Running Blind: The Tucson Border-Crossing Diaries
Day 10/Pt. 1: Saturday, August 11, 2007
Space, Time and Motion
Our final performance for the public will take place in two separate
sites, in the MOCA itself and also across the street where the administrative
offices share space with a cluster of artists' studios in an industrial
warehouse. Most of us organized into groups of two, three and four
performance squads. But most of us also have solo performances to
do after our collaborative ones are done.
We held our final Zapatista-style break out session today. All
during the workshop, these sessions have given us a way to unload
our minds with the many issues, ideas and contradictions that pile
up by the end of our days. What’s worked really well is the
way of converting the group’s feedback into a piece of collaborative
writing that's read back to everyone. It’s one more way of
doing a little mass creativity La Pocha style. The results have
been polemic, poetic and sometimes incomprehensible. Example:
Towards the end nothing…then there’s something
Probably…
No eraser marks
You turn your head, not being able to see it
Really smart, cyber-insects getting
Dispersed from the body like some other exercises…
After our Zapatista sessions we start getting ready for the show.
This means practicing our moves, rehearsing transitions, doing the
equipment checks and putting the final touches on our costumes and
makeup or for some, getting a little sleep.
The characteristics of the main performance site are rough and
industrial. The walls are made out of brick, and the studio walls
go about 7 feet high in a building with 15’ high ceilings.
It feels very open. Exposed lights and conduits hang from the wood
beamed ceiling. Cockroaches occasionally scuttle across the floor.
There are theatrical lights were installed to illuminate the performance
spaces as the sunlight fades. Lorena and I have ended up in a large
trapezoidal room with a DJ table and two 12’x12’x1’
platforms. Michelle is on one stage and Lorena and I are on the
other. After forty-five minutes, Lucy will replace Lorena and I,
freeing us to do our individual performances and Jorge and Lucy
will begin to interact with Michelle.
As people have sought out locations in the building, performance
universes have popped up all over the space. I have a good idea
of what a few of those universes will contain, but mostly I am clueless
about what the others are doing. Basically, our performance spaces
break up into two different categories: primary and liminal. The
primary spaces are large and centrally located. The liminal spaces
tend to be smaller in scale and at the margins and edges of adjoining
spaces. Therefore, our performance universes get determined to a
large degree by the spatial restrictions we encounter or choose
to deal with.
Time and mood will also be organized in a specific way. The first
hour will have slow, religious music playing. The second hour will
have music with a slightly quicker tempo. And the final hour will
have high-energy dance music. The timing of the music applies to
our movements as well. In the beginning, the idea is to add gravity
to our movements by slowing them down dramatically. As the performance
progresses to the last hour we’ll have a group jamming session
at full speed.
Anatomy of a Performance Universe
Michelle is sitting in a chair on the left stage, nude, leaning
slightly forward. She's amazing and powerful to behold. Her physical
presence doesn't require any props to capture the audience’s
gaze. Sitting alone like this,her image will anchor the entire room
and offer stillness as a counterpoint to our shifting images.
Lorena and I stand next to the other stage on the right. As the
cue to begin the performance goes out, we begin by slowly stepping
up on the stage together. She's wearing a pair of large red boxing
gloves and a red gown with a long black veil that covers her head.
I'm dressed in Pocha issue drag with black high heels, white mini-skirt,
torn black stockings, Starsky and Hutch sunglasses and a crown of
thorns made from clothes hangers. Jorge's drawn some pictures on
my arms of hearts, arrows and little animals.
Yesterday, Lorena and I worked out a three-part performance we
could loop together for one long continuous performance and tablueux
vivant. After playing around with some possibilities, we found a
series of images we could do borrowed from art history, boxing and
cabaret. As our performance starts, for the first time we're doing
these movements with intensely beautiful choral music playing in
the background. From my perspective, our performance universe has
become potentially much more sublime than before. I'm wondering
if the audience also feels the same.
Our introduction is a "slow-mo kung fu boxing scene".
We lock our gazes and in between punches, Lorena sharply pushes
me backwards into a rollup door right behind our stage. By raising
my right heel and throwing back my arms I can make loud crashing
noises against the metal. After a few minutes of that we turn into
a "Gen-X crucifixion" with Lorena as Mother Mary/Mary
Magdalene either mourning or worshipping at my feet. A socio-political
image flashes by when Lorena, wearing her veil like a nun, coolly,
and with a few quick gestures, wraps it around her face like a burka.
A few minutes later, I'm standing behind her, moving her limbs like
she's a sanctified boxing puppet, making her cross herself, throw
punches, scratch her head, raise her arms or clasp them together
in prayer.
At the midway point our performance becomes a "reverse-gender
Pieta" with Jesus Christ holding Mary in his arms. After 30
seconds I'm ready to let Lorena roll onto the floor for the next
scene but Michele Ceballos unexpectedly steps onto our stage to
intervene in our performance. I'm stuck. I have to wait. Our performance
universe won't allow Mother Mary to be dumped on the stage while
Michele's still on it. So, instead of going forward we get to represent
our Pieta image a couple more minutes. When Michele finally leaves
the stage, I can't just drop Lorena right away so I wait several
beats and then let her go!
The last one of our images becomes a "penitent's confessional
cabaret". After rising from the stage, Lorena picks up a whip
and confronts the audience like Marlene Dietrich in the Blue Angel.
A few more minutes pass. Marlene returns to scourge Jesus with her
divine whip while our performance universe slowly comes to an end.
Unbelievably, we've been on the stage for almost forty-five minutes.
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