Performance Art 2

PERFORMANCE ART 2

I THINK THEYRE WEARING THEIR COUl RS UP THIS YEAR-

Comedy e Acting/Non -Acting by Scott Burton, Ruth Maleczech, Michael Smith, Elizabeth LeCompte, Laurie Anderson e L.A. Sounds e Rachel Rosenthal e Artist-as- Businessman o New Music, New York * Reviews $2.00 Downloaded from http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/pam.1979.0.2.1 by guest on 27 September 2021 A Periodical of Performing Arts Journal Publications

Publishers Bonnie Marranca CLOWNING AROUND 3 RACHEL ROSENTHAL 26 Gautam Dasgupta Tony Mascatello Executive Editor Bonnie Marranca Editor (Commedla and Sitcoms, Gleason and John Howell Duchamp, Body Sculpture and Pratfalls) Design ACTINGINON-ACTING 7 Gautam Dasgupta NEW MUSIC. NEW YORK 32 Scott Burton, Ruth Maleczech, Michael Smith, Staff Photographer Elizabeth LeCompte, Laurie Anderson Johan Elbers B6r6nice Reynaud L.A. LOOKS AT SOUND 19 - 1979 by Performance Art Magazine. Performance Art Magazine is published four times a year by Per- forming Arts Journal Inc. Editorial and business of- Clair Wolfe fice: P.O. Box 858; Peter Stuyvesant Station; New York; N.Y. 10009. Tel.: (212) 260-7586. Unsolicited manuscripts must be accompanied by self- addressed stamped envelope. Subscription rates 4 per year: Individuals-$7.50; Libraries and InstItu- ARGUMENT 22 REVIEWS 37 tions-$12.00; Foreign, including Canada, add $3.00 Artist as Businessman per year for postage. Request for permission to COVER DESIGN: Michael Smith reprint any material in Performance Art Magazine Anthony McCall and Photos: Kevin Noble must be made in writing to the publishers. Andrew Wyndall Advertising rates will be sent on request.

Downloaded from http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/pam.1979.0.2.1 by guest on 27 September 2021 eCL'N6' AROUND Tony Mascatello

GlOSson and Duchamp,

(Ceommedia and Sitcoms, 4 8.4 Sculpture and Pratfalls)

It is clear enough by now that comedy of the clowning). And it will be well to keep in mind most vulgar kind asserts itself at the center of that clowning remains what it has always the art community as a prominent concern of been, an antidote to reason, a fertilizing white performance art. What is perhaps unclear is magic. why such diverse artists as Julia Heyward, Michael Smith, Ralston Farina, Robin Then one considers Winters, Jean Dupuy, Laurie Anderson, and the beginnings of art performance many others not only perform comic material, in the minds of turn-of-the-century but also employ comic forms and personae for painters. Art performers collage events-this is an extension of the transmission of non-comic material. As painters having incor- performance art gropes for an independent porated bits of the real world into their can- vases. When existence apart from theatre, one sees that the Picasso placed a real object within a painting, clown has been among the first on the scene, he witnessed the coming of Surrealism. enjoying the chaos attendant upon the birth When Duchamp shaved a comet into his scalp, of something new, and filling in the gaps with the painter's very body was in- characteristic gestures. PANTALONE corporated as material, comic material in fact. Process art transformed verbs into To begin with, it will be useful to distinguish nouns. The performer seemed bound to between verbal and physical comedy (wit and become a puppet.

