Charmaine + Taketo

Ms. Wheatley's namesake: Charmaine, comes from the title of a song "Charmaine" - her father's favorite song. The song is a standard show tune from the 20's and since then it has been covered by a diverse group of musicians and composers such as Michael Legrand, Mantovani, Dorothy Ashby, Bill Henderson, Frank Sinatra, Julia Lee & her boyfriends etc, to name a few.

Using this song as a starting point, Performance Artist, Charmaine Wheatley and DJ / Sound Artist, Taketo Shimada have been working together to build and demonstrate the personality of CHARMAINE using performance and functional sculptures. CHARMAINE projects make direct reference to Fantasy, Gift giving, Sound Art, Contemporary Feminist dialogue and Pop culture while investigating issues of intimacy and sexual tension that dissolve any boundaries between sexual preference, cultural or class backgrounds, age or gender types.

Between 2002-2004 audiences were invited to participate in a game of seduction, mystery, fantasy and threat. The performance and subsequent video: "SPINS" involved Ms. Wheatley dancing round with audience members in pitch black darkness, wearing a glow in the dark, see-through bikini, with 3-inch swinging fish hooks, while Shimada cut and mixed various versions of the song "Charmaine" on turntables. While dancing with participating audience members, darkness, costume, activity, and music called into question one's ability to notice their own perceived social taboos and confront apropriate behaviours for public and private. The mind's eye was actively filling in what was shrouded in darkness. The video chronicles Taketo's selections of "Charmaine" record spins accompanied by Ms. Wheatley's dance spins. Each time "SPINS" was was performed, the video was updated with the latest session of spins. The video is a compilation of SPINS performed.

“...darkness is more productive of sublime ideas than light.” - Edmund Burke, On the Sublime and Beautiful

"The cloak of invisibility has been stripped away, and ones' spectatorship becomes an issue within the work"- Catherine Elwes.