My mama told me never trust a space engineer

My recent space girl dance research led me to this cruisy number by The Imagined Village. (Lyrics underneath).




Space Girl

My mama told me I should never venture into space
But I did, I did, I did
She said no terran girl could trust the martian race
But I did, I did, I did

A rocket pilot asked me on a voyage to go
And I was so romantic, and I couldn't say no
That he was just a servo robot how was I to know?
So I did, I did, I did

She told me never venture out among the asteroids
But I did, I did, I did
And she said that the Milky Way was something to avoid
So I did, I did, I did
She said that Venus was too hot and Saturn not much fun
And bug-eyed monsters tended to be just a trifle dumb
She said I'd need a blaster and I'd need a freezer gun
And I did, I did, I did

My mama told me never trust a space engineer
And yes, I did, I did, I did
She said freefall and superdrive would surely cost me dear
And yes, they did, they did, they did
I've been as far in hyperspace as anybody can
I've travelled through the time warp in the Psycho Plan
They say a gal must travel for to find her superman
And yes, I did, I did, I did
And yes, I did, I did, I did
Oh, I did, I did, I did
Oh...

Space girl dance

Marko Lulic is a Viennese artist who created a three minute video called Space-Girl Dance, which was exhibited at the Sydney Biennale in 2014. I wish I had been there to see it!

Image: Marco Lulic and Gabriele Senn Galerie, Vienna

Sadly, the dance did not take place on Cockatoo Island (where it was screened). It was filmed in the garden of German sculptor Eric Hauser. The garden contains spacey stainless steel sculptures, which form the setting for the dance.

Image: Marco Lulic and Gabriele Senn Galerie, Vienna

The dance and video were inspired by a segment in the 1970 US television series Raquel!, starring Raquel Welch. The background for Raquel's Space-Girl Dance was a set of sculptures commissioned to commemorate the 1968 Mexican Olympic Games, called the Ruta de la Amistad (Friendship Road). Now, many of the sculptures have been vandalised and are in poor condition.

Here is one of the spacey sculptures on the Ruta de la Amistad.

Image from http://www.reporte.com.mx/

According to the Biennale notes, Lulic was interested in the relationship between the copy and the original, but also

the relation of the body to space, movement to stillness, human to monumental, and the man-made to the natural world.

I feel a Dr Space Junk Dance coming on.