I’ve found myself at a loss for words when trying to sum up the personality, goals and achievements of this week’s campus celebrity. Parker Allen Stanley, a junior here at Pace University is anything but your standard BA Acting student. Parker’s confidence ooze’s effortlessly and is complemented by his approachable persona. He has participated in many performance projects and recently showcased his very own three-part performance art piece here at Pace, that observed what it is like to love and lose. This creative mind has an avant-garde perspective that needs to be noticed.
Name: Parker Stanley
Year: Junior (’17)
Major: BA Acting (International performance ensemble)
Why do you think you’re campus celebrity? “You said I am. Fame is just a lifestyle so if you want to be famous then tell yourself you are. Famous is subjective and so is a celebrity. So why I think I’m campus celebrity is because I think I’m campus celebrity and you said I am. But someone can say anything. Fame is the people who took the time to read this.”
What are you involved in on and off campus? “Myself, in and outside of campus. Everything I do is for me and how I want to do it. I’m not involved with any pace groups or affiliations or clubs. Outside of campus I am not really, officially a part of clubs but I do make my ways in and out of things. Everything I do is because I want to do it. I was part of an ensemble, Project Collabyrinth. We created an original piece entitled, LOVE IS LOVE. We performed it at Pace, an off-Broadway theater on 42nd street, and then we took it to the Festival of International Theatre in Sibiu Romania. Currently I am a part of a new ensemble that is untitled but we are working on a new project.This semester I’ve been doing my Octobirth Months thing where it is an east and west coast tour of haunted attractions. ” (To follow parker’s journey exploring haunted attractions all across the U.S. check out the Instagram)
What was your latest performance art piece? Favorite? “It’s a three-part piece: Honor Your Vomit, Soak in Your Own Blood and Worlds Worst Vegan. It started with the concept of honor your vomit. I’m the type of person who rambles on and talks and talks and I ramble on like word vomit. I also hate vomit, its one of my biggest fears. So I put a trash can in front of me and put two fingers in my mouth with press here written on the back of my hand so audience members had the chance to make me vomit; a man almost did but didn’t press hard enough. I actually ended up crying.
That led to my next piece soak in your own blood. The concept when you fall in love with someone they get under your skin and if you, and the only way to release those feelings is to open yourself up and let it all bleed out so you can become ready for something. The piece began with me looking like a fool, My face was painted blue I had a sprayed painted pink wedding dress around the bottom of my, which was literally cut in half. A fake muscle shirt on top with the nipples censored just so it was some sort of gender-bending morph where there were masculine qualities but at the same time there were feminine qualities. I started with the concept of bacon…” Parker goes on discussing how he offered the crowd bacon cupcake toppers as a sweet dissolving treat. He compares this easily dissolved treat to love and how we live in a hookup culture now where everything is short term, satisfactory and sweet but in the end isn’t what we wanted.
Wanting the real thing, Parker goes on, “Sometimes you- it doesn’t matter how much you want it, because you can find something that looks like it, that smells like it that tastes like it that tries its best to be real love… but at the end of the day you’re eating soy bacon made by Morning Star that crumbles in your hand.” Going throughout the crowd he hands out morning star bacon but no one wanted it because it wasn’t the real thing. “When you truly want to love someone, you want it to be real as possible. I believe that the only way for you to achieve this kind of love is for you to soak in your own blood to open yourself up and become completely vulnerable.”
For the final part of the second piece Parker revealed the raw bacon beneath his skirt. He goes on saying how no one can eat raw bacon, however metaphorically, Parker compared the raw bacon to the love between two people, “I had the love, it was there, it was present but it wasn’t working. Something was wrong it wasn’t cooked it wasn’t ready.”
In the third piece Parker decided to take it to the next level. Relating both the first and second piece together with pregnancy. “The female body bleeds so it can prepare for birth and then once you get it you literally have to go through vomit to get to this piece of life or piece of love.” Linking the theme of honoring your vomit and the rejuvenation of love Parker “gave-birth” to a decapitated pig head. He connects this birth to himself preparing himself for new life and to fall in love. Parker discusses what happens after this birth of something that was already deceased, “I wanted it so badly to be alive and give life to it and realizing that it’s dead… … that’s what it felt like, I had finally achieved feelings for someone that I had never ever had felt before… … I didn’t just get the bacon I got something way more- way more real, I got the pig, not just the slice of bacon.”(For more information on Parker’s piece’s check out his Instagram)
Who are your most influential people? “Jesus Christ, huge fan of his work. He started the whole concept of the fandom, naming his fans the Christians. I love GaGa. Mickey Mouse, Santa Clause and Jesus Christ are my trinity. Beyoncé, GaGa and Miley Cyrus are my strong independent women. Pee wee, David Bowie and Elvira, mistress of the dark, basically raised me. And Frankenstein… he’s so misunderstood.”
Do you have any plans after college? “I should be on my world tour by then.”