Millionaire PM: A Political Performance/Art Series # 1

This is the first of a multiple disciplined series of 3 spanning the 3 months from the New Zealand hosted Rugby World Cup 2011 through til the NZ Elections 2011 at the trendy Golden Dawn Bar in Auckland.

Situated in a bar in Auckland's Ponsonby Rd, a fairly swanky upmarket area in which I grew up which has been vastly gentrified in the past 20 years eradicating its former bohemian and or multi-cultural milieu to be replaced by multi-coloured poodles and suits- this event series created by me is/was an attempt to creatively and politically intersect a mainstream hedonistic scene with cross-fertilised multiple art communities in a slightly guerilla style.

First time.

SUCCESS.

Tick.

Yes I'm used to facilitating such events, having done so with Late Night Choreographers many years ago and a number of smaller group shows which embody an underground community vibe of performance art and dance/theatre something splatterings of film and a little art. Why not some djs too?

Because community has been systematically destroyed by consumerism, capitalism and corporate greed and as we embody 'the society of spectacle' (Guy Debord) detaching from humanity these kinds of events become increasingly radicalised.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Society_of_the_Spectacle

So, this time the focus is POLITICAL.

Having just spent nearly 2 years living in Berlin recently (nearly 1 year back now) in which I watched a city in post-traumatic recovery from the fall of the Berlin wall 20 years ago preceded by a Stasi communist regime and master race ww2 puppeteering and now increasing gentrification in the form of hipster artist influx, hollywood celebrities buying up, capitalists in to exploit the former communists.. etc etc, eradication of turkish areas.. caused by.. i got thinking about NZ while I was away. Quite seriously.

Here's a video from the first event in Millionaire PM (named thus because Our current National Party PM is one of the 10 top earners in NZ - hence a Multi-Millionaire businessman) .. made by fellow NZ Berliner while I lived there now living in Sydney due to lack of jobs in NZ (we came back around the same time over a year ago) Mark Rickerby- aka Maetl... online writer, novelist, freestyle rapper.. which really sums up the conclusions I also came to about NZ and why it's so politically fucked up... while I was living in Berlin...

http://vimeo.com/29309489

Having run around like a chook with its head cut off for the entire day with at moments 5 people talking to me at once, leading up to the eve - nothing new for me - I am used to this kind of thing- underground dance at its finest.. having had the adminstrative help of 3rd dancer at Unitec Natalie Clark I was on my own to set up... we DID manage to pull this thing together with no money, 1 technician and the regular cliental showing up at 4pm to watch us stretch or install videos...

Breathing is my best friend.

With fine artists Addison Course, Francesca Gallo and James Wylie installing paintings related to politics (eco, emotion, politicians) on the bar walls -some great emails from politicians framed from James about what they see the role of the arts in nz being, spattered about also like menus on tables and video artists Brydee Rood and Karin Hofko showing up early to install work and videos.. some of which never happened, tv not turned on in shop next door, player not working.. and dancers/performers/djs/musos showing up in the change over between 'regular' Golden Dawn crowd and 'our tribe'.. I suddently felt the event shift from their space.. a bit of a scene, a bit corporate at times.. and thanks to Matthew Crawley and Kelly from the Golden Dawn who aided this event as I know they both enjoyed us changing the space.. and I WAS EXCITED.

Natalie Clark and I put on orange workmen's jackets provided by Mark Harvey from Auckland uni and I use caution tape to cordon off the outside space attaching it to cones...

I take up the microphone from its stand and Introduce MILLIONAIRE PM.

Intro from me.. 'so whose voting...?

Labour?

1 person, 1 person is voting labour. 2 people are voting labour.

Whose voting green?

ooh lots of people here proud to vote green.

Act?

What about... National? Don't be shy, there's no secrets here..

No one puts up their hands.

Curious. The tables where regulars sit become increasingly quiet.. realising what company is now in the space having introduced the show as 'MILLIONAIRE PRIME MINISTER'
and hearing 'I wish' from these tables.

What about Maori Party?

No its ponsonby.. not anymore. (I just think I don't say this)

So

let's get the show on the road..

It's hard to tell whose here for us and whose here for $10 Golden Dawn drinks..

I love it.

We hold up a screen like its a banner and project onto it a video of mine, naked banana eating, tampon popping, megaphone old video dancing in the back yard with projections of animals.. in a tiger suit, pig mask. I keep talking over the video. I tell the audience notice how the space divides once you get people to define themselves politically. To take a moment to 'notice', I use an ambiguous tone.

I invite anyone to come up and speak through the mic about anything political on their minds. I put the mic on the stand infront of my video and we wait. 5mins go by. No one speaks.

This is no surprise. I take the mic and once again draw attention to this. This is NZ. Shy.

When its over we remove the sheet and reveal 3rd unitec dancer and rapper Matthew Moore and his friends who acapella rap an awesome freestyle which cuts the space completely with sound so sharp. Voices so clear unaccompanied by music. If people didn't know what was happening, they do now...

They command the space, its electric.

We then, Natalie and I bring the sheet back and I ask stragglers to get out of the projection light.. please. We project up Mark Rickerby's video (above link) 'The End of the NZ dream'. Its 6mins, our arms get tired.. the 'screen' is wonky. This is all part of it, our 'accident'/'roadworks' construction site cordoned off with cones and tape is a 'work in progress', though this is a digital moment, our arms tiring as we hold the sheet up for a video is part of the show's overall concept. Watch us sweat. This is human-exploitation behind the machine.

I can feel again the space change, people reading and watching are very moved by Mark's video. Its beautiful, its apt.. it speaks to Nzers.

We have a voice. We have understanding.

Once again, a p.l.u.g. http://vimeo.com/29309489

The video thanks me at the end. Thanks are mutual Mark.

Then its Karin Hofko.. she's brilliant. German artist studying at Elam art school. She is a natural comedian. Dry. Low key entrance. She's wearing a poncho, black rider boots pants tucked into it, a beanie with NZ on it, she puts a top hat over the beanie to look 'classy' like this space. She improvises through the microphone, referencing my own attempt at audience interaction consciously failed- no one in this crowd, bar, country wants to come up and be part of our show. She is setting herself up to fail the same way. It is funny.

She presents about 4-5 'characters' with facebook profiles which the audience is invited to be for a weekend.. to sign up to be.. there, then. No one moves. We have a corporate business woman scorpio- favourite book 'the power of success' who doesn't like long hair on either men or women. We have various strange profiles.. are they real people? Has she made them up? Each is detailed.. hilarious. Finally someone comes up to sign up as a guy. One of the profiles to be is a tomato sauce bottle, another a 'troll' which she says is a friendly troll. I step in to 'take over' at this point to be 'a troll'.. by correcting her in a self-referential moment saying that trolls are the names for people online who try to take over and dominate a thread or online debate. I'm not sure if she's with me on that and maybe I'm being just being dick troll yep. Its borderline.

