Photos by Julia Khoroshilov. Find more of her work here.
Haley Dahl has a talent for visualizing and creating beauty, it just might not be the sort of thing that we are taught to associate with the word. A Haley Dahl performance often includes blue fluid dribbling from her mouth as she leads an 11+ group of musicians through songs with names like “Bark like a God” and “Where is my Wife”. She used to perform nude but doesn’t anymore. She describes herself and Courtney Love of Hole as a “universe and a sickness”. She kind of sounds like the fairy queen from a John Keats poem, or maybe Cobweb from A Midsummer Night’s Dream. The kind of beauty that scares the people who refuse to understand it, but enlivens those who are open enough to accept it into their lives.
I recently lost a friend when I told her that I was considering becoming an escort. She told me that I was toxic, and I guess for her I was. Sex work has a legacy of sickening a certain group of people, even as it brings comfort and hope to others. I think that becoming an escort isn’t too far off from being a therapist, and a stripper can be just as breathtaking as a ballet dancer. Maybe that’s why I respond to Sloppy Jane, Haley Dahl’s performance art group, the way I do. Not everyone is going to have a positive response. Not to Sloppy Jane, or Keats, or stripping, or anything. But that’s ok because when the right person comes around, they will see the beauty that is already there. The universe, and the sickness.
For more photos and the full feature, check out Issue 9 available to order now
