January 25, 2011
Have been viewing and reading on Performance Activism including the work of Reverend Billy and Suzanne Lacy.
In the case of the Reverend, his tool of public oration interests me and where it’s directed. Generally at crowds of people, he exports the template of Church to the Mall. But in one sequence he addresses the atmosphere in a kind of confessional while first standing, then kneeling at a petrol pump.
I am looking for examples where people, whether in a performative state or otherwise, address only the geographic place they are or live and instruct it on something.
There were a few characters in Dublin the woman who danced for years alongside the Floozie in the Jacuzzi on O’Connell Street comes to mind.
Often people in a psychotic, delusional or agitated state will vocalize randomly at the space they are moving through. I’ve observed this. Technically it’s one of the times when the city is read the riot act by a person.
I’ve often observed orators who are not dependent on listeners in order to orate, thus they orate into or at the space around where they stand. Or the general atmosphere.
Another thing that I’ve observed is the passing of repartee across the pavement can sometimes in Vancouver become an unintentional public oration, since if repartee is not nabbed and remarked back upon, you have succeeded in talking to the general atmosphere. This occurred to me most noticeably when I remarked and marvelled on a massive gathering of pigeons a few years ago.
***
January 25, 2011
A Riot Act in crumbs
Whereas of late many rebellious riots and tumults have been in divers parts of this kingdom,
January 25, 2011
Riot Act Remix
God save the King.
preventing tumults
assemblies being immediately assembled
persons chargeth sovereign themselves
habitations peaceably depart
to to
pains in the pains contained upon the pains contained
in our being assembled
to to re chargeth
made mad
mad made
January 23, 2011
1 Vancouverite meets 100% Vancouver
Yesterday, thanks to the kindness of a friend, I experienced (attended doesn’t quite suffice! since I found myself narrating through out it), a piece at the Push Festival called 100% Vancouver. The piece was a form of statistical social anthropology combining mapping, movement, questions, truth, but centrally 100 local citizens selected in a (sorta) chain reaction and within that, representative demographics of all who live in Vancouver. (sorta)…
The participants were brave to stand up there, endearing, engaging, moving and very funny. Their individual stories, many of which were hinted at, I’d like to have heard more of.
Experiencing the piece there was a sense of being “inside” the city. I’d speculate other pieces in the Push fest will form an external looking on, or at, even while attempting to be within because of the instruments and techniques they employ to try to capture or understand who and what we are. The mirror rather than the tunnel or well. So in this regard 100% Vancouver offered something unique. Then we factor in the truth of what the people are telling us about what they live or feel and things become hazy. What’s said inside the tunnel may not be what is reflected in the mirror?
To put aside the respect I have for the bravery of those who participated (these people are not performers and their willingness to tell us something of what they think, live, have lived, is to be admired and appreciated) later I began to contemplate the bigger canvas of what the project attempted and where it might go next or where it could have gone further.
The reality of living in this city became obscured somewhat by the rising wave of civic pride (within the piece and audience) that inevitably takes place when we, visually and emotionally, connect with familiar sounds (names, areas, addresses, points of reference, the I live here geddit sense of being one of all these people before me and identifying with them — especially the most endearing characters). And I’d add when the Mayor is sitting in the back row, along with other civic celebs.
The optimism of the 100% surprised me and I wondered of the contagion factor.
Three neighbourhoods were missing: curiously close in geographic area (Oakridge, Shaughnessy and I think the third was South Cambie (or Fairview?). I think what’s absent should somehow be addressed within the piece and the difficulty of why no one could be found who met the demographic requirement because that also tells us something about where we live.
I’d love to see a further interrogation of the idea behind the piece. Something that would dig beyond the census box ticking. Perhaps something riskier, that said I recognize the barriers and reasons why that might be difficult within what was a “theatrical” and performative framework (is that the best medium?)
My friend Lori pointed out in a post discussion that the most compelling moments were when something visually engaging was happening within the piece, or when the people were doing interesting things with their bodies. There was one example that stood out when all 100 individuals physically acted out in gestures what they usually do at every hour of the day. The time was projected behind them and they’d mime their activities. It provided us with a wealth of contrast and actions and individual lives to examine and again put us “inside” the city.
I’ll upload some of the questions later to give you an idea of what was posed to the participants. The most invigorating events are those you leave and think more on or think out from. Departure points to further inquiry. This was one such event.