Yay, the power of success.

Lots of slippage.

Fun times.

A friend whispers to me 'Did you make the video (by Mark/maetl)? Its brilliant writing. Really succinct and accurate and clear'. Yes, I will tell him. He's not here. Thanks Anna.

Then we move spaces... to a cordoned off coned space in the corner.. to watch Briar March's film 'Michael and his Dragon' - about a post-traumatic stress Iraq vet.. a student film she made while studying in America, which won a student film award at a festival I attended in Berlin- at Potsdam. Its very earnest and moving. There are technical glitches.. The video is not screening. I let Dean Roberts the technician sort it out.. Its a bar, people are happy to drink and chat.. I am ready for this anarchy.. it works. I just explain who Briar March is to the audience while we wait and that she made a full length doco 'Once there was an Island' about a sinking island in the pacific which is the result of climate change. Anna corrects me that the ocean is rising not that the island is sinking. I relay this info. Thanks again Anna.

The video is much clearer on the white wall than expected, the film is powerful and short. Then to unitec 3rd year student Jessie McCall's dance about superficial NZ politics. I am warming up behind the cabaret stage about to perform so I miss it. Matthew Crawley tells me Dean needs me, something else is wrong. The internet is down. Jessie's John Key (PM) video is online due to her arriving quite late (students being overworked syndrome), we can't get internet, its out. I try several times.. no success. The performers ask for it in mid dance, we tell them its not happnening.. so we switch to the track, they keep performing. Lots of wooping and cheering, its fun and I presume people are enjoying it. I am backstage warming up.

Then Brydee Rood's video in her Trash dancer series of someone dancing with trash or trash bins.. from a recent residency in Berlin. Also inside the bar itself we have set up me doing the same thing- my style - dancing 3mins to dubstep in sleet/snow in Berlin when I was there with trash on my head, next to someone's rubbish bins- with taxis and kids watching me.. on loop. I'm more crump. Dave's style is butoh.. there are framing issues, Brydee is not happy. Everyone is happier with the loop of me in the bar.. I agree - glad time was taken to set this up.

Then Mike Holland and I- our sound starts.. we enter in t-shirts and shorts with towels slung over our shoulders.. through the cabaret curtains, space still caution taped.. and lay down our towels, one pink one blue onto the concrete. Its cheesy electro.. we are talking over the top on the sound recording, about money. A conversation about poverty, about ponzi schemes, about derivatives, about greed, about power and money and exploitation and banks, about our system failing its people, about the rich wanting to thin the herd, about them profiting from the misery of the poor who are ignorant, in debt. Swan lake music, its a man woman intimate duet, 2 tracks play through to completion over it. Then a track 'The captain' by The Knife, its a sad song to complete.

To begin we oil each other up with sesame oil, we rub it into each others legs, arms, then we do very precarious, dangerous contact improvisation.. on concrete, with oil on our skin. Its structured improv. People laugh, its intimate and intense, its sexual, its struggle, its tense, I am lifting him climbing right over my shoulders to birth between my legs. He's twice my size. I lie on him face down, its awkward, we are like creatures, yoga sex for two, its awkward as hell. Its dangerous as hell. I fall from his shoulders and he catches my oily leg and i dangle. He nearly sits on my head. We each take turns speaking through the mic about an injury we have and how to politically contextualise this. I talk of my hip, he oils my hip, under my shorts.. he talks about his sterum fracture, his heart. I oil under his shirt his heart beating fast.

We twist, and lift, and fall, and squirm around each other, finding ledges and spaces and momentum always connected, we touch and oil each others faces, pouring down the face kinda gross, just a little.. we rub our faces all over each other... like we're pashing or necking.. down onto our bodies... onto the ground. Squash. We pull each other up and down. I talk about the oil in my eyes, how I can barely see through a film of oil, how its sometimes impossible to see the things closest to us. I refuse to state the obvious. I'm squinting through oil, this is all improvised. Then we finally massage each others limbs and face and heads.. connected at the pelvis.. its intense and tense, solid and fluid, in the moment, we trust each other, and its funny. We struggle to find space between or around each other.. as we exit back the way we came. Its tender and loving, caring.. the conversation recorded attempts to find something positive to grasp onto. About community, about non-compliance with system. About looking about our and each other's bodies. Its ridiculous and its earnest. We leave. We come back and bow.

Then Gem Indigo starts to set up as the rappers freestyle again. This is my favourite moment, he is an eccentric older man with tattoos of flowers on his face, a massive sign with his name GEM INDIGO.. on it behind these young white rappers saying 'fuck National'... He introduces himself and does a spiel barely anyone can hear about how polluted the rivers are, how overpopulated we are etc and how his eco-friendly conscious punk is going to help raise the vibrations for us (Kelly from GD tells me this later as I can't hear any of this)> he then sets up 6 pedals and plays psychedelic guitar for 40mins until I ask him to stop. It makes some people leave and others laugh. He is brilliant. Moppy sets up, plays a kick arse electro set as always... people dance and rock out. There's some confusion over djs.

Finally djs Caroline Ward and Tobi play awesome dancehall tracks about poverty and money and I fucking love this shit. I have the best dance in ages with mates in a space that no one ever dances in on a thursday night especially. What a relief.

The night descends into the usual drinking partying hedonistic vibe as various people tell me how much they enjoyed the event, how rare and special such an event is. Deimos calls me a superhero. Lol. Do superheroes live on the dole? Thanks Deimos, that's real sweet you super man.

And indeed it is. In a climate of capitalism, in the arts, the business of the arts, encouraging people to continually sell themselves and their culture within a climate of hedonism and consumerism.. to charge $5 for artists from a variety of art forms.. having fun with political ideas.. getting very serious and so on... connecting artists from also round the world... over causes passionate to them, it feels like the power of success to me.

Even in its failures, in its pitfalls.. in the tech fuck ups, and hey yeah maybe I do need more support, like always..... where IS extra that support? Of course I forget things, like the line up on a menu board, introducing works or the artists in the rest of the space- whose work I hope people did look at.

The line up is bigger next time... will it go ahead? DO I have the energy for it? Will I have more help?

BUT

Just doing it.. just making it happen. People feel connected, it subverts this mainstream space. The people chatting and ooing during mike and my performance, made to think by Mark's video.. may go home and wonder, what was that about? Why was I asked about my voting options? It may make a difference, it may not... its an experiment. Matthew Crawley is happy, Kelly is moved by Mike and I. People love Karin, the videos.. the rappers.

