Hollow Venus: Diary of a Go-Go Dancer
Dir Larry Fessenden (1989 58 mins, video shot in 16mm, b/w & color)
COCO DUPREE, HEATHER WOODBURY
Docu-Drama about God, performance art and topless dancing in NYC’s Lower East Side, circa 1986. Starring and co-written by Heather Woodbury.
Diary of a Go-Go Dancer
A docu-drama about performance art, topless dancing, and God
Coco Dupree is a New York performance artist
who makes a living dancing topless in a bar called “Paradise.”There she meets a mob boss who calls himself God,
a thug named Richie, and a kept woman named Desiree.Starring and co-written by Heather Woodbury, HOLLOW VENUS
is an autobiographical glimps at a world where topless dancing and performance art collide.
MANON BRIER ~ CHRIS KAPATAN ~ JIRI SCHUBERT
DARROCH GREER ~ HARRY CROSBY
production design BECK UNDERWOOD crew JOHN SNIADO
written by HEATHER WOODBURY & LARRY FESSENDEN
a flick by LARRY FESSENDEN
© 1989 Glass Eye Pix
Coco Dupree HEATHER WOODBURY
God GEORGE LIKER
Jeannie JANET DONOFRIO
Lulu MANON BRIER
Desiree CHRIS KAPATAN
Arnaud JIRI SCHUBERT
Richie DARROCH GREER
cute rocker HARRY CROSBY
HEATHER WOODBURY (Coco) has been a writer and performer in New York’s downtown scene for ten years, presenting solo shows including WHITE GILT, ANTAGONY, and DELUGIANS OF GRANDEUR at venues including LaMama, The Kitchen, Franklin Furnace, and P.S. 122. Currently she is garnering rave reviews touring her own solo epic performance piece, HEATHER WOODBURY’S “WHAT EVER”. Film roles: Larry Fessenden’s HABIT, Amir Naderi’s MANHATTAN: AVENUE A, B, C and Joel Schlemovitz’s VENUS IN FURS. She She established the Lower East Side performance club Café Bustello which flowered 1987-1990.GEORGE LIKER (God) was discovered in a chorus line at a show by Theater For the New City in the Lower East Side. He also appears in HABIT.
DARROCH GREER (Richie) Also appears as Jack Sandler in EXPERIENCED MOVERS and as Evel Knievel in STUNT. Greer has since moved to L.A. where he continues to act in theater works and to produce for Television.
JIRI SCHUBERT (Arnaud) is an actor and producer of theater projects that have been launched all over the world.
JANET DONOFRIO (Jeannie) also appears in EXPERIENCED MOVERS, and various other Glass Eye Pix works.
HARRY CROSBY (cute rocker) also appears in EXPERIENCED MOVERS, and other Glass Eye Pix works. He played in the band Swans in the 80s.
production design BECK UNDERWOOD
crew JOHN SNIADO
written by HEATHER WOODBURY & LARRY FESSENDEN
producer, director, camera, edit LARRY FESSENDENmusic by
JUST DESSERTS
STORMIN’ NORMAN AND SUZAN
JOHN SNIADO (grip, electric, sound, assistant camera) has been involved in numerous film projects. He worked for legendary filmmaker Arnold Eagle in the 1980s and currently is an editor at Tapestry International.
BECK UNDERWOOD (production designer, props) has worked as an art director, painter and illustrator in New York since 1983. In the world of film, she was co-writer and production designer on Larry Fessenden’s 1992 feature NO TELLING, and she continues to develop scripts with Fessenden, including the recent HABIT and the forthcoming HECTOR DODGES. Underwood is the founder and publisher of ZuZu, the internationally distributed bi-monthly newspaper for kids that flowered 1992-95, and which can now be found on the World Wide Web at htpp://www.zuzu.org.
HEATHER WOODBURY (writer) has been a writer and performer in New York’s downtown scene for ten years. She presented HOLLOW VENUS as a monologue before adapting the script for film.
LARRY FESSENDEN (writer, director, sound/picture editor) Fessenden’s director credits include: HABIT (1996); NO TELLING (1991); THE IMPACT ADDICT VIDEOS (1986-89) and EXPERIENCED MOVERS (1985). (link to long bio)
HOLLOW VENUS has never been reviewed as best we know.
Starring and co-written by Heather Woodbury about her own experiences as a go-go dancer in New York and New Jersey during the early 80s, HOLLOW VENUS is an autobiographical glimpse at a world where topless dancing and performance art collide. In raw black and white and tinted tones, director Fessenden captures the squalor and pathos of life in the sex trade, and the redemptive naïvete of the performance art scene in the last days of Lower East Side Bohemia, circa 1986.
HOLLOW VENUS was shot in 16mm in 1986 with a crew of three in the streets and tenements of Manhattan and at the Baby Doll Lounge downtown. The project was abandoned for three years to raise completion funds. It was finished on 3/4 inch video in 1986, and enjoyed a run at Anthology Film Archives in New York City.
HOLLOW VENUS was the first movie Fessenden ever submitted to festivals. It played Rotterdam, ICA in London, Rio De Janeiro, and almost captured the prize for best video in Montreal International Festival of Film and Video, but it couldn't be determined if the piece was a video or a film (this tidbit leaked later by a judge). The tape has also screened at performance art venues including Hallwalls in Buffalo NY, and in New York City at Dixon Place and DCTV.
The rampant use of music from the go-go bars of that era has made the film undistributable, though it's been available for home viewing through select video stores. Michael Rohatyn, who wrote music for HABIT, has recorded new songs for HOLLOW VENUS in anticipation of a wider release.