Holly Hughes performs 'The Dog and Pony Show (bring your own pony)

The MU Graduate Theatre Organizations hosted the event.

By Armeen Mistry

Published Feb. 23, 2010

Holly Hughes, lesbian performance artist and professor at the University of Michigan School of Art and Design, performed her newest piece, "The Dog and Pony Show (bring your own pony)," Sunday afternoon in Allen Auditorium.

The event, hosted by the MU Graduate Theatre Organization, was a nonstop laugh fest of mediocre occurrences turned extraordinary.

MU theater assistant Milbre Burch, who organized the event, said Hughes is right at the center of the American culture wars.

"I wanted the chance to meet her and, happily, colleagues in the graduate theater agreed," Burch said.

The auditorium quickly filled with professors, graduate and undergraduate students eager for the show. A small woman with a vivacious personality (and hair to match), Hughes kept the audience engaged and laughing from start to finish.

"I thought it was really great," freshman Joel Kramer said. "It was good to hear her intake on humans and how we think and dogs, of course."

True to the title of the program, Hughes focused on her dogs and their importance to her life and to her message.

"Here's what the dogs offer me, a chance to go into their world, into the present tense, lived in real time," Hughes said. "I find it really difficult to be in the moment. It keeps getting recommended to me, be in the moment. And I think, OK, but how?"

From perspectives of her poodles ("Few things can be described as perfect, but a poodle's hair is.") to her mother's housewife '50s hair ("It stood up on its own. But who am I to judge her on her hair? Her hair was her life."), Hughes made light of serious events but still got her message across.

In the mid-'90s, Hughes was one of what is called the National Endowment for the Arts Four. She and three other artists received federal funding for a short time before it was removed due to what she refers to as "genre differences."

"Holly Hughes is a lesbian and her work is very strongly of that genre," said Hughes, imitating the Congress representatives against her case. "They make me sounds like a landscape painting: 'of that genre.' "

Hughes chronicles her day-to-day affairs with her partner, Esther, and their six dogs. Her tales of poodles and terriers scattered with smatterings of life advice captivated the crowd.

"I hadn't really known much about her before," graduate student Joel Walsh said. "But I really liked it. It was so funny and so real."

Each event Hughes described was vivid and serious to the audience. She looked at everything from the stereotype of a gay white male to hate mail to Dick Cheney. Nothing escaped her. At one point, she raved about Michelle Obama. And her poodles were infamous.

"When people see me with my poodles, they want to reach out and touch the hair," Hughes said. "It's all about the hair, always about the hair."

For Hughes, the poodle's hair symbolized her small entry into luxury in life. Everyone should have one, she said.

Hughes' message was well received by the audience but particularly for those who remained for the reception following the event. She stayed nearly an hour after, munching on cheese and cookies and talking to the audience there.

More than anything, she was real.