But its also my old hood...and I enjoy bringing back old school community artsy ponsonby vibes..

Just for its own sake. If nothing else ; apparently there is also a NZ political posters exhibition around the corner at Artstation (old Outreach where I learned how to draw/paint as a kid), there are protests happening down Queen st on the night of All blacks vs France... not everyone cares about Rugby. I think to mention rugby at the start, but I don't. I save it. All that exists in ode is 2 NZ flags flanking our cabaret stage.. left over from a work I made on mixed Ability company Touch Compass which are spray painted on 'Injury to one is injury to all'.

Thanks for all those who came .. the audience once again makes up the community, I am interested in cross-fertilising communities, the leaking into mainstream, relational art etc.. and them chipping in makes it all the more rich and fertile, funny and fun. The politics of fun times.

And yes I've applied for Creative Communities funding for the pre-elections nove Mill PM. And I'd like to do a very special shout out to Sean Curham who has pretty much at times single handedly been my support, sponsoring me at this time with free rehearsal space knowing I have no money, helping keep my practice alive when there is no other support there because what I do is largely 'too radical' for the conservative arts administration of NZ, and yet we shall see. Sean is a community superhero.

I say to Georgie I'm dancing with the next day as part of Anna Bate's brilliant show- 'I don't know why I've been in major poverty for the past 2 years from Berlin'.. perhaps to open my eyes really bout this world to channel some stuff..? 'and why why why.. do i keep getting directed back to NZ?' She says to me 'Lol, Auckland needs you Alexa.' And yes Europe has its own probs.

Thanks Sweetheart.

My mate Kelly says the show is "PUNK"> fuck yeah. In the best way baby. Dean Roberts the technician says that only a handful of people really 'get' what I'm doing, that it needs to be intellectualised as cleverly fun and subversive and reminds him of events he was part of in Europe, not NZ.

Thanks Community.

Even though I've had some bad experiences with community in the last decade and felt exploited by it in moments, there is nothing like rising above, believing in and keeping empowered. Tall poppy syndrome doesn't wash, there IS a thriving body of open minded people in NZ and in NZ dance.

We are not separate.

Peace community.

Manifesto

This blog was created as a form of freedom of expression and thought in response to the current New Zealand (Aotearoa) reviewing climate. I've been creating choreography influenced by performance art and hybrid/interdisciplinary work/thought/experience which often weds political with somatic, high with popular, layering ideas and art forms in supposedly 'anarchistic' and 'radical' ways for over 10 years in NZ and lived in Berlin for nearly 2 years til 2010. I also make video work and write: also hybrid thought waves and forms which tend to go beyond institutions and reach to community, to individual performance selves, to teaching, to international research and engagement from a NZ perspective. I'm interested in experimentation in all art forms, this writing outlet enables to me to engage dynamically online in my own way which reaches beyond the confines of community and reach the murky stars of anarchistic dialogue with international performance thought and practice- so as not to get trapped in, whilst still being informed by, a small isolated country like NZ. Viva la Revolution, Ich liebe Freiheit, Aroha Aotearoa.

"Rainbow Warrior": Love Me: Live Series Final: Notes: 2011

LOVE ME

So and so everyone. An utterance, a gesture, She's taken the mic having crawled to it, having fallen through perspex, she's body painted with a bright 70s looking rainbow, her face is half painted black like a warrior. Rainbow Warrior. Half face painted black the reference is open. She's rotated to each side of the room like a ballet figurine in a jewelery box behind perspex held up by 2 friends acting as body guards, completing a slowed down tai chi routine to each wall- side of the box- like a preserved colonised-colonising, hyper-sexualised relic behind a museum case- while 2 other friends in wetsuits toss objects at the perspex, a helmet, bandages, plastic, jeans, a book on dreams, another on Being Pakeha, nothing is extraneous. Wetsuits? Why?

Rainbow Warrior.

A NZ- Greenpeace boat bombed by French Spies in the mid 1980s during anti-nuclear testing protest in which someone was killed.

History.

Love Me.

I remember the Rainbow Warrior moored half sunken for years as a child beside the draw bridge down by the Central Auckland viaduct harbour now where multi-million dollar apartments and a boat city reside, as my mother drove me to swimming lessons at the Tepid Baths. I couldn't work out as a 10 year old why my parents' friend, my best ballet friend's father, was the lawyer for the 2 French spies- often referred to in NZ as terrorists at that time. Why is he defending them? I would ask. 'Someone has to' was the reply. 'He is the top of the top and they don't stand a chance'. And NZ is still ostracised by particularly the U.S.A for its anti-nuclear stance but as a child I am proud.

Love Me.

So they climbed in wetsuits beneath the boat and planted a bomb. And their punishment was ? Exiled on an island. No prison.

WE are already exiled on an island.

Pacific Island.

And so there she is, naked rainbow warrior- dance terrorist.. the bodypaint only covers the front so when the backside is revealed she is white, red hair.. like so many classical paintings- the nude. Then they climb through and they massage her body, the 2 friends in wetsuits, they feed her banana (evolution ref yep) and put on red lacey underpants and dress her in a silver skirt and gold sequined top bought from the Turkish markets for cheap in Berlin last year for a night out clubbing and finally a kahki green military shoulder pack- as she completes the tai chi configuration to the sound of aeroplanes lifting and landing and sci-fi screetches blurbling... she is unscathed and the eye of the storm. Pedastal, ambiguous, protected? Preserved? Pampered? Revered- hated? Is this seriouso or do I laugh- its ridiculous right? There's spaghetti stuck to the bottom of my feet from a piece earlier in the show.

Rainbow Warrior. I have a vivid memory of how sad it was to see the peace boat half sunken – green boat- with white dove holding an olive branch in its beak on the stern. Little rainbow too.

I and she falls on her face through the barrier, the small piece of perspex left after it has accidentally snapped on opening night without one performer flinching.. flicking inches from her face. What's up with the sad vibe? Why are people so serious about nudity? I have a rainbow painted on me!

Snap. She asks for the red light to be put on by the lighting technician and points to it at the back, and for the music to be turned up as well as the mic. She has total control and has broken an illusion of a performance. Or has she? Not one person really knows whether this is part of the performance or an accident, not even the technician. For her its a double up....

So everyone............. she says.

Garble garble garble. Words nothing nothing, something blah blah... through the mic. Looking into eyes who say to her.. 'um'. The eyes read to her like 'are you taking the piss out of us?' or 'its a bit scary for this just naked woman to be even staring into our eyes and talking non-sensically through a mic, so what are you up to exactly?'... This is most fun right here this moment.