January 22, 2011
Skytrain to Rio Taxi
During last Friday’s Taxi! intervention Lori and I continued with a technique of inquiry from our previous collaboration for Chaos and that Lori had employed in her other works. On the way home I was asking Lori about the exchanges that came out of her security deployment and was fascinated to hear there were geographic repetitions within peoples stories. Two told stories that related to Rio (was it ?). The next day I remembered hearing an identical type of story that took place in Burnaby. The intervention took place in an industrial area of Vancouver. If we were to map the trail of the lines in the stories they would have gone Vancouver – Rio – Vancouver – Rio – Vancouver – Burnaby. I like the idea of taking say a train to Rio to arrive in Burnaby. All the world’s a stage … and so on.
Curiously, as is my talent for not turning left, I managed on the way home to keep turning right and we ended up back where we started from until the fateful “left turn” re-arrived. So in fact we were turning right for Rio and finally left for home.
It may have Buenos Aires ? Not Rio. But it was certainly Burnaby not Bandung. (A friend of mine did a parachute jump in Bandung and promptly landed in a bush and broke her arm, but I don’t know anyone whose parachuted into a bush in Burnaby. The aforementioned parachute jump was problematic only because she had promised her mother, who was vehemently opposed to parachute jumps, she’d never do another one.)
January 22, 2011
What I omitted to mention, nor remember is that “them nights” are inevitably followed by 72 hours of shredded musculature. Including a painful awareness of muscles there’s really no need for me to know I actively possess.
Fortunately, I am reading on the topic of muscles for a review I am writing and can certainly agree they “challenge the order of things”…
January 20, 2011
Those nights… yes them ones
Tonight, I had the moment that had eluded me all these months and that I’ve documented rigorously as eluding me in this blog, I had some small triumphant moments at gymnastics.
I had not expected any. I was so exhausted I was out at the coffee machine chatting about social problems in the city with another of the coaches, who was eating a bar of chocolate. We were having a great auld gab. On my return to the gym, one of the fellas was slagging me for chatting and doing nowt. I teased him back in return.
It helped that I was working with a coach tonight who I haven’t seen since my first night return to the mats back a year and a half ago. It also helped that she’s a Newfie and even has the same name as my mother. (Perhaps I am more inclined to do what she says?). She’s a witty, warm woman and she’d a glint her eye as we negotiated my stumbling blocks. She was ready for my diversions. But “you could do it you see,” she was reasoning with me. She’d examine what I did and then insist … “hmmm you could do this…”
So new eyes, new ideas and new angles. What a great trio.
And a different surface. We were working on the flat floor rather than the tumble tramp. She set up a box arrangement for me to handstand on top off, then snaps legs down and under, push from shoulders back into back handspring. I had such a shock the first standing back handspring I threw for her assessment onto a “sting mat” as they call them. I had expected such a heavy drop onto my wrists, if my arms would even support me that far, instead I barely felt a thing and flipped over with surprising ease! It was almost polite as the plop of a vase of flowers onto the table.
Have I gotten stronger?! I don’t think so. If anything I am reduced in strength. Perhaps the humour, warmth and that glint of “ah but you could” carried me across whatever psychological mound was impeding and holding up the body.
Two other moments of note: at the end of the session a young man, adorned in a most impressive shirt with three penguins on it, informs me he’s a male Cheerleader. A what? Says I. And he gives me the history of male cheerleading and a name, I’ve clean forgot of some group in Florida who be the best.
Another fella was holding a chain with a jade piece in his mouth, as he readied up for a tumbling sequence. “Is it the mother in me I said but would you not be a bit worried about that chain and your teeth.” No, he says. I’d hate you to damage your tooth. He then takes he hurdle step throws a sequence that included a straight back somersault almost up to the roof (his next was a double, that was a double straight back! and then another at least a twist and a half). Finally he admits his granny gave him the necklace and the stone. “I knew it, ” I told him. “As soon as I saw it in your mouth, I thought only his granny could have given it to him, but didn’t want to say it.” I love these little moments of revelation. The body may be coursing through the air like a well positioned kite, but the old mind is underneath it worrying about the luck of or damage of a granny’s gift.
Nights like tonight are rare, and rare is a fine thing while it lasts. As long as it turns up now and again, I’ll be happy to wait on the next innings. And will pay with the aches of it all manana. Good, necessary aches mind.
January 19, 2011
Dozy despite the buzz tea blend.
The tea blends are making a comeback.
Today, an afternoon blend.
-A teaspoon of an old Steeps tin of Lapsong Suchong
-A teaspoon and a bit of Murchies Earl Grey (black blend).
It hit the tongue and the back of the throat and to be honest was a reminder of how out of blend I am. I let it steep in the cup too long I fear and must remember that two strong whiffs do not the best combination make.
Buzz akin to a table saw rather than the Happy Days lift I was after.
Blend on …