Viewers,
Some refections on
this past performance.
-DBL
* * * * *
Reflections
on Performance Art as Self-Transformation
I
want to keep this thought brief because of other deadlines and because any
further thought will require the need for isms and ists, which I at times don’t
have the stomach for. Yes these
things are required to be properly descriptive, but like I hope to express,
sometimes definitions restrict thought, which restricts understanding and
action.
I
do hope to be clear as much as I hope to release these thoughts that I have
been experiencing at this moment.
If
I would allow my definition of what I do be said with my own thoughts I would
say I don’t consider myself a Performer or a Dancer. I may perform and I may dance but titles such as these, in
my minds eye, present a certain definition and restrict understanding. We all
dance and to some extent we all perform, this I do believe.
My
approach to my performance work is much like the approach one might take with a
ritual to cause change, i.e. an Initiation Ritual, or moving slightly away from
the sacred, a traumatic episode in ones life that enables a change of
course. I see now that this is one
of the reasons I try to stay away from a fully choreographed movement piece. Within every performance work I have done
there have always been variables that are known and variables that will be
known once the work has been completed.
These problems could only be solved within the piece. These variables are technical variables
and also personal restructuring variables. I have been criticized before for not having all my answers
ready at will, but this is my art, myself, my growth. That is not to say I am not structured in my approach. If the viewer sees the beauty in the
answers I am delight. My hope is
that they find beauty in my voyage.
I mustn’t ask for much from my viewer though. We all have our bias and our limits. I say this in human terms not in
fabricated IQ terms. You cant see
what I am thinking just as I cant feel what you are feeling, but that is where
the delight lies, in the quest to understand.
Some
of these concepts I am speaking of ironically are hard to speak of. I feel that there are something’s in
this world that are unspeakable.
Just like we can try to describe a flavor but the only real way to know
is to taste it. This I think
occurs with understanding and creating.
At times I feel things can only occur with in a piece with the right variables
that can not be explain, but do have a profound effect on me and my understanding.
This
last performance piece, “a Sentient Approach, a Cybernetic Reproach” I do feel
changed me profoundly. It is
strange to see a concept develop a tangent to reemerge years later thinking it
had long been forgotten seeing that it was still developing subdermally. This is one of those things I have
trouble explaining. I think the
human mind has the capacity to process information in ways that are not as
linear as we wish it would be, that’s not to say it can’t be as helpful in the
same regards.
There
seems to be a checklist somewhere stored in my mind. Periodically I realize something that I have just
accomplished has been on that checklist and has now been fulfilled. Sometimes without knowing I had put it
there long ago. This is how I feel
about this piece.
One
thing I would like to note. For a
few years now I have started to factor in a variable in the performances that
would physically linger after. I
have chosen henna. I enjoy the
aesthetical addition to the bodywork and the lasting reminder of the
transformation, be it permanently or a temporary transformation. It is for me only but depending on
where it is located it becomes something I have to deal with outside of myself,
which further propels the transformation.
There
is one more thing I would like to divulge; the performance high I get after the
piece is completed and the coming down I have after. The high is very interesting, I feel more present but at the
same time apart. The following day
I feel very irritable and moody.
It’s a strange occurrence that I know I have to be ready for. Especially now that the work becomes
more charged emotionally and conceptually.
Well
I should leave it at that.
We all use belief
to stand on, be careful what you might be standing on.