Then mic down dubstep really loud... I she the beast does a backwards roll into screaming and dancing. Urban nightmare, dubstep primal ryhthm dark grounding and powerful- club night out? Yep I dance like this out too- and people also freak -minus the screaming. Give me space people.

Now in the studio- this section was always transformative for me because the moment you start moving your precious body around and dancing and also sounding – however you want to – improv styles.. dancing to rhythmic music and voicing gutterally a range of sounds which come out of months of explorations – 'what is this thing?' basically finding and moving through a variety of emotional states and images through history of humanity sometimes accompanied with movements to match or not- you actually transform your state into a trance. Its impossible not to... and woah- where did hours go and what IS THIS? Still.

How it reads is actually pretty insignificant really. This was always going to be the case because in every rehearsal what comes out is unique to that moment which is nothing new but what it even is is always a big question mark.

Is it even cathartic? Not really, given that much of my work has often been labelled 'cathartic' or 'expressive', 'aggressive', 'radical', 'anarchist', 'messy', 'chaotic', 'dense', 'loud', 'expressionist' etc you get the point..

Maybe to some, especially in NZ and also in Germany where I was recently living- Berlin- which is in the grips of minimalist control 'quiet' – 'i'm dancing on the inside (of my brain)' sort of vibe.. both of which are countries with an incredible amount of repression and cultural tension- culturally socially, sexually... passive aggressive cultures with layers of guilt- colonisation in NZ, obvious fascism in Germany... and so this kind of exploration just freaks some people right out.

This to me is funny. Perhaps I am sadistic? Yeah yeah playful trickster, also nothing new. Shaman. Blah blah.. whatevs. How many times can someone call me a witch or a dangerous woman?

It was never my intention to look traumatised or to be cathartic but to simply explore voice, sound as an extention of body expression and I guess I just have a great deal of energy trapped inside that wants to come out. :D As Chris Jannides says in one of my support letters I have my own kind of 'virtuosity' going on.

Naturally come performance more subtle explorations in the studio exploded out and uped the anti.. to something more grotesque and extreme. Perhaps it was always extreme... only I was there in the studio to know.. to feel what those layers shed were to get to the public arena with it.

Yes the point is that Love is inexpressible in words and it has all the shades of the rainbow and more. It is not easy or simple, it is dense and complex and it can be ugly and painful as well as light and fun and sexy and fun and gorgeous and absolutely uncontrollable.. Love is wild. It is gentle inside the play. Who dares come near it? What do we even know of it really? Power and vulnerability exposed, nothing left to hide. Shattering even in the grace. Most powerful moment. And some people can't stand this I know. That's totally fine and I include that. I acknowledge that.

When you really push an art form you lose people and you really gain people. Its a balance. Some people get heaps of pingers I get to experiment.

Yep yep yep... I had to use words to explain myself here which is the opposite of the point. But hey. Its just more explorations.. right? Can I 'get it right'?

I've been asked to produce a short work (15mins- though i snuck up to 16 of course being maximalist) for a Live Series for a sponsored 'Producing project' for new and emerging producers to explore ways to produce... and so as a 10 year experienced experimental choreographer (self producer) returned to NZ from Berlin not so long ago – whose work (despite winning multiple awards etc) tends to fall out of the safe zone for arts administration to fund on the whole- had an idea and wanted to make it without producing it myself. Here I am in the Love Me show for the Live Series- the final after Taste me and Hear Me. Keeping up the practice and deepening investigations, still part of community upcoming. A strategic move for my career? Lol. Lol. You decide.

I don't know what other people's experiences or understandings of Love ARE- but mine is not relegated to romantic or sexual love. This work is about humanity for me, its about consicousness and its about awareness, its about where the fuck are we going humans? What have we come from? Do we even know what love is or how to handle it? Naturally I am generalising humanity which is instantly flawed and ridiculous but actually I am interested in speaking across bridges. Naturally. Attempts, offerings actually. Call it naïve or bold. Arrogant.. you name it. Sweet bix.

Struggle and freedom and privilege and change and gratitude. Go hand in hand.

Compassion. The buddhists say this is the highest form of love.

'Love Me' -although I am a fucking messy crazed, power mongering, foolish, suicidal, terrifying, wimpering, controlling, ridiculous, FRIGGIN HILARIOUS (like who are we fooling here?) actually pretty loveable and entertaining being.. inherently capable of power without power over.

Powerfool>Powerfull.

If you can't love without taking all into account, your love is shallow. Says she. Its not love ownership.

I am crossing the divide- I am wanting a genuine exchange here.. which is uncomfortable- between audience and performer. I am not dictating what you should feel or think. This is up for discussion.

Ok- so I pretend to have sex and I stumble around looking fully traumatised (which i guess i largely am in this oversaturated pretty insensitive and competitive world when I tend to give a lot and earn very little money which this world says is a priority while selling shallow and fabricated notions of what love is to us as consumers) and i pretend to give birth out of having sex.. my function as a woman, warrior and everyone is laughing at me. The trauma is obviously funny. Its 'over the top'. But is it really?

How inaccurate is it for daily living in even the most boring places on this planet? HOW ARE YOU FEELING AT THIS POINT IN HISTORY? Fear is sold to us and we pay for it. Drama is our programming and our entertainment.

Doesn't everyone want to scream and laugh and woop and shout and roll around like a freak, and bark and fold in uncanny ways and shake and cry, and vomit and wretch and curl and twirl and laugh again... and celebrate being alive? With humour and no shame. Without holding back and being small as not to upset others or some prescribed psychic social power balance?
Blah, she says with respect and love. This is Freud's unconscious naturally, being what we 'repress' and unconsciously 'desire' to be functional in the adult symbolic world. ETC.

And people say afterwards that they feel the whole space transform when the voice starts up. It cuts through the imaginary space... the 4th wall... dancers- 'don't yell'! They don't generally even speak. Nice objectified fetish bodies for eyes to enjoy.

But hey the voice is part of the body, the body is part of the mind, the body is heart and soul and thoughts and feelings and the barrier and interface between inside and outside... communication.

The work is about communication. Lacan. Mr Frenchy psychoanalysis pants. She pants. Give me a french kiss.

Its the pre-symbolic stage.

Kiss.

I hate psychoanalysis. Its fully sexist. And so useful. Thanks Lacan. Mark says afterwards in the panel discussion that Lacan says that we can never really love that we only project our desire onto the other. Interesting. Very unholistic academic theory but yep that's in there too coz this is the way the western world largely is indoctrinated to think. And I'm no saint or preacher, I just as an artist am making art and being human.