Downloaded from http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/pam.1979.0.2.1 by guest on 27 September 2021 THE HONEYMOONERS-

Art performers looking beyond props confront thenselves on stage popular media; his lineage extends back through the commedia and are puzzled. If not an actor reading lines, then what? A painter dell'arte to the Etruscan Atellanae and the Greek satyr plays where or sculptor to begin with, but now? On stage, even if only as his own theatre is born of sophisticated fertility rites. Priapus is the pro- stage hand, the performer is forced to acknowledge his own presence. totypical clown. Dionysus was the popular god. It is rare to find a trained actor doing art performance (which is not to say that one does not find similar issues being explored within the Faced with the problem of stage identity, of persona, many art per- theatre). formers, referring to the popular media, seem to have adopted the The art performer has been a painter upon a stage, manipulating his comic mask. Chaplin reinvented commedia for our time. Cinema was event. A persona is sought, a way for the non-actor to act on stage. new, chaotic, improvisational, and vulgar. According to Chaplin, The stand-up comedian, the pop singer, deejay, emcee, the magician "nothing transcends the personality." The repertory gestures are have all been influential. And since the painter, like Chaplin's Tramp unified in it; the hobbled walk, the trouser hitch, shrug, cane twirl called upon for words at the end of Modern Times, is at a loss for and flex, the image of his silhouette, all describe the same faun-like them, physical gags and slapstick forms assert themselves, and words little man. Chaplin did not invent the mask of the tramp, however. become sounds. Ralston Farina is a magician without tricks, obsessed He was born to elevate this vaudeville character to the heights once with timing. Julia Heyward and Laurie Anderson explore the notion reached by the great Harlequins who were revered by the kings and of speech as sound. Gilbert and George stand there sculpturally. literati of their time. His personality is the lifeblood of those silent Michael Smith deadpans. The art performer's sources include the gestures which the world has recognized as art.

Downloaded from http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/pam.1979.0.2.1 by guest on 27 September 2021 THE SECOND HONEYMOON

Television was a kind of new, proletarian repetition until they reveal themselves as un- banter and gags, is history. Improvisation cinema. In its formative years, it thrived on changing objects, not events. They are placed was the rule, and highly prized as part of the the work of superlative clowns. From Milton within the simple plot to be deliciously an- performer's technique. Difficulties in transi- Berle through Sid Caesar to Jackie Gleason, ticipated like the drop in a roller coaster. tion were filled with specialized bits of clowning yielded to sit-com. In Gleason, physical comedy (lazzi) which every per- finally, there coexists a brilliant clown The terms "mask" and "role" are inter- former held in repertory, and with which he alongside a merely tolerable (because of text) changeable in the commedia. And the mask or she was often associated. These gags (body sit-com actor. This split accounts for the deri- was in more ways than one a physical thing. art) were eagerly anticipated by every star's sion in which both he and Jerry Lewis are The face piece and make up, the actor's fans who, it seems, watched as well as listened often held. Because it is Gleason's repertory typical postures, his bearing, the shape of the to their idols. The nobility sustained the com- gestures that have all the power, the varia- body, were all aspects of the mask, unified by media as art. tions on the slow burn are what we anticipate the personality of the performer who iden- with delight. In the explosion of his pent up tified with the role. The clowns of the com- I recall waiting time and again for Gleason to fury his absurd persona becomes incandes- media often played a single role for life, rarely explode at Art Carney's provocation. I yearned cent, his growl delightful, his gesture more than two. That the masks were mythic, to see again the exquisite timing, the com- sculptural. These meaningful moments are and the plots simple paths along which the ing together of performer and his mythic im- set pieces, gaining power from continual great ones walked sustaining themselves with age. I watched the limited repertory go by

