Loy Polloi: Feminist Collective Exploring the Poetic Dramas of Mina Loy
Cross-institutional collaboration to study, stage, and stimulate interdisciplinary conversation about Futurist poetic dramas by the understudied female artist Mina Loy (1882-1966). Research planned for 2023 – 2024.
Alison Dobbins (MSU), Suzanne Churchill (Davidson College), Melissa Thompson (University of Maine – Farmington), Alexis Bacon (MSU) Alex Goody (Oxford Brookes University, UK) Laura Scuriatti (Bard of Berlin, Germany) Janet Haley (University of Michigan-Flint) Alyssa Ridder (Metropolitan State University-Denver) and Meg Heeres (Fiber Artist) will stage the world premiere of Mina Loy’s Futurist poetic dramas (1915–1920). Ribald, hilarious, and provocative, these experimental plays are catalysts for discussions of issues that remain controversial today: gender identity, freedom of speech, reproductive rights, equity, and inclusion. This cross-institutional, multidisciplinary collaboration promotes an important American woman artist in an effort to ignite cross-regional conversations. Performances December 7, 2023 @ Broad Art Museum, MSU and December 8, 2023 @ Northbank Studio Arts Center, University of Michigan-Flint.
Futurism, Feminism, and Modern Advocacy
Artist, poet, playwright, feminist, inventor, and entrepreneur Mina Loy (1882-1966) played a major role in Futurism, Dada, and Surrealism but has been marginalized in the annals of the historical avant-garde and almost completely omitted from modern theater history. After studying art in Paris and exhibiting at the prestigious Salon D’Automne, Loy got pregnant, married, and fled to Italy, where she befriended Mabel Dodge, Gertrude Stein, Gordon Craig, and the Italian Futurists, and channeled her creativity into poetry and playwriting. Her four short plays – “Collision,” “Cittàbapini,” “Sacred Prostitute,” and “The Pamperers” – written between 1914 and 1920, are experimental, ribald, hilarious, and provocative. As much literary as theatrical, these poetic dramas push the boundaries of modern art, music, and stage design. Staging them together for the first time will give Loy the attention she deserves and serve as a palpable reminder of the contributions of women to an avant-garde arts tradition that has historically championed European men.
American theater continues to neglect female playwrights, and American cultural institutions routinely devalue multidisciplinary work by women as a dilution of talent. Our project promotes Mina Loy to the main stage and recognizes her work across media and disciplines as an expression of a versatile artistic genius. Her plays are relevant for their insights into artistry, gender, and the economies of art and sex. The gender issues of Loy’s day remain unresolved despite our more complex understanding of their intersection with issues of race, class, and disability. By exploring Loy’s plays in performance, we will learn from the past to envision a more equitable future.
Our theater production is directed by an interdisciplinary group of women artists and scholars who bring a shared commitment to collaborative experimentation and a mutual interest in Mina Loy. We have selected Loy’s feminist Futurist plays in part because these witty, inventive dramas have been overlooked in annals of the avant-garde and never staged in a full production. But we are not simply engaging in an act of recovery: we are using the plays as a catalyst to generate interest in avant-garde theater among audiences who may have little exposure to it. Loy’s explicitly feminist worldview takes particular aim at realist conventions of love, sex, power, and seduction, encouraging audiences to question the veracity and desirability of conventional romance plots. Whereas avant-garde theater typically tries to disorient and disturb, Loy skillfully fashions an amicable, playful relationship with the audience, one of mutual interest in stepping outside norms in order to imagine new possibilities for human relationships.
Loy’s plays address enduring issues of gender and power that are especially relevant to our current political climate. The COVID-19 pandemic has put new urgency on equity issues because the burdens of care and unemployment have disproportionately fallen on women, renewing the struggle for fairness in relationships, families, political structures, and economic opportunities. The escalating political battle over reproductive rights reignites age-old questions about women’s agency and bodily autonomy. Loy’s plays use comedy and satire to address these serious issues, challenge conventional ways of seeing and knowing, and imagine new gender narratives, romance plots, and power relations.
As experts in our respective disciplines, we as artistic co-directors draw upon forms of artistic expression that Loy engaged in: theater, visual art, music, creative writing, fashion, and design. We achieve artistic excellence by upholding two guiding principles: 1) utilize theater to gain critical distance and purchase on issues of gender, sexuality, access, and freedom of expression, and 2) embrace uncertainty, discomfort, pleasure, and laughter as essential elements of experiential learning. In these ways, we contribute to the missions of our respective liberal arts institutions, using theater to activate college students, alongside audiences from our broader communities, to be active, engaged, and reflective citizens.
The creative team use methodologies inspired by Loy’s creative practice of experimentation (art as a way of knowing), embodiment (the immediacy of theater, grounded in physical relations), engagement (immersive and experiential learning), and enjoyment (the shared pleasure of creative expression). The collaboration is directed by 6 women leaders in the disciplines of performance art, English, music composition, and theatrical design, who seek to involve students, faculty, staff, audiences in different regions in the ongoing effort, championed by Mina Loy, to center women artists in culture and histories.
National Performances Planned, pending funding
- Michigan State University (December 2023)
- University of Maine – Farmington (March 2024)
International Performances Planned, pending funding
- Oxford Brookes University, Oxford, UK (2025)
- Bard of Berlin College, Berlin, Germany (2026)
Creative Directors of Loy Polloi:
- Project Director: Alison Dobbins, Associate Professor of Theatre at Michigan State University
- Dr. Alexis Bacon, Associate Professor of Composition at Michigan State University
- Dr. Suzanne Churchill, Professor of English at Davidson College
- Dr. Melissa Thompson, Associate Professor of Theatre at University of Maine-Farmington
- Dr. Alex Goody, Professor of Twentieth Century Literature at Oxford Brookes University
- Dr. Laura Scuriatti, Professor of English and Comparative Literature at Bard College Berlin
- Janet Haley, Professor of Theatre at University of Michigan-Flint