So yay, writhing around radical feminist again- crazy friggin incarnated nutface goddess from wherever- paganistic ritualistic release in your face. 2011 galatos love me. Live Series. Auckland. Last 2 days of August. Rugby world cup just round the corner.

Yup. 'Going off'.

'Whose with me?'

Inexpressible... I jump on the stage in red lighting – maybe gonna do something different? Nup- same shiz.... she's now framed on the stage gutteral and kinda mocking dance and our control of the body and women and all that... our voice- can't be heard, language is more of a barrier than perspex – the false divide- to being understood and loved... can love/ in all its shades- transcend words?

Can it Lacan?

Am I sexy? Am I desirable?

Irigaray would say yes. Our lips speak as one. Vaginal references here. French feminist philosophy.

I search the audience, they look a bit more invigorated than last time i looked at them. Curious. They I. Entertained rather than traumatised by hurling objects that could bounce off perspex and hit them.

I choose the right guy, someone I know will be up for it. An actor friend or dancer, its Edward... then next night Mike, someone I collaborate with.. can work with. I had planned people I might choose. Yes its a MAN. It HAS TO BE. (I'm NOT a lesbian right?)

I sit in his lap... he's sweet with it. Looks slightly startled – both of them say both nights 'how are you going?'... I say ' oh fine'. Reminds me of when I'm living in Berlin and with pleasantries like 'how are you?' they all say bemusedly 'I'm fine'. Like who cares? Its so English.

:D

No one can hear, its just between me and them and the one next to them.. both nights a woman. 'You up for some yelling?' I say.. having tested this out – in rehearsal... I'd done some more gibberish at them and it hadn't worked to get them up.. but still interested in – what is communicating- can body language alone work?

No. Not in this case. Failed first night, cool. He says after wards that he was 'star struck' by me.. he can't get up and just stares at me. Cute! He didn't come up til i handed him the mic to burble in and people clapped.

Second night I grabbed Mike's hand and dragged him onto the stage and started yelling so he followed suit... he screams through them mic and pulls up my skirt and yells through the mic 'damn you!' More cheering from the crowd, esp the break dancer boy crew sitting up the 'front' (there's no front in this dance I face the back a lot) who at first were shaking their heads at him laughing at me naked apparently- like 'don't laugh at the naked woman'.

LOL>

Anyway moving on. Token audience participation moment after having already done a full solo work exploring audience interaction earlier in the year. I grab the mic back ask for someone to sing me a song and then just sing one myself out of time over dubstep. Leonard Cohen “I'm your man”. I yell 'where's my fucking man?' afterwards.. (Gotta be my own man yep- though once again could have lesbian interpretation- along with the rainbow pride on my body)

I turn away and sing 'Ain't no sunshine'... which trails into (and i turnaround) 'Turnaround... every now and then I get a little bit lonely and you're never coming round... '..

So now those who really didn't know what I was up to who sat with their arms folded and asking each other if this was still the same piece ('the lights go out when its over' said one)– finally can relax into laughter because- ok she's joking. We get it now..

But am I?

Sitting hunched on the floor I whisper 'And i need you now to tonight, and I need you more than ever. If you only hold me tight, we'll be holding on forever ..' (yep I'm single)

The track cuts out

'And we'll only be making it right'... audience laughter. Is it funny? Like a clown, I feel real serious.

I stand and smile. The music shifts to soft loving new age filmic sounding music... stolen.

'Now I'd like to invite my friends to translate for me into Japanese and German.' I say.. and arms up presenting 'Georgie and Karin'... So enter 2 of my gorgeous and ridiculously dressed (80s) friends who take the mic and huddle to translate what I am saying. I walk to and crawl up onto the stage under a spot light.

Very earnest moment. But also not something ever done in NZ culture except perhaps on a marae or in a therapy group because we do not like to express emotions publicly unless through movies.

I explain a list of how 'I feel'.. translated into japanese and german ... over music.

I feel

My body
Is all I have
I feel
Expectations &
Eyes looking at me
I can feel
My brain in my skull
I can feel the words vibrating in my throat as they come out (i touch my body in these places)
I can feel my heart beating behind my boob (no laughter damn, failed joke- or did they not hear me?)
I can feel the light blasting down on me, the darkness.. (gesturing with hands)

I climb off the stage and walk forward

I feel
Hungry (giggles)
I feel like chicken tonight (laughter always- ref to KFC ad)
The roof protecting us from the weather (they think I'm serious at this point.. maybe)
I feel understanding (eyeballing and gesturing one side of the room- very serious)
and misunderstanding (same- other side- super serious)
I feel Connection
and I feel
Disconnection (are they taking it personally?)
I feel
The love (is she sarcastic?)
I feel
Fear
and I can feel sadness..

I turn to face the back and scream 'I can feel the laughter!' and turn to smile at the audience a big cheesy grin. Usually laughter.
Repeat scream- 'I can feel the earth MOVE!' gesturing earthquake slightly. Laughter.

I can feel the change!

I climb back onto the stage.

I can feel (turn so people can hear) the suspension!

I pause one arm forward one arm behind like suspended in a desert storm holding it for as long as i feel a NZ audience will wait. In Berlin minimalism is commonplace so a whole dance of this would be fine, but 10secs is too long here good– so I then turn very slowly (oh and there's laughter- they get 'suspension'... followed by a stillness too long not facing them). Suspense. Second night I hold it way too long.

I want the piece to hit them in this moment, to 'sink in'.. manipulating the power of chaos – followed by silence. Slowly turning energy transferred from one hand to the other to pause exactly the same but facing them. I then slowly wave 'ciao'- which means hallo and goodbye in Italian (explained by an Italian friend in Berlin that it originated from the slaves- who were always at service so never really saying goodbye)... also bit like HALLO... and bye.. and composing and surfiing...feeling the earth 'move' and 'wtf?' is she doing again.... suspension... gestures irrelevant really... slow.. anyway. What is the body language as awkward as verbal language? Back to controlled and slowed- is she joking or serious? Backing out into the darkness... The translators who have at moments moved closer to hear.. both watching. .. I pull my hand – also a gesture referencing the end of the tai chi routine – hand up like HI.. BYE... i walk down the stairs at the back of the stage into the dark. Transcendence/descendence. I've done enough.

Sinking... Disappearing.

Translators are left on the stage staring at an empty stage.

Finale. Applause. Reappear for group bow. End of show.

And what's all that about?

Who can say.

How many languages does it take to be heard? If heard are you understood even? Just because you intend something- the interpreter can take it another way.

Why translate into the languages of the 2 WW2 aggressors through my amazing artist friends, both also very strong gorgeous females?

All a conicidence perhaps?

Why not into FRENCH?

France and England fought to colonise NZ- aside from French spies.

