An original flyer designed by Genesis P-Orridge, announcing a COUM production at the Oval House Theatre in London, March 1974.
“After ‘Marcel Duchamp’s Next Work’ came COUM’s next major production ‘Couming of Age’. It took place in March 1974 at the Oval House in Kennington, London. In ‘Coum Decoumpositions and Events’ (1974) P-Orridge wrote that the work ‘is suitable for galleries, theatres, colleges or forests. It is about ambiguity, transformation of people. It uses standard and surreal images to explore various interpretations of sensuality and glamour. It has also got a strict formula of positioning of thee props. At thee Oval House Theatre in London, where it was premiered, it was mainly performed nude. But it has a second dressed version which is just as perfect. Everything in it being mirrored means that it can be treated in many different ways.
The subtitle of the work, as described in the Oval House programme notes, was ‘a photograph in exactly seven parts for Uncle Bill B’. The parts in question were: 1) Swift swing serenade for Valentine’s day; 2) Well wished oil well; 3) Artic banana gobble; 4) Rumba echoes; 5) Copyright Queen of the silver screen; 6) Dogbreath bleach; and 7) Disintegration of fact and the seven year itch. The programme notes gave little away and, as a challenge to the audience’s expectations, the small print at the bottom read: “Never forget that infamous and nasty COUM guarantee of disappointment sweetie.
‘Couming of Age’ turned out to be the most conventionally theatrical performance of COUM’s performing career. The props used included a swing, ladder, cage and plinthall set before a huge backdrop bearing P-Orridge’s childlike drawings of a house and a tree. The action impressed at least one member of the audience, Peter Christopherson. After the show he sought out P-Orridge and Tutti backstage and asked them questions about their work. They soon discovered they shared many interests, not least sex and the work of Burroughs. “He was interested in the ‘sex’ side of us,” says Tutti, “that’s why he was nicknamed Sleazy on the first day we met him.”” — Source : ‘Wreckers of Civilisation: The Story of COUM Transmissions & Throbbing Gristle’, edited by Simon Ford, p.4.9, Black Dog Publishing Limited, 1999.
“On the evening of March 15, 1974, the controversial performance artist and musician born Christine Newby climbed into a swing on the stage of the Oval House Theatre, London. Wearing a miniskirt that flashed glimpses of her underwear with every surge through the air, she swung higher and higher over the heads of the assembled crowd. As they looked up, Tutti began to piss through a heart-shaped hole cut into the seat, warm micturition raining down over unsuspecting heads. Later that evening, she would perform the role of a photographer’s model, topless in a metal cage, and simulate sex with her then-partner, Genesis P-Orridge, at it doggy style with grossly inflated genitals daubed in fluorescent paint. The show was called COUMing Of Age, and it marked the first occasion that her art collective, COUM Transmissions, had used nudity and sex as part of their practice, inspired by Tutti’s work as a pornographic model. “It was about sex and that didn’t come from nowhere,” Tutti says of COUMing of Age now. "There was always a thread of sex magic going through (our work), but this was just blatant, full-on.” — Source : ‘Dazed Magazine, Spring/summer 2017’, article written by Luke Archer, p.127.