Downloaded from http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/pam.1979.0.2.1 by guest on 27 September 2021 dozens of times, and came to see not only Kramden's gestures as objects, but his relationships as well. They are so simple, his wife and his best friend, both of whom provoke his anger and his love to excess. In either case, Ralph becomes part of a mythic pair. Like Stan and Ollie, Ed and Ralph are fixed in the relationship of the slow burn. They do not change; they never change. And they are physically a traditional sculptural unit, Fat & Skinny doing Punch & Judy. All the classic commedia masks were performed with pup- pets, despite the stress on physical prowess for the stage roles. The comedian's profile, his image, was re-stated by Chaplin, Keaton, THE CHAPLIN REVIEW and Arbuckle in the improvisational welter of early cinema. Not only their persons, but their gestures and events were sculptural, both in concept and in their physicality as film. HARLEQUIN The comic form is a short form, perfect for i-> an actor. By new beginnings, thriving on improvisation. If virtue of his being on the stage as the center of attention, he seems art performers working in this mode succeed defined as such. The difference is in the performer's role in the long term, will they be creating art or as author. He is forced to act, but within his comedy? Or a new hybrid form? It is notable own non-theatrical construction he may act as that art performers do not always go for the he chooses. And so the non-actor moves laugh with comic forms. This helps to main- himself through the work, a tain demarcation between the performance kind of divine event and the play. The art performer, like puppet, manipulating his own strings. Only the painter, may have a positive manifesto on the personality clears the fence in this case by his mind, yet the work has a life of its own providing a means whereby the gestures become characteristic which has nothing to do with writing. Of and acquire meaning. course theatre also may deal in images to the exclusion of words, but a difference is evi- dent. Despite art performance's having Tony Mascatello acts up sprung from plastic arts, the art performer is in New York City.

Downloaded from http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/pam.1979.0.2.1 by guest on 27 September 2021 ACTING / NON-ACTING

SCOTT BURTON Do you think of your "Behavior Tableaux" Until recently, most New York perform- performances as a theatre-performance anee was thoroughly anti-th-atr , 'Ur hybrid? motives ranging from ideology to igno- Ten years ago it was fantastic that, as raneo. But almost a work overnight, performance of art, art could be a live event. But within a activity has shifted from coafessional and couple of years, that in itself was no longer formal geetmess to theatrical entertain- enough. I think one began to be bored when ments. Such a quick and quixotic change - the time element was not manipulated. Back ots some basic Issues up for grabs (narra- then, it tive, was just fascinating that an event autobiography, materiais, staging) could be plastic art, not theatre. Not ani to be axed several performerdlrectors to Greenbergian ... but after a while people comment on one of the most significant had to face up to the inherent nature of the and elusive topics - aetintglnn-actiug. medium which is keeping people's attention occupied through "X" number of minutes. So I found myself very conscious of how I would have to direct time.

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Downloaded from http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/pam.1979.0.2.1 by guest on 27 September 2021 Does that mean you adopted a dramatic you're one person. Artists' performance is important. I try to make them look similar structure? an integrated form, not a schizophrenic one. but not identical. Not so different that you One person is responsible for everything. get involved with personalities, but not so Not dramatic in my case, because it's just one similar that they're like robots. It's not about thing then the next thing. I wouldn't want it How does that work when you include other a we're-all-machines idea. to be dramatic. You know that Merce Cun- performers? ningham said "Climax is for those people Then what makes it performance art instead It was a breakthrough for me. I used the peo- who like New Year's Eve." of theatre, given your terms? ple like models. Like my furniture, the So you think performance can be theatrical behavior tableaux are pseudo-sculpture. I'm working on a new piece that's very in- without being dramatic? When I work with the models, I just touch volved in costume and narrative, which is as their bodies and push them around. theatrical as I can get. In the behavior The nature of the performance medium is in- tableaux, the people are treated herently theatrical, even if it's not the theatre in some ways as automata which must link me with of writers, directors, and designers, which is Concrete gesture and De Chirico and the whole surrealist thing about such a schizophrenic product, usually a mannequins. In pseudo-collaborative effort. In my earliest meaning are the same thing. a way, I use performers like dolls. performances, I used myself conceptually, but when I started using other people, I Are a lot of their poses conceptualized What happens in a rehearsal? became aware of being a pseudo-director of a beforehand? The performers are very carefully rehearsed. pseudo-theatre. My early performances were I get an image in my head, then I try it on They have counts, moves, and cues-what very intellectual gestures ... them. Then I re-arrange, alter, edit, and try they call blocking in theatre. From their point I've been sort of stage-struck all my life. I was to clarify. But it's not schematic. I try to of view, it's task-oriented, but from the au- very close to going into the real theatre at one make the setting and costumes look like they dience point of view it's not. The audience point but the people in real theatre have don't exist. I try to be on the edge. It's very sees an image or a representation or a re- mediocre minds. My mother took my to the carefully planned but it should look like it's enaction, but the performers are trained to Alabama State Fair where I saw Gypsy Rose just that way. The tableaux are secretly com- do it as a task. Lee, and I remember these strip tableaux as pletely theatrical, but I try to make it look Is it difficult to keep out what you would making deep impressions which have pro- sort of real. The costumes, for example, are consider extraneous material? foundly influenced my performance format. carefully edited street clothes. Very hard. They can't be too good and they Why did you begin to use other people in Do you get images from the people you select can't be too awkward. If they're not really in your pieces? as performers, as well as from your own im- their own bodies and stumble around, their age bank? I think because I loved the theatre and movement is not invisible and it is distract- wanted to imitate it. I wanted to deal with I always use tall, slender men. For one thing, ing. If they're trained performers, especially elements of costume, lighting and sets, as their limbs carry well at the great distance dancers, I just have to sit on them to keep well as directing, but in a very Walter Mitty that I use. That linear clarity is the main their gestures where I want them. The best way. That's the only way you can when thing. Also, the uniformity of look is very performer I ever had was a musician who