English.

'Universal language'... so I was told living Europe. Transcending difference. So I'm told.

:)

Where do I come from? Who am I and where am I going?

White girl born in Aotearoa.. I belong here. Mostly Irish in blood – English colonised me too. That's why we moved here.

I make ART. Real art which discomforts and uproots and questions and teases, and at moments pleases, just enough. 'Honesty in NZ is a no no' says a journalist in an interview.

It creates SPACE. I am not pandering and told I 'don't compromise' as if this is a prerequisite for being an artist in today's world and current funding system. That I 'don't play the game'. I do. I play the art game.

I am told there is space inside this work and yet is it very dense with possibility.

Afterward it seems to appeal to academics and general public alike and no one can articulate why.

Brilliant.

The panel fumbles to speak of it. How do we utter about something inexpressible in words? Something addressing this fact in Love.

What is real love? In our disconnection and misunderstanding we draw closer to what is slipping. We are drawn to know it, to find it. To sometime to control it? We cannot bind it or know it. We can never know ourselves says Lacan, Unless Enlightened says Buddha.

We are speechless and blind to love. We let it sit wrecked as a reminder on the harbour by a draw bridge for children to see... the passion of heart for the love of it. Our ocean. Our world, our people. We defend what? We devolve and when we evolve we are told we are mad and the growing pains- meet resistance. When we try to cross the bridge. To speak hurts unspeakable.. to heal past wrongs. In cultures, to empower ourselves to be truthful even if this gets us nowhere. It evolves our souls and affects those who cross our path.

The unutterable slips through and we feel moved and we don't know why. The intention is heart.

Wake up. Rise up. From the deep.

Hallo. Goodbye. Hallo. We are slaves. To a love we cannot handle.

The birthday suit is still a shockwave. The heart of our longing. Unearths and as much as we attempt to speak of it, address it .. it folds away and hides inside the next movement and sheds and births into something new. And when we face it and are there for it... like the Rainbow Warrior – defending the very basics of it.... an elephant in the room like the panel unable to speak directly about the work afterward in an open discussion..

we bomb it and we criticise and wreck and sink it. We sing heartbroken songs in ode to our own loss of it...

We project ourselves onto the openness of it.. the liberation, the ambiguity...

Are we still loveable?

Yes.

That is compassion. It has a great sense of humour, its not all so very serious really... let's move past all that!

Come passion.

Express and search yourself.... deep in the ocean of evolution.

Love me/you.

Rainbow Warrior. Arising in the collective consciousness... let it go. Honour it.

Humanity on the brink of truly embracing itself in its entirety, no more hiding or denial or power trips.

Peace and freedom fighter.

It is a dance which is a speech.

And even in me uttering these lines, it is more.. because it is a feeling only those rooms of people can share and know. The culture of that room on those eves, what is 'mind blowing' to a friend's sociologist friend? I can never know. I don't know what he experienced... but thankyou!!!!!!!!!!!!

They felt what I felt and I will never know what that is.

I can only feel what I feel. But I feel.

I can see reflections of myself all around, in the perspex, in mammoth shadows of my naked body on the wall, in video projections of the live feed through the perspex into the top corner of the room. IN the eyes of the audience member i randomly see. They see themselves in me?

Someone afterwards says its funny, they laughed all the way through, someone else says so heartfelt and beautiful, its more simple, no its very dense, no one got it? describing words. Someone cried. I see shock in their eyes. I am a 'dakini'- female buddhas wild and fiery. I am deconstructing language and communication. Its brilliant.

What am I doing? Loving myself through experimentation and searching ...

A priceless investigation.

I feel exhausted like dying for a week. I don't even know what it is this thing... that's the beauty.

How many people can say they blew someone's mind?

Adrenalin slave.

The slave is the master.

No roles are fixed in this shifting world.... get used to it humans. Bananas.

'I can feel the change'. However few are there, its into the ether.

The solo is never alone. It has friends and support and is not a solo. We deserve love and support and all is exchange.

All is an artifice and yet has some luscious unfathomable truth lurking.

Vulnerability is power and growth and potential.

It keeps you in the moment, no artificial barriers to hide behind. Move me. Arising and sinking and so on....

I'm moving out............. from inside.

I Share.

I dare.

To move further...... toward and away. Ciao.

Photos of W.O.R.K frm a HE.ART> it came to HERarTalk

Relational Art
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Relational Art (or relationalism[1]) is defined by Nicolas Bourriaud, co-founder and former co-director of Paris art gallery Palais de Tokyo as "a set of artistic practices which take as their theoretical and practical point of departure the whole of human relations and their social context, rather than an independent and private space."[2] Artworks are judged based upon the inter-human relations which they represent, produce or prompt.[3]
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[edit] Origin of the term

One of the first attempts to analyze and categorize art from the 1990s[4], the idea of Relational Art[5] was developed by Nicolas Bourriaud in 1998 in his book Esthétique relationnelle (Relational Aesthetics).[6] The term was first used in 1996, in the catalogue for the exhibition Traffic, curated by Bourriaud at CAPC musée d'Art contemporain de Bordeaux.[7] Traffic included artists that Bourriaud would continue to mention throughout the 1990s, such as Liam Gillick, Rirkrit Tiravanija, Philippe Parreno, Pierre Huyghe, Carsten Höller, Christine Hill, Vanessa Beecroft, Maurizio Cattelan and Jorge Pardo.[8]

[edit] Relational Aesthetics

Bourriaud wishes to approach art in a way that ceases "to take shelter behind Sixties art history" [9], and instead seeks to offer different criteria by which to analyse the often opaque and open-ended works of art of the 1990s. To achieve this, Bourriaud imports the language of the 1990s internet boom, using terminology such as user-friendliness, interactivity and DIY (do-it-yourself).[10] In his 2002 book Postproduction: Culture as Screenplay: How Art Reprograms the World, Bourriaud describes Relational Aesthetics as a book addressing works that take as their point of departure the changing mental space opened by the internet.[11]

[edit] Relational Art

Bourriaud explores this notion of relational aesthetics through examples of what he calls Relational Art. According to Bourriaud, Relational Art encompasses "a set of artistic practices which take as their theoretical and practical point of departure the whole of human relations and their social context, rather than an independent and private space." [12]

The artwork creates a social environment in which people come together to participate in a shared activity. Bourriaud claims "the role of artworks is no longer to form imaginary and utopian realities, but to actually be ways of living and models of action within the existing real, whatever scale chosen by the artist." [13]

In Relational Art, the audience is envisaged as a community. Rather than the artwork being an encounter between a viewer and an object, relational art produces intersubjective encounters. Through these encounters, meaning is elaborated collectively, rather than in the space of individual consumption [14].

