Clothes Whores: Disavowed by KCAI, Rah! Booty still going strong
| The current crop of Rah Booty |
“We’re not mocking cheerleading — we just do it better.”
That’s the motto of Rah! Booty, a performance-art group started in 2003 at the Kansas City Art Institute by 10 “feminist, political and sexually liberated” students.
The Rah! squad has changed over the years and now has four members: Megan Mantia (2006 KCAI grad), Anna Zimmerman (2006 KCAI grad), Mary Nichols (a KCAI grad now in UMKC’s master’s program for theater) and Nichole Hobbs (a KCAI student in the fibers department).
Past Rah! costumes had standard cheerleading and sailor themes. The latest invocation, a candy-striper uniform, fits because “it’s very flirty and A-line skirty, just like a cheerleading uniform,” Mantia writes us in an e-mail. “And a candy striper evokes the same sort of fetishized, sex-object persona as a cheerleader, so we thought we’d draw the parallel. We planned [this costume] around a big dance routine where we look like Nip/Tuck nurses — a plastic surgery army with over-sized utensils of terror.”
