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CUTE is a study of cuteness, examined through a movement perspective and designed to create a new performative work by Keity Pook

Cute is an embodied performative investigation into cuteness phenomena and its aesthetics in popular culture and the arts. Cute combines knowledge from a performative and movement-based prism, drawing on online culture, consumerism, nostalgia, zoomorphism, anthropomorphism, and club culture. Cuteness is now ubiquitous and increasingly popular, gaining recognition in the arts despite once being seen as insignificant and juvenile. Even Somerset House in London, in 2024 inaugurated CUTE: An Exhibition Exploring the Irresistible Rise of Cuteness. I am interested in researching cuteness in dance and creating art, that questions what makes dance cute. While we understand that the universal human response to cuteness is deeply rooted in our evolutionary history, it is fascinating to explore how cuteness in dance and movement holds power over spectators and/or performers, or perhaps, instead, empowers them.

Cuteness - my story so far

For me, everything started in 2019 when my collaborator Bun Kobayashi and I presented the piece Peeling dough off the floor at the Place Resolution Festival in London. Dance critic Katie Hagan wrote in her review: “Bun and Keity’s Peeling dough off the floor is a bricolage of pastel silks, army paraphernalia and a self-destructing washing machine…This random, pop-culture mash-up is, quite clearly, changing the orders of power...certainly makes its audiences re-evaluate what ‘dance’ can be.” At that time I was not sure yet, what kind of affair, a “tail” we had stumbled upon, a bit later it was evident that it was a “tail” of something innocent, round and bouncy, a little bit clumsy, and cute. Since then, I started calling my research process Revealing the Cuteness. 

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Peeling dough off the floor, Resolution Festival, 2019. Photos by Rocio Chacon

Later in 2021, I completed a week-long residency at Artsadmin in London and was commissioned for a short residency at Koidu Seltsimaja in Viljandi, Estonia, where I researched uncanny adolescent Snow White characters, exploring Disney's use of cuteness as a soft power marketing tool. I was also awarded the TripSpring Residency Programme for artists at Tripspace London, where I could take my Revealing the Cuteness research even further. I explored the mechanics of cuteness, how it affects the onlooker and how the onlooker feels compelled to respond to it. For example, in one research material, two nonbinary performers with animal-like behaviour caressed for and dressed office tables and chairs in hyper-colourful and cute Harajuku-style garments. In September 2021 I also facilitated a professional dance workshops, Cuteness is endless foreplay for the public at the TantsuRUUM in Tallinn to test my ideas. I wanted to see how scientific findings about cuteness are possible to adapt in a dance workshop context and if I can create a material and atmosphere where encountering cute stimuli can have positive effects on workshop participants' emotions and behaviour. 

Residency at Koidu seltsimaja in Viljandi, Estonia, August 2021. Photos by Remo Viik

TripSpring Residency Programme showing, Tripspace London, June 2021. Photos by Tripspace

Dance workshops Cuteness is endless foreplay, TantsuRUUM, Tallinn, September 2021. Photos by Keity Pook

My new project - Revealing the cuteness: R&D towards creation of new multidisciplinary contemporary dance work.

In the research phase of this project, I plan to engage with both theoretical and non-theoretical materials, including academic literature and online content related to cuteness studies and kawaii culture, simultaneously documenting the process of physical and metaphysical transition into Decora Fashion. I intend to study kawaii culture, and its subcultures while embodying a performative kawaii-body. For this experiential process, I seek to collaborate with an artist who represents the essence of kawaii and can guide me through my transition into Decora fashion.



 

In this project's development phase, I aim to create a new personal movement style and choreographic script. To achieve this, I will draw on my personal experience of the process of transition into Decora fashion, as well as identity-concealing fashion trends, club culture, and online performativity with an emphasis on cuteness, while collaborating closely with a hyperpop artist, music composer and set designer. By using this method, examining cuteness, along with my personal experiences, can provide insight into the continuous state of flux or 'becoming' that characterises cuteness and our era's perception of existence, in both living and nonliving forms.

 

The ideas I will discover and the material I create will serve as the foundation for creating my new performative work, addressing the question: What is a cute dance? As cuteness itself is so unpindownable and continuously ‘becoming’, reflecting our always-on, media-savvy contemporary epoch, I want my work to be perceived in a similarly ambiguous way. It will not be immediately clear whether it unfolds as a cute rave, immersive concert, dance performance, or a curated body-centred exhibition about cuteness.

I intend for my new work and workshop series to engage diverse audiences, including enthusiasts of Japanese Kawaii culture and its global influence (Somerset House, ICA), contemporary dance enthusiasts seeking innovative performances (The Place, Sadler’s Wells, The Mount Without and other dance venuses across UK and abroad), and fans of club and electronic music interested in immersive experiences (FOLD, UK nightclubs, HALL (Tallinn). Additionally, it aims to connect with intersectional and diasporic communities exploring cultural identity, academics and students in cultural studies and performing arts (Goldsmiths, Performing Arts students from UK universities), and queer and underrepresented communities engaging with experimental art (Bristol: Conqueer, inklingroom; London: FOLD, & Riposte London). In the later stages of the project, it will also reach families and children through workshops and performances (Tripspace, Chisenhale Dance Space). Overall, the performance is designed to attract general audiences, younger generations, and individuals intrigued by themes of cuteness, identity, online culture, and the intersection of dance, music, and visual design.

Visual documentation of cuteness in historical research

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Proto-kawaii aesthetic showing up in Japan during Edo period (1603 – 1868), various puppies by Maruyama Okyo.

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Examples of various Edo period kawaii netsuke - small charms used to fasten small boxes called inro to the waistband of a kimono.

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Kawaii Decora subculture, decora hair and makeup explained and kawaii phone charms

New body of work moodboard

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My collaborator's past works

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Image 1,2,9 & 11 by Stage Research & Designer: Elouise Fraley; image 3,5 & 17 by Mascot Research & Designer: Lauren Parry; image 4, 12,13 & 14 by Kawaii Artist Mentor: Meowgical Rosie; image 6, 7, 10 & 16 by Costume Designer: Sandra Scharpf; image 8 by Composer: MUN SING; image 15 by Headpiece Designer: Apple Blossom Cousins-Scovell

My BIO

I am a Bristol-based choreographer, performance artist, and curator working between the UK and Estonia. My artistic research focuses on exploring the individual’s experience within contemporary contexts, combining natural and sociopolitical environments through a post-internet dance aesthetic. My multidisciplinary practice spans choreography, performance, installation art, sound, and electronic music. I perceive dance as a tool for personal and societal exploration, employing creative approaches that integrate improvisational frameworks with contemporary dance techniques. I draw inspiration from my Estonian heritage, folklore, biosemiotics, and the aesthetics of cuteness, as well as contemporary club music culture, infusing my productions with a sense of potentiality and camp playfulness.

 

My projects have been presented at art institutions and festivals across the UK and Europe, including Resolution Festival, The Place Theatre, Kanuti Gildi Saal Baar, FOLD, and Sõltumatu Tantsu Lava, among others. I have collaborated with artists such as Joe Moran at Whitechapel Gallery, Florence Peake at Vivid Projects, and Neil Callaghan & Simone Kenyon at Fierce Festival.

Contact

Keity Pook:

Email: keity.pook@gmail.com

Mobile: 07731744609

Website: https://www.keitypook.com/

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/keity.pook/ea

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