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Milkshake

In their recent video performance Milkshake four figures donned in hand make skeleton suits perform a grotesque hip-hop dance sequence that pushes physical limitations. The skeletons literally perform the lyrics of Kelis’ Milkshake song by drinking one litre of milk while attempting to maintain a strict dance routine. What begins as a stylised booty dance warps into a shaking display of performative endurance, complete with burping, vomiting and craps. Kelis’ provocative lyrics have been hijacked and turned into a literal human milkshake while the booty dancing and scantily clad ladies from the film clip have been replaced with four androgenous skeletons. Their crude attempt at replication is met with an inevitable failure to perform as well as their physical demise once the litre of milk begins to take its tall. The ridiculous mash up of skeletons and booty dancing subverts the dominant representations of women in hip-hop culture in a playful and provocative way. The overt sexuality and parade of female flesh that is evident in the original film has been removed and literally turned into a bag of gyrating and sexless hand-painted bones.

Brown Council