Downloaded from http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/pam.1979.0.2.1 by guest on 27 September 2021 was a performer, but not an actor or dancer. How do you feel about that quality in the He had stage presence and consciousness, but current wave of entertainment performance? I don't believe in the artist it was his own, it wasn't a persona. The turnaround time was so short. Perform- as his or her own subject ance used to be lying in the gutter on 14th So you're really muffling any projections. matter. Street, now it's Saturday Night Live. The old They can't really project except through attitude toward the audience was indifference/ to use women before I began to work with gesture because I have so removed them. You aggressive, and it wore itself out very quick- behavior content, but there's something per- can't tell it, but I use a whitening make-up on ly. So it seems natural to swing the other sonal and projective about that kind of the eyebrows and the lips to erase the face way. And, the examples of people like material. which my 50 to 75 feet viewing distance does Foreman and Wilson, Yvonne Rainer and too. So the only projection is through supple Merce Cunningham, the great theatre perfor- There's a sub-text to what's shown? movement. mance artists, had a great influence on this No, concrete gesture and meaning are the theatrical kind of art performance. Also, a Do you think of it as dance-related? same thing. I work to make sure I've gotten lot of conceptual performance turned into the essential gesture that is as clear as it can I'm not involved with dance. I want to stay body art and nothing is more boring. It was be to the audience. I don't want mystery, I away from that because my work would suf- important when Acconci first did it, but it want them to understand the form of gestural fer greatly by comparison. I don't want my degenerated into what I call the I-do-this- and spatial communication that goes on be- performances to be dancerly. you-do-that school. tween us all the time. There's no sub-text Do you try to teach or develop a perfor- There are some performance precedents for because that's a narrative concept. In the mance attitude as to the particular tasks? theatrical works, Fluxus, for example. These behavior tableaux what I want people to events were built on whimsical timing. become aware of is the emotional nature of No. There's no self-expression. the number of inches between them, or how Do you think the audience reads expression When I first saw Ralston Farina, I thought he a person uses an arm as a barrier to com- from their actions? was Fluxus reborn. I never saw Fluxus, but he munication. I want to be didactic and ex- seemed like that spirit. He was an early refer- planatory but there's all kinds of other con- What is to the performer a task, the audience rant to theatre, but amateur theatre, like the tent which creeps in that I don't care to go in- sees as a representation of an action, an kid next door who was a magician. The to. I don't want to think about the avoidance or an approach in a gesture or a original performer, the primary figure for psychological content. display. everyone from Warhol to Acconci, is Jack Smith. So you try to keep yourself out of it while And you don't want the performers relating you're in it? to that? How do you choose your performers, and do I don't believe in the artist as his or her own you project on them? What the audience sees is not a task but, subject matter. First-person performance can ideally, my representation of an action. It's There is some self projection but I'm not real- be good but I don't think it's that great. I've pictorial rather than literal. I want the per- ly aware of it. When I changed the figure done performances about the self but I con- formers to just do the specific job. from a woman to a man, it all came out. I used sider them very minor. I'm not a personal ar-