Artists included by Bourriaud under the rubric of Relational Aesthetics include: Rirkrit Tiravanija, Philippe Parreno, Carsten Höller, Henry Bond, Douglas Gordon and Pierre Huyghe.[15]

[edit] Critical reception

I love

sudden temperature drop:

all's up in the air (swirling).. ready to fall, like leaves like tears n cracks in the (fall of the) berlin wall, steely little snow ball crawl.. a slow spread drawl, weathering some snow ball calling.. we are all free falling, some type of facade/decade/wall (unfurling)... we can't see u snarling. darling.

i want to write to you and say. . HOPE YOU ARE OK. TAKING CARE OF YOURSELF. and that. Love you. and that.

blank. fire.

CREATE ME. don't PLACATE me. YOU CAN'T STOP ME. lightning thunder laughter roll...

its the day of murder, e/very day... spreads this way like a virus. a dog howls its sound vibration hitting my sensory station and shits in my street. someone breaks glass at my feet. still in my sheets.. forces are pressing meat. hands are sweating. there's bats and crows and swans and snows and foxes and rats.. in this heat. snap cold freeze. me out. i'm out.

this city is mad and glad to be bad. a michael jackson sad. love it. and that.

frozen tear fallen in my break dance heart: not dance broken start. bang.

pop.

polar. hop.

adopt a free lizard.. slide slither come hither dither and open triangle feed into my head.

sky opens. heart. collective begging..

stealing. nothing.

nothing sacred, nothing left to take. you are a sacred steak.

stake through the heart.

eyes fall back.

lizard dream. dog yowl switched on like radio team.

i know you can see and love. and live above.

the shove.

god i love.

Respect. Mandate. Berlin Summer 2009.

Video art is the new poetry and autumn is the new spring and language is an old bridge.. and no one knows what's going on but they walk anyway. Down lanes of lines, out of time. I want to respect you and me and everyone I know and don't know anyway. Because I can. I peer in my mind into a hole where they burnt books that anyone can and does just walk over and history spun on an axis so far here so far away, I have a lot to learn. So I turn. Another page, another summer burning. And realise I don't need to rhyme or make up time, I can fall and keep falling and get up again. Crawling. And some people care, and some don't. I care. It's my spiritual dare.

So you stare.

We walk between walls real or imagined in the dead zone and wonder, will I be shot? Will a dog eat me? Will I crush this dog with my bike or be crushed by a car and end up in a coma or with a broken collar bone? Where am I hiding or running to or from? .. A repressive regime inside me, inside all of us? S/he asks as s/he kisses.

And I press down on my bike with my palm and lean onto it and fall backwards over it and hit my head on a pole. Because I can. And I plan. A better day, a better way. But I take the ticket anyway.

My teacher asks me 'How do you find this graffiti?' (in german as an exercise) and I respond (in german as an exercise) 'I find it interesting. Berlin is one big painting.' She agrees. Let's paint on the skin of dawn, let's transform the dawn. Before it turns too dark.

'Memory is fragile, garbage lasts forever' says the choreographer's website. In hindsite, my hindskin peels off and I cower from the wind and I scream. Maybe. 'I'm pushing up daisies'. All is degraded and memory can be plastic, brittle spittle. But I'll spin for the record, let you spin me right round baby on this upside down Earth, spin shit and spin out.. like a clown with a frown. But I won't turn you down. Not really. Really really. I'm open out minded, and money goes around.. and around and around and around. Inside eyes. In the wars, open doors. . Plant this plant for your grandma and grandpa. There are scars on their hearts. There's a scar in this city, like a severed left and right brain hemisphere... which side am I on?

You're in 'die Totezone'.. oh of course I am. You have no such place. She stands against a building smoking a cigarette with a Turkish wedding dress on as they walk by and stare. A guy comes up to her and spray paints on the wall to her left 'He', on her torso and wedding dress an Anarchy 'A' and 'rt' on the wall to her right. He stands back and takes a photo of her/it. She looks at him for a moment and bursts into tears. He doesn't know what to do.. he looks around in a panic. He then goes to her and tries to comfort her (yes good idea). She violently pushes him away... again he panics... Suddenly it cuts to them swinging off the arms of a nude sculpture in the park of a Greek statue. They're like children again, laughing and playing.

In the sky a plane pulling a sign says 'I respect you and me anyway.'

It's not a command, those days and nights are long gone... like this scar of a wall in the heart of this city. A memory fading. Something in a book. Don't give me that look. Yes I know nothing, I'm naive and a sook. But fucken give it up bitches and bastards.. you know you wanna hook.

Not/e to self> in transit. Zen anarchist check list: indescribable feelings 20,000 ft above that have no place.

Be still and unsilent. Write your own manifesto in the air. Think of it as a sparkler burning you as a reminder. Climb over the bodies to find which is yours. Duet with the insect you are on your body in a dance style of your choice. Explore other bodies for different sensations. Just fall or fall down. Just hang out. Never order a latte. Go to the right bonfire. Burn whatever questions you have in the scars of your own reasoning. Come to terms with your own crooked smile and unsymmetrical face. Hope that the quizzes are never right. Make up new games. Weather the criticism. Dance if there's no other solution. Never underestimate prejudice. Denial is a loyal friend. 'Wherever you're going, settle in and enjoy your journey'. Make music sometime when you remember. Spray paint whatever inane or insane scribes onto the bodies of your locomotives and animals, be they toys or whatever. Miss everyone and no one. Skim along the piercing of body and sky that meets to find resolution on any matter. You will never know who you are. Romance the stone because you care for it. Rocks have good memories and will help you out one day. Its blood is a measure for how far humanity has got. Know that you're never still. Listen to your elders and breath. Depart from the past. Be as shallow as you like to find your depth. Don't run when you find love. Start the chapter again. 'They gave you a heart,' explore it. Embrace failure. Be as lonely as you can. Look into eyes as much as possible. Eat lots of burnt toast. Creep yourself out sometimes. Be positive. Be realistic. Imagine. Re-write and re-write. Talk and talk. Love the core of darkness. Loop the track in attack. Be a love bomb. Even if it takes no effect. Don't starve yourself. Let your wounds and injuries heal. If they don't, let it be. Change in any moment. Investigate a career in stand up comedy. Then let it go. Fuck with whatever takes your fancy if you have the chance, but out of compassion. If you're trapped, remember, it will end when you're ready. Scream in pleasure and pain. Hold hands. Take a loaded gun to the system. Dart through the bullet holes of truth. Know they can't ever catch you really. Don't know what you're doing. Hope for the best. Prepare for the worst. Scope all possibilities. Choose and stick to your guns. Don't be a flake unless you're truly fucked. It'll bite you on the ass one day. Exhaustion is a meditation. Carve up the dance floor in your heart. All experience is a luxury. But you don't have to like it. Find something or someone to care about.

