What Am I Doing Here1979

What Am I Doing Here is a reworking of a performance piece that involved all the
permutations of five words, five notes, and five movements. Acting out various
scenarios using footage from my private life, I put flesh on the bones of the
performance and ask the viewer to answer various permutations of the question.
The film includes documentation from the original performance, where I wear a
black leotard and demonstrate the five positions with their corresponding words.

“…Is it possible simultaneously to critique and employ the seductions of
glamour? There is an implication of discontent in the person of this woman who
asks what she is doing here. Through images of sexuality as a battleground of
the woman’s mounting sense of dislocations and explosion, and through the
breaks and thwartings of the narrative, the locus of discontent is directed toward
sexuality and her relation to her own body. The film suggests the turmoil of a
woman unable to deal with the sexuality provoked by her beauty.” The film’s end, with her taking up binoculars to settle the score, is a fair statement directed at the voyeurism inherent in watching a film.” B. Ruby Rich