Downloaded from http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/pam.1979.0.2.1 by guest on 27 September 2021 tist, I don't believe in the validity of that displays, what one would call art poses, not you've just said. It implies the adoption of a stance. for plastic but behavior reasons. I don't part other than my part. But I also think that You prefer to be objective, almost know who gets how much of that how often, a theatrical performer is more compelled to mechanical. but that's the way I think about it. search in areas that a performance art performer would rather avoid. That is to say, It's very cut and dry, almost schematic, but those areas which are sometimes embarrass- it's schizophrenic because I know the au- ing-psychology, emotion, feelings-and dience gets this other stuff from it. hard to deal with. It's easier to pretend that Then, unlike "schizophrenic" collaborative they are not material and therefore not to theatre, performance art is schizophrenic RUTH MALECZECH deal with them and make a process perfor- solitary theatre. But, you know there's more mance. But I don't like to define performance personal content than you've let on. and performance art because I don't think there's any difference in a way. It depends on I know there's a certain homosexual content the depth to which you're willing to go to which I do not put in. But somehow it comes find out what's in a performance. Most per- out. The actors never do anything sexual. formance artists content themselves with The audience may see something like that but much less in-depth looking, maybe because it's not there. it's not as much fun. I think performance art Do you think gay or straight people look is more fun. harder for that? What about those once-popular perform- mances in which heavy psychological, per- Straight people see it more. But I can't deal sonal material was offered in presentations with that, so I just ignore it. A long time ago I which were very naive by theatrical stan- did pieces with a homosexual content, and I'll dards? do that again in a new piece which features a series of sexual self-presentations. But there's NaivWt is like a mask in performance art. It's no overt sexual content in the behavior an escape to be able to say I'm not really a tableaux. Group Behavior Tableaux is about performer. But it's true, you don't see that a stable peer group, then an unstable very much any more. Now you see quite peer group, then a hierarchy with one at the skilled performance art, equally skilled as As an actress, do you feel that when you per- top and four below, then a hierarchy with theatrical performances, and that's why it's form you pretend to be someone else mi a one below and four at the top. PairBehavior more interesting now because you can talk time different from the real time of the event? was about strangerliness, acquaintanceship, about it as a field, as an art. In a theatre of And is that a useful distinction between ac- intimacy, estrangement, alienation, aggres- the kind I work in, what happens in perform- ting and non-acting in performance? sion, and avoidance. Individual Behavior ance art is very important. If you're only Tableaux is about what is called aggressive I always call myself a performer because I dealing with emotionalism and psychology, displays, threat, appeasement, and sexual think the term actor or actress implies what you won't make very interesting theatre. It'll

