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Singer, composer, and actor Emily Bate had questions.
Why did she work so hard and earn so little? Why was her income so feast ($90,000 with grants) one year and so famine ($15,000) the next? Why couldn’t she have some financial stability? Or health benefits? Or a retirement fund?
The political pundits have an answer for Emily.
“It’s the economy, stupid.”
Emily Bate is not stupid, but she also realized that when people talked about economics, she really wasn’t sure what that meant. And so, nerdishly, she began to read and study (sans professor!) economic theory.
And now she wants you to know what she learned, hence “Homo Economicus,” a lap-dancing, strip-teased, song-filled, performance art version of Econ 101 for a price considerably less than any college course and way more fun.
The show runs through May 10 at God’s Automatic Body & Spa, on the 5500 block of Baltimore Avenue. “Homo Economicus,” produced in partnership with Obvious Agency, the worker-owned theater cooperative, involves dating apps, billionaires, self-checkout lines, and landlords.
“Homo Economicus” is very informational,” Bate said. “I created a show that in some ways is a lecture. There’s a ton of content that I think is interesting. I’d like to impart it to the audience and also to have a conversation and a way to shift the conversation.”
“Why should this be a theater piece?” she asked rhetorically.
“I created this whole vocabulary of songs, and dance music, and dancing, and music. I’m trying with the music and the dance to create how it feels to be inside our economy and how a change in the economy might feel,” Bate said.
“Our current economic system makes us increasingly lonely and afraid,” she said in a statement. “Live theater, music, and dancing are antidotes to that. This show asks: what would our economic system look like if we could decide together? And what if deciding together was fun?”
Bate started her foray into the economic rabbit hole by trying to suss out the meaning of GDP, or gross domestic product, a term regularly used to measure growth in the economy.
“It was interesting to learn about the GDP. It’s an incredibly important economic indicator and I really didn’t know what does and doesn’t count for GDP,” she said. What she quickly discovered was that many things that seemed valuable to her didn’t count as part of the GDP.
“Seeing that spelled out was really powerful for me. GDP does not measure things that are vitally important for a thriving society,” she said. As an example, Bate explained, if someone makes dinner at home using vegetables grown in the back yard, that doesn’t count in the GDP. But buying veggies at the store does count.
“The measurement can’t see the value of fresh food you grow yourself,” she said.
“If a tree stands in a forest, it doesn’t impact GDP, but if you cut it down, GDP goes up,” she said. GDP “doesn’t account for the value of a living forest, only lumber.”
What she came to realize is that economic theory is based on scarcity, which produces selfishness and rancor in society. It’s a depressing message that rings all too true but Bate believes there are alternatives and points to them in her first solo show.
“I’ve never made work that is really so politically pointed,” she said. “I’m really trying to express directly what I believe and talk to people about that and inspire conversation about that.”
“My hope for the show is that the audience would leave the theater with places to find economic agency whether it’s in your relationship to your own finances, or societal, or emotional, to have a different sense of feeling,” she said.
“I’m trying to uplift where we have power to behave and feel differently, do some activism,” she said.
Aside from all that, “if people enjoy dance music and club music, they’ll have a good time.”
As Bate studied economics, her attitude has shifted. “I’ve changed my marker for success,” she said. “Success is someone able to keep doing your work, spending your time, and pouring your energy into it.
By that marker, Bate feels successful. “I’m able to keep working.
“I still experience the systemic conditions of scarcity in the arts,” she said. “But I’m rich in precious time to make my work.”
Even so, “I’m a freelancer. I’m on Medicaid. I make an amount of money that a lot of people do live on but is really hard to live on. I’ve never had health benefits in my life,” she said. “Job security is non-existent.
“Yet, somehow, I’m meeting my needs. I do feel I have everything I need day-to-day and I would like to feel that I could continue to do this work as long as I want to.”
If you want to read some of what Bate read as she studied economics, here are her recommendations.
- “The Serviceberry: Abundance and Reciprocity in the Natural World” by Robin Wall Kimmerer, author of “Braiding Sweetgrass.” “She’s an indigenous woman and a botanist,” Bate said. “She questions the definition of economics and writes about abundance, cooperation, and mutualism in nature.”
- “Collective Courage: A History of African American Cooperative Economic Thought and Practice” by Jessica Gordon Nembhard. “It’s a fascinating historical account of black cooperative movements in the U.S. — people shut out of mainstream economic opportunity.”
- “Sacred Economics: Money, Gift & Society in the Age of Transition” by Charles Eisenstein. “It’s an interesting explanation revisiting the values of traditional economic markets. He talks about a solidarity economy and alternatives to GDP,” Bate said.
God’s Automatic Body & Spa, at 5522 Baltimore Avenue, is housed in an unassuming building sandwiched between a Baptist storefront church and a daycare center. To enter, don’t use the front door. Instead make your way to the back via a nearby empty lot. Turn right into the narrow alley between building backyards. Look for arrows to point you to the right place. Tickets are available at https://www.handstamp.com/e/homo-economicus
