2023





Cinematography & Editor: Helena Öhman
Sound Design: Rob Bentall (to be produced)
In 2019 the surviving Tiller Girls, representing many different generations of dancers, met up for a reunion in Blackpool—a key home of the troupe. I went along with Helena Öhman, to record the event and talk to the women.
The footage of the event shows glamorous older women, posing, chatting, laughing, negotiating one another, reliving memories, and showing me how to link arms as a Tiller Girl.
Interposed text highlights speech, emphasising the insights and opinions that develop and challenge earlier video works. Black and white archival footage of filmed theatre performances depict Tiller Girl dances giving visual descriptions to pair with the stories.
2021

Video, 12.50 mins
Made from appropriated backstage musical Hollywood films made between 1929 and 1940, Modernity / Power reframes latent power dynamics on the screen through text interventions and foley sound–clips, clicks, clapping, tap-dancing, and breathing. These disruptions draw attention to the labour of the bodies performing and their incredible skills.

Watercolour on A4 watercolour 300gsm paper
2012

Video, 6 mins 16 secs

Video, 7 minutes
The fifth ‘Scene’ in The Artist, a compilation of five scenes of dancing in my studio.
2011

Video, 4 mins 7 secs
The final ‘letter’ I sent to Kerstin Honeit, as part of our video dialogue ‘Video Letters‘. This later became Scene 4 of the ‘The Artist’, a collection of five videos dancing in my studio.
2017

Giclee print on white cotton rag paper, 54 cm x 54 cm

80cm x 53cm
Digital photograph mounted on aluminum with gloss

Performance to camera 15 mins
Part of longer performance by Victoria Lucas
2008

Series of nine photographs
B&W fibre-based photograph, edition of 5, 51cm x 60 cm
Edition of 15, 20 cm x 25 cm
Recreations of found cigarette cards from 1939, using myself.

Series of nine photographs
B&W fibre-based photograph, edition of 5, 51cm x 60 cm
Edition of 15, 20 cm x 25 cm

Series of nine photographs
B&W fibre-based photograph, edition of 5, 51cm x 60 cm
Edition of 15, 20 cm x 25 cm

Series of nine photographs
B&W fibre-based photograph, edition of 5, 51cm x 60 cm
Edition of 15, 20 cm x 25 cm

Series of nine photographs
B&W fibre-based photograph, edition of 5, 51cm x 60 cm
Edition of 15, 20 cm x 25 cm

Series of nine photographs
B&W fibre-based photograph, edition of 5, 51cm x 60 cm
Edition of 15, 20 cm x 25 cm

Series of nine photographs
B&W fibre-based photograph, edition of 5, 51cm x 60 cm
Edition of 15, 20 cm x 25 cm

Series of nine photographs
B&W fibre-based photograph, edition of 5, 51cm x 60 cm
Edition of 15, 20 cm x 25 cm

Series of nine photographs
B&W fibre-based photograph, edition of 5, 51cm x 60 cm
Edition of 15, 20 cm x 25 cm
One afternoon in 2005, I came across a tin full of cigarette cards at a flea market. I leafed through to look more closely at the miniature pin-ups. I noticed the backs of the cards with the dated biographies of the girls on the cards. I selected all the dancers from the tin (there were actresses, models, swimmers and tennis players I rejected, no one in the tin I had heard of before) and bought all of them. As I walked home, I decided to recreate all the photographs using myself as the model. The original cigarette cards were objects to be held, looked at closely. They were private cards to view, collect and exchange. As enclosures in cigarette packs in the late 1930s, it was presumed that these were gifts for a male consumer. Looking at them with contemporary eyes, they look glamorous, innocent, staged and seductive.
Art Encounters (2008)
An audio piece. I recount some formative art encounters, in order to think about what remains of the encounter. The afterwards reflections; did these experiences form the artist I am now? I presented this as part of the Mid-Residency group show at CalArts.
2019

70 cm x 35 cm
Giclee photograph on smooth white cotton paper

Performance, 40 mins
Bubikopf is an art history lecture on gender that morphs. An examination of women in the modernity of the Weimar Republic with new opportunities to be independent in the city, to go to art school, perform in cabarets. Weaving together gendered forms of feminine visibility this piece spotlights and speculates women’s entertaining, creative and Avant Garde work.

