residency at Studio 2.