Amy Fortoul investigates the taboos surrounding the female appetite for sex and food in her one-woman show "This is My Body."
Even that description is a bit tame though, and Fortoul said she links intensely personal topics like shameful sexual experiences, body hatred and eating disorders in an autobiographical performance.
"I had 13 years experience living with an eating disorder and have really battled as a young woman and as an adult woman learning how to embrace sexuality without shame, dirtiness and guilt," she said. "I wanted to take those horrible experiences and make them something empowering that would hopefully enable people to take their own healing journeys."
Fortoul said the performance art piece is 50 percent movement theater, the midpoint between mime and modern dance, and 50 percent storytelling with a combination of spoken word and narrative poetry.
"This script is a metaphor into how bad experiences can turn into any kind of addiction or disorder," she said.
Being so emotionally naked and honest in front of an audience of strangers is very difficult, Fortoul said, but knowing that her genuine performance might communicate an idea and motivate people is what helps her get through it.
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Typically after every performance she holds a discussion workshop designed for audience members to ask questions about the process of creating the piece or about living with an eating disorder.
"It's been extremely well received which has been a surprise and a blessing because I honestly didn't know how it would be received," Fortoul said. "It makes people very uncomfortable, that's the response I've gotten across the board, it's uncomfortable to watch."
Some people have been offended by the sexual content in the work, she said, and that was part of her decision to include on the flyer that the work is for mature audiences. She said it's hard not to take criticism of the work personally because for this show, the personal and the professional are not separated.
Fortoul went through an outpatient rehabilitation program for bulimia in 1995. Before that she was writing and directing scripts about issues of social intolerance and "pretty much everything except eating disorders."
"Then it was very clear to me and I had all these vivid images of how to tell this story," she said. "It was a very clear spiritual calling to use all my gifts that I had been working on to channel them into this story."
In 1996, with an ensemble of six women, Fortoul began working on the script, but only in a directorial capacity. She revised it every year up until about two years ago when she began writing the play for herself.
"I wanted to use my own body and my own experiences, for my own instrument to be the vehicle of the story."
She said that initially it was anger that fuelled the work, anger at how American culture is toxic to women's health physically and emotionally.
"Everywhere I turned I was being attacked by the culture we live in," she said.
Eventually though, Fortoul said the script changed and became more about telling the truth, finding a way to heal and communicating her journey.
"I've had several experiences where women come up to me and thank me afterwards, women who maybe cannot voice their own experience," she said.
What: "This is My Body"
When: Friday, 8 p.m.
Where: The Outpost Perfoming Space, 210 Yale Blvd.
Price: $10 students
Ticket Info: 345-3272