Performance, 40 mins

Performance, 40 mins

Performance, 40 mins

Performance, 40 mins

Giclee print on white cotton rag paper, edition of 5, 84 cm x 84 cm
Edition of 15, 34 cm x 34 cm

Giclee print on white cotton rag paper, edition of 5, 84 cm x 84 cm
Edition of 15, 34 cm x 34 cm

Giclee print on white cotton rag paper, edition of 5, 84 cm x 84 cm
Edition of 15, 34 cm x 34 cm

Giclee print on white cotton rag paper, edition of 5, 84 cm x 84 cm
Edition of 15, 34 cm x 34 cm

Giclee print on white cotton rag paper, edition of 5, 84 cm x 84 cm
Edition of 15, 34 cm x 34 cm

Giclee print on white cotton rag paper, edition of 5, 84 cm x 84 cm
Edition of 15, 34 cm x 34 cm

Giclee print on white cotton rag paper, edition of 5, 84 cm x 84 cm
Edition of 15, 34 cm x 34 cm

Giclee print on white cotton rag paper, edition of 5, 84 cm x 84 cm
Edition of 15, 34 cm x 34 cm

Giclee print on white cotton rag paper, edition of 5, 84 cm x 84 cm
Edition of 15, 34 cm x 34 cm

Giclee print on white cotton rag paper, edition of 5, 84 cm x 84 cm
Edition of 15, 34 cm x 34 cm

Giclee print on white cotton rag paper, edition of 5, 84 cm x 84 cm
Edition of 15, 34 cm x 34 cm

Giclee print on white cotton rag paper, edition of 5, 84 cm x 84 cm
Edition of 15, 34 cm x 34 cm
2020

Giclee print on white cotton rag paper, edition of 5, 84 cm x 84 cm
Edition of 15, 34 cm x 34 cm

Collage on A4 watercolour (300gsm) paper (210 x 297 mm)

Collage on A4 watercolour (300gsm) paper (210 x 297 mm)

Collage on A4 watercolour (300gsm) paper (210 x 297 mm)

Collage on A4 paper (210 x 297 mm)

Watercolour on A4 paper (210 x 297 mm)

Watercolour on A4 watercolour (300gsm) paper (210 x 297 mm)
2018

Video, 16 mins
The story of a 98-year old former chorus girl. In the thirties, Felicity was a Bluebell Young Lady. She toured France, Germany, and Italy until WW2 was declared in Italy. Felicity Means Happiness shows Felicity, telling her stories, and Carr showing Felicity her artworks inspired by 1930s dancers, and footage of an Austrian film Felicity was in. What is conveyed is the connection between the two women as well as the realities of dancing and living independently in the thirties.

Performance, 35 mins
Construction House, S1 Artspace
Choreography by Lucy Haighton
Scarf design by Katy Aston / Fison Zair
Performers: Celia Anderson, Julia Bisby, Jo Dunkly, Liz Searle, Emily Stokes, and Roanna Wells.
Bauhaus Bühnenchor is a live performance that experiments with the girl troupe kickline. Using the kickline as a form with the potential to represent women’s collective and creative force Bauhaus Bühnenchor imagines the experiences of Weimarian female art students and chorus girls as well considering the context of dancing in a troupe today.
2014

Blueback paper photographs mounted onto MDF, freestanding in space
Dimensions approx 2 m x 1 m

Performance 4 mins
Three Act Structures, S1 Artspace, Sheffield

Video, 3 mins

Online gallery of photographs taken of book pages
My contribution to Sharon Kivland’s Library Interventions at Leeds College of Art. I rifled through books searching only the racy and erotic pictures and photographing them–always with Sharon’s titillation in mind.

Half-tone screenprint on Keykolour Original Snow White 300gsm paper,
35cm x 50cm, framed dimensions 49cm x 64cm
Edition of 50

One-to-one performance, 4 mins
Wrought, Sheffield
2013

Video, 4 mins 4 secs

Video, 3 mins 50 secs
Here are some photographs from the exhibition I recently put together, based around my book, Viewing Pleasure and Being A Showgirl, How Do I Look? Thanks to the artists who took part: Sophie Lisa Beresford, Julie Cook, Nwando Ebizie as Lady Vendredi, Alice Finch, Laura Gonzalez, Lucy Halstead, Sharon Kivland, Britten Leigh, Chloe Nightingale, and Isabella Streffen.


















I’m putting together a group show for the Market Gallery, Huddersfield. It is based on the conclusion of my recently published book. Come join me for the opening 11th October.
My book has been published, Routledge.
About the book:
Drawing on interviews with a breadth of different showgirls, from shows in Paris, Las Vegas, Berlin, and Los Angeles, as well as her own artworks and those by other contemporary and historical artists, this book examines the experiences of showgirls and those who watch them, to challenge the narrowness of representations and discussions around what has been termed ‘sexualisation’ and ‘the gaze’. An account of the experience of being ‘looked at’, the book raises questions of how the showgirl is represented, the nature of the pleasure that she elicits and the suspicion that surrounds it, and what this means for feminism and the act of looking.
An embodied articulation of a new politics of looking, Viewing Pleasure and Being a Showgirl engages with the idea (reinforced by feminist critique) that images of women are linked to selling and that women’s bodies have been commodified in capitalist culture, raising the question of whether this enables particular bodies – those of glamorous women on display – to become scapegoats for our deeper anxieties about consumerism.

Over the summer I became an expert showgirl-spectacle viewer.
During one show in Paris, my mind wandered and I began to develop a future consulting job for myself in which I get invited to view shows at rehearsal stage in order to advise how pleasure might be best generated in the show. I pictured my business card, ‘Dr Alison J Carr – showgirl consultant’. I mean, I think I could really help shows out, despite their wonderfulness, they really can make some bad dubious directional decisions. I could help them avoid that and enable them to create appeal for the broadest possible audience. And I could get to see the shows for free.
In the dark theatre, I could not make notes. I make notes in the pub afterwards:
I also visited Paradis Latin, and here are my notes from that show. At the end of the evening I rode a ‘velib’ – a bike you can rent in the street, to my friend’s flat to say goodbye to her before she travelled back to Berlin. Just some context for you!
Audience: tourists, families – large Indian family. Middle aged couples, girls aged 10, boys aged 13? Australian student group. Young smart couple, 20? Middle aged large group, breaks up into men and women. Two German women in 60s. Everyone dressed up smart. American father and son. Preppy Americans in front of me. Opening number, 10 women, 4 men. Is this chorography dated? Disco-ball entrance, blonde-singer, g-string. 5 girls techno-beat number, red top with cut out heart on sternum, more commercial dance. 4 boys enter, girls leave. 3 girls back – smiles! Topless dancer, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5. Sparkle sleeves, original. I like the dancers, personality. Head-dresses, just hair up, understated. Blonde-singer comes on with very Moulin Rouge headdress. Topless, singing. She doesn’t have ‘it’ fully. Two men juggling with hats. Black waistcosts, white shirts and trousers. Australian audience member pulled up on stage – juggler speaks English – tourist language. Cancan – three boys in red and black, two girls in pink. Ten-girl line, multicoloured costumes. Lots of yelping, like wildcats. Boy cartwheels and tumbles, takes centre-stage, why? Kicking music, same as Constance Grant Dance Centre uses (my dancing school). Three boys come on. Boy doing jumping splits – why? All girls in twos, 2 girls dancing together. Mr Bean type clown enters. Physical comedy. New number, 4 girls in trousers and 2 boys – all in the same costume, 5 girls in floppy drop-waisted dresses, 2 couples come on. Feels fresh, dramatic tango-like. Girls are boys in the choreography. Nice use of back. Cuban-heeled Oxfords on girls as boys, boys in a flatter heel but that’s the only difference in costume. Music is a bit Eurovision. 4 boys from Grease, 2 girls on ribbons, topless in S & M harnesses. They leave. Black strap costumes – nice. Blonde singer is ‘Arta’ the star girl/compère is a better dancer than singer. No singing. Topless male, more manly. White costume dancer with ballet-flats and thong. Enigma type music for ballet. Arta back in long backless frock. Good set of lungs on her. I don’t like her bottle blonde bob. Jazz Hot Baby – blue leotards and bows, pillbox hats. Great costume, not used enough. Jazz Hot – great song, would love a bit more tapping out. Arte talks in every langue – she’s like a flight announcement. Frothy, needs balls. Arta gets 4 audience men to dance on stage. Really?? A bride as a prize?? Bit weird. Bit buy-a-Russian-bride. Man comes on stage with showgirl holding a baby. Weird. Like Fire number, film Showgirls hand-move. Arte, she’s good, but I want a larger personality to carry the show, she’s slightly lacking in charisma. How do shows queer themselves? Finale black and pink. Love Me, 6 girls, topless, platform shoes for shorter dancers. Oui Je T’aime finale number.