Nude Performance Group's Goal: Show Beauty of Body Through Art

For those interested in artistic displays of pubic nudity, the X-plicit Players are currently holding auditions for their naked performances.

The group is inviting people to practice with them in a West Berkeley warehouse and to prepare for their upcoming performance at the People's Park anniversary celebration.

Marty Kent, a co-founder of the group, says they use the human body to stimulate the mind.

"It is our goal to awaken people's thinking," Kent says. "We are asking questions."

Tom Polcari, an ordained minister with a UC San Francisco radio program, says he joined the group in 1992 because he wants to show that the human body is beautiful and encourage others to go naked as well.

"Nudist performance helps to call attention to the fact that most people are in bondage to their clothes," he says. "During the warmer weather, clothing serves no purpose."

The group has performed for more than 10 years around the country and even in Canada. Audiences can see them at art galleries, bookstores, clubs and Berkeley streets, says Kent, who has done research for the National Science Foundation at UC Berkeley.

At performances, nudity is complemented by explicit body contact and techniques such as "body readings."

"A lot of what we do is communicated by touch and nearness," Kent says. "Body readings (are) developing a psychic sense of touch."

Not everyone, however, is as excited about the group's nudity and social commentary.

"We voted to ban them on public streets," says Councilmember Betty Olds. "Berkeley is unique, but not that unique."

Olds called the group's philosophy "baloney" and expressed concern for people who see the nudity in public.

"It's a threat to small children and a lot of women and church-going people especially," she says. "To a lot of people it's connected with rape."

Olds agrees, however, that women should be able to take off their tops.

"If women want to expose their sagging breasts then go ahead," she says.

City Councilmember Kriss Worthington, says he has seen the group perform many times.

"For some reason I don't think that the health and safety of civilization is threatened by a handful of actors and actresses parading in a nude political theater troupe," he says. "As a churchgoer, my faith is not threatened. Some religions celebrate the human body."

Kent says the X-plicit Players started during the Persian Gulf War when a group of people came naked to an anti-war protest in San Francisco with signs saying "No Spare Body Parts for the War Machine."

"We're saying you have to understand a reality of these fleshy bodies," Kent says. "Do you really want to make efforts to rip them to shreds?"

The group is currently working on a "group body" performance.

"We've had a group of naked people going down the street pressed tightly together wrapped in one giant piece of cloth," Kent says. "The idea of group body and plural consciousness is to look at levels of self."

The performance questions whether human beings are individuals or just part of a greater whole, like an organ in a body or a cell in an organ, Kent says. He adds that people are more easily manipulated because they believe themselves to be individuals.

Robert Feise, who joined the group in 1988, says he likes interactive performances the most.

"My favorites are when we go out and physically touch people in a nonsexual way," he says.

The X-plicit Players have also performed in front of city hall and in the How Berkeley Can You Be and Annual Breast/Nude Freedom parades.

"It's an annual celebration of women's breasts as a medium of expression," Polcari says.

Feise, who says he has a severe case of cerebral palsy, participates in the events as well.

"I'm in a motorized wheelchair, wearing nothing but my glasses, as I go along with the rest of the group in the parade," he says. "(My favorite part is) being held up on my feet and dancing nude in front of many people."

Polcari, who has a marriage and family counseling practice in Berkeley in addition to performing, says that the problem is the belief that nudity is bad.

"People who are taught that the human body is disgusting and horrible frequently grow up to have sexual problems and hangups and engage in illegal sexual actions like pedophilia," he says. "I don't know about yours, but (my body) isn't disgusting or terrible."

The X-plicit Players have been arrested many times over the last eight years and 15 times in 1997 alone, says Kent.

"No jury has ever found them guilty," says Polcari. "The performances also have an artistic value to them. It's something that the city attorney has failed to notice."

Kent says some police officers apologize for arresting them.

"Many of the police officers enjoy what we do," he says.

The group filed a federal lawsuit against the city in 1998 when the city council took away their right to a jury trial, Kent says.

"The (anti-nudity) ordinance discriminates against women by prohibiting them from removing their shirts in public when men can," Kent says.

Kent adds that the lawsuit also alleges that the city harasses the group and does not allow for artistic or political expression. The city attorney was unavailable for comment about the lawsuit.

Polcari encourages UC Berkeley students to come to school naked. The university, however, added an anti-nudity amendment to the student conduct code after the notorious nakedness of Andrew Martinez, the "naked guy."

"Since that, student spirit took a noticeable decline and it's never returned," Polcari says. "What alarmed me was that no students took a stand against that. If all the students picked a day to show up on campus nude, it would destroy the anti-nudity amendment to the student conduct code."

Stan Spenger, manager of Shakespeare and Company, says the group sometimes performs in front of the bookstore on Telegraph Avenue, using their electrical outlets for a speaker.

"I'm not sure how appropriate it is but we support their freedom of expression," says Spenger, who adds that he has not received any complaints from customers.

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