More soon.. next sky

The Golden Rulz: 2006

Seven golden ninjas stand trial for crimes against themselves. They perform a dance for ‘the jury’ which represents, yep, paradox. It is their defence, in their masked parading of ultimate visibility and glory in secret assassination for truth.

“Addiction to adrenalin means you feel dead inside” says the judge.

“I object your honour” says one of them “I refuse, as object, as trash, to be subject to this disposal”

“Unless your proposal is coherent” replies the judge “you will not get a hearing, do not mock us with your constant absurdities. Justify your actions”

“The story goes like this…” says one of them and they dance, all seven of them together, in canon, dance 101, in lanes of golden trophies, sideways from right to left across the stage. As they perform brisk, articulate, fluid and unfeasible movements, whose transitions are so fast it seems as if they are performing magic tricks, illusions, where you cannot tell how they get from one momentary placement to the next. As they present cohesive agility before judge, defense, prosecution and jury they knock the lines of trophies into each others lanes, corroding the boundaries between each others mock ‘race’, sending plastic trophies of men and women with their arms in the air, as if in surrender, spinning in all directions across the floor. When the last is completing this dance in a spinning linger another re-enters with a large sheet of perspex and gathers all the trophies together with this transparent flimsy wall and pushes them all off the front of the stage in a cresendo of rejections. The sound of them clattering to the floor below is followed by another entering saying ‘and this memory replaces another’ and pushing the perspex pusher off the stage also, who then rebounds off a trampoline and flies in slow motion over the heads of the first and second row of the audience to land in the conveniently vacant third row.

They clamber embarrassedly back over two rows of audience to stand on the trampoline shouting abuse at the now naked dancer on stage performing wildly angular and virtuosically spastic movements, who then jumps off the stage onto the trampoline and the two leap in succession reaching up to a suspended great white shark lit with pink light, with a muffled amplified voice repeating ‘they are transcending, they are transcending.”

Fade to black please.

Silence.

There is a voice in the darkness.

It says “The story goes like this…

This is the dance you are invited to imagine. It is independent of authority. No one owns this dance as no one owns this moment. It has no mentors, it has no teachers, it has no critics or fastidious judges, it has no abusers, it has no victims, it has no counts, it has no music, it has only witnesses, and they are silent. However, it cannot be seen either, and has never been seen before. Ever. It is an entirely wild creation which bares no resemblance to anything. You cannot even catagorise it as original and certainly not as innovative. It is inconceivable. It has no rights and no purpose and is not desirable yet it sheds light on much. It is passionate yet it does not try. It is given a towel to soak up the perspiration of its calamitous truth. It probes, it provokes, it eludes, it evades. It questions, it answers, it revers, it changes its mind yet holds a thin and exposed line of total steadfastness. And it says “Fucken good on you, you shine and don’t let anyone bring yer down to their level sweetness and light. Think of them as mosquitoes rather than vampires and you be right. Mate.”

There is then a duet between a naked man and a bug. The bug totters about on the man’s body, questioning the structure and form of his inner most thoughts, whilst getting deeply lost in the thick of his body hair. There is no violence, no violence at all.

“Objection your honour” a female voice sings out in such a vibrant song that her words are almost indistinguishable as a language. “This is mere masturbation… and that is no crime at all.”

“It is self defeating, self sabotaging, self consuming, self mutilating, self obsessive and possessive” says a golden ninja, stepping into a purple side light, as prosecutor. “It does not appeal to anyone, or even to itself, it merely marvels in delight at its own shedding. And there is NO SHEDDING here. It does not market itself. Therefore it has defeated its own purpose, proved itself ineffectual, and has committed a terrible crime. We cannot condone such liberty, such anarchy.”

“I have a secret” confesses another golden ninja “it is hidden in the rain, the subtlety of its gestures, an intricacy veiled within an obviousness. A suggestion of something so bare, so awakening. It has no fame, it has no glory. Why do you then hunt it and haunt it and tease it by not knowing and yet plundering it? You are so obtuse, you are sickeningly judging. You have so little empathy and think no one knows of your earthquakes. Well I do, I feel them deep inside me. They hurt, you know. But what can we do, but feel them and remain strong in the face of such wrath.”

“What the hell is going on here?” yells out a bemused audience member within a brief silent pause.

“You tell us!” sing the entire cast and court together “Give us our next task, what do YOU want to experience next because we are at a loss”

“NO! I want to know what all this is about, it is gibberish and I don’t think you even know what you are really doing, or saying!”

Silence.

“Well, do you?”

“Yes, of course we do, but we are quite happy to incorporate your tantrum into our show. What is it, dear friend, that you so wish to be seeing and hearing, then?” asks the judge.

“I want to see sense, I see no sense here, and within the chaos of my life and our world I want this art to make sense” states the audience person.

“There is plenty of sense here, the senses are quite heightened to sensation.
Touch the person next to you, asking them first and without pinching them to see whether they are you and you are in a dream. Why don’t you pleasure yourself infact, or another and just enjoy your mysteries instead of trying to shatter ours and fighting the unknown with your deadening and dire need for clarification” replies the judge.

“So you do claim authority?!”

“Of course we do, and we also invite you to join us if you want to, come up here on stage and be part of our mystery, our unsolved crimes of the art, come on now.”

And s/he did. Ran away with the circus. Practised some juggling on the side of the stage for a bit, played with some fire. Tried some bad comedy routines. Then immediately became further incriminated in the acts also.

And this is how it began. We would be facetious to say this as a truism.

How many routine isms can we make in one sitting, one hearing, one screaming, one dancing, one one one.

So then, when this s/he finally got somewhere with their own act and we all waited for them patiently for many years to get good, they too dressed as a golden ninja, came into the light as a mock audition and tried to humorously describe to the court what the word that doesn’t exist for something that remains whole yet moves in opposite directions, without being schizophrenic, is perhaps a term in physics or philosophy and not a duality or a paradox, and like time moved, was. It was all very intriguing. The gestures, the words, the intention, the ernestness, all employed in this one attempt was absolutely engrossing. There was no irony here.

“Well this still doesn’t explain or justify the crimes committed here with any clarity” the judge responded shortly after a standing ovation. Perhaps the judge was jealous. As this absolute indecipherable twoddle, the antithesis to high entertainment, was receiving such good audience applause. That must be so infuriating. Such is life. Unstoppable, insatiable.
No matter how much a thing or a one tries to squash it.