Throughout the fall in 2023, I participated in the Whacking Los Angeles Artistic Development Program, where we spent about eight weeks learning advanced whacking drills and honed our creative skills. In the culminating show, we performed our pieces for the whacking community.

During this program, my goal was to practice story-telling through choreography. Traditionally, whacking as an art form is highly referential. Whacking was originally referred to as “punking”, and the gay men that originated the dance in the gay clubs of LA imitated their favorite moments from pop culture: Batman fighting villians, Bruce Lee using his nunchucks, or Norma Desmond preparing for her closup. In an effort to reference the things that I hold dearly (old hollywood glamour, queer history, animation, and learning French in high school), I decided to create choreography to Édith Piaf’s “Mon Dieu”.

Piaf was a longtime friend of Marlene Dietrich. Both women were something of a gay icon, and were references that influenced pop culture. Mon Dieu lyrically addresses a lover, asking them for more time to make memories, both good and bad. This song is notably somber, which stands in contrast to the disco music typically associated with whacking.

I interpreted the lyrics as a yearning for a future that could not be (queer people love to yearn). I oriented the story around a 1960s wife who’s lover had left for a war. She finds herself in love with a new person, but worries about letting go.

I animated the entire performance as a pose test to symbolize the imagined choreography of this story, as pose tests in animation are used to block out the general details of different scenes. I then realized this story by physically dancing. The idea was to expose the audience to the creative process and show how it evolves from concept to reality.