Downloaded from http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/pam.1979.0.2.1 by guest on 27 September 2021 look like thirties theatre; it just isn't good ist with "my" personality, and neither of a lot to that world because it taught us things enough-it won't make art. So it's important those attitudes are completely true now. that kept us from being a regular theatre. what goes on in performance and in the art What other changes do you see? And theatre as you found it when you came some kind of me- world in general. There's to New York pushed you toward that kind of There are very sophisticated developments in dian line which has to be struck wherein the influence? theatrical performer is performing rhythms performance art, for example scripts and and dynamics and the subtleties of those relationships to language which didn't exist at It wasn't interesting to play parts in other things in the same way as she is dealing with all earlier. people's plays anymore. Also, it probably psychology, with words, and so on. The wasn't interesting for directors to do new in- Mabou Mines used to perform primarily in reason that area has been opened up to the terpretations of often-done plays either. galleries and museums, and I remember that new theatre is through performance art. Something else had to happen performance- the reactions you got from artists were praise wise, and a connection to the art world has affect theatre as you knew Did Happenings for the visual and plastic elements, and reser- changed not only our theatre but others as it? vations about the use of acting. well, and it's very easy to see which theatres Happenings presaged what's happening now, Exactly, and I think that's probably still true have been influenced and which have not. but they didn't really develop it. They were about our work, that idea that all of this stuff spectacle events geared for perceptual could be seen better without the presence of There are very sophisti- changes. But I think it starts with a post- all that feeling. cated developments in Judson time when Yvonne Rainer and people I don't know if it's so true now; those distinc- like that became involved in the idea of live performance art, for tions seem to be breaking down. What do performance as art. These gray areas that had you call a show like Jack Smith's recent ver- example scripts and been missing in the Happenings and that had sion of Ibsen's Ghosts? relationships to language been totally left out of the theatre began to emerge then. If you can somehow get a skilled It's really hard to figure out whether he is a which didn't exist at all theatrical performer to be able to think and performance artist or a theatrical performer. earlier. develop along the lines of performance art, I I always think of him as a brilliant theatrical It's not just due to performance art, but to think you end up with a better performance performer, I love his work, but I know he's Grotowski's idea that it was no longer than without that kind of exposure. I also not everybody's idea of theatre. The most in- necessary for the actor to realize the author's think a performance artist who has some teresting people are those you can't really intention when he wrote the part. Once that background in visual art or music is a better categorize. While allowing for the presence became clear, then a piece becomes the story performer than someone who is simply a of the internal workings and motivational of the lives of the performers. So the context standup talker. Where you cross-fed these structure of a performance, our company is is changing and within that changing ideas is where you get really good and in- always trying very hard to straddle that context, you see the life of the performer. We're not teresting work. And there's more and more vague line. For example, we don't perform really working with any material except of that happening all the time now. Not so much in museums any more, but almost ourselves. long ago the theatrical performer dealt with every piece we've done has had its first per- character and role, and the performance art- formance at Paula Cooper's Gallery. We owe If performance art has contributed to this big

Downloaded from http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/pam.1979.0.2.1 by guest on 27 September 2021 shift in theatre, what about the performance so unlike a theatrical performance there is because that's what she is already equipped art idea itself? nothing to draw it in, there is simply with. That's another skill that can be something being presented Performance art doesn't seem very radical to for the audience developed of course. me. to see and hear? That area which is and is not performance, and which is and is not acting Is that because it stands outside of art tradi- is the most confused and the most interesting tions? one right now. But isn't there a very long history of perform- What do you think is the essential difference MICHAEL SMITH ance in art history? between a performance artist and a performer? Yes, but I don't think that means performers know very much about it or care to. I think A performer is not on the outside of the piece most performers started out as painters or showing it. The nature of a performance is sculptors and were attracted to performance performing, and to do that you need an out- because the standards and expectations were side eye, someone who is looking at the per- up in the air. forming of a performance to see whether or not it matches the ideas of the performance. But I still think they're under the thumb of In other words, whether or not you can having to make art. translate an idea into a moment. I think that's true for those who still perform in galleries, and who make drawings, in- Do you think a lot of performance artists stallations, and video works as well. But I conceptualize pieces that they can't realize? think there is another kind of performer who And do you think they care to realize them? is only a performer, and who works outside When you're a performer, you're doing it the gallery system, usually in alternative with everything you can do it with-with spaces which include performance in their your body, your voice, your mind, your programs in a major way. sense of rhythm, anything you can draw How do you think about "Mike," this Some of the people with whom I work and from your past, and so on. There is a whole character you've created in performance, and myself are starting a studio to explore these other way to look at that which is to show an Michael Smith? Can you keep them apart, or kinds of questions, because I think we're all a idea the performer has, to make an in- do you try? little confused and very happily so. It's a teresting piece about how that person's mind good confusion because a lot of good work is works, how that voice talks, and to hear I'm probably more confused about it than going to result from it. What is it that makes what she has to say. Maybe the difference is most people who've seen my performances one narrative form not quite a theatrical per- gray, but they're not the same. A performance and who know me. That character moves formance? What element is it that allows an artist is more likely to perform her conceptual around much more slowly than I do, for ex- audience to be so objective, so passive, that is mental picture of what a performance can be ample. It definitely comes from me, what

Downloaded from http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/pam.1979.0.2.1 by guest on 27 September 2021 "Mike" does, but there's a difference. I feel think "Mike" is the character who allows me and then that becomes the performance, or very comfortable with the character. I have a to be very slow and demand a certain do you think of adventures for him to have? certain sort of affection for him, though not amount of attention. Also, I think most of I think in fragments really, and then put them when I'm playing him because I really my humor is visual, he doesn't say much. become "Mike" when I'm "Mike." together to get a story. But the story always When "Mike" disco-danced along with the comes last. I have such a hard time putting a There are some comedians who do Osmonds' tape In the Rec Room, is that story together that I thought a good solution characters, like Red Skelton or Lily Tomlin; something you do or something you thought would be to use the same story over and over then there are others who appear as enter- "Mike" would do and then learned? and do different things within it. tainment versions of themselves, like Rodney Were you ever in a real play? Dangerfield who presents "himself." Do you My interest in comedy feel closer to a comedian like Dangerfield? No. This movie I'm in is the first time I feel really comes from an like I'm acting. I was a painter, and I get a lot I feel closer to Dangerfield because I'm exag- interest in timing. of my ideas from the way I draw. I don't gerated, or rather in my mind I'm exag- know how to draw very well, but sometimes gerating, but I don't think it comes out that a drawing mistake will suggest something. way. Some people, like Jackie Gleason, That's something I've been thinking about for create caricatures, and my character isn't like years. When I first saw Donnie and Marie, I How have your performances changed as that. I think "Mike" is a sort of condition, was impressed with their incredible produc- you do more of them? and where he is is just an exaggeration of my, tion. I think they're insidious, but awful in an I've gotten better at dancing, at economizing, or somebody else's, way of being here. incredible way. The first time I saw them, and at getting things going. I'm very in- Donnie did three types of music: he was on you think about "Mike," do you have terested in polish, how to keep the show go- When ice skates, he was underwater in scuba gear, qualities or do things that you give to him, or ing. In my first routine, I was my own techni- then among some explosions, and there was a since he was such and cian and I incorporated a dialogue with the do you decide that little bit of country, a little rock and roll, all such a person he should do this action or talk tape machine, which I turned on and off, into this glitter, everything kept moving, and he the show. But now I don't think I need to be a a certain way? looked the same in everything. That's real technician. I think he came out of a play on words. blandness, and that's why I did that bit. Somehow I came up with this phrase: "the Are there things you would like to do in a When you think about timing, do you think performance that you feel you need to study blanded gentry." Then I started thinking about it as helping create that particular to do? about "Blandman." I wrote letters to a lot of character, or as a technique in itself? people asking them what they thought bland- After I learn how to do something to use it, I ness was. What I wanted was a script from The way the words come out, the don't develop it anymore. I learned juggling these people, hoping they would tell me what deliberateness, says a lot about "Mike." But and baton twirling, but just the basics, Blandman would do... also, I'm getting better at the delivery. enought to do them. Tap-dancing is the only There's a certain amount of skill involved. My interest in comedy really comes from an thing I've sort of stuck with, although I'm not interest in timing, that very slow delivery. I Does "Mike's" character create a situation very disciplined. I would like to learn some

Downloaded from http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/pam.1979.0.2.1 by guest on 27 September 2021 acrobatics. Spalding and I talked about doing a piece together, so it was a very natural evolution. What about things actors study? ELIZABETH Did you feel like you were learning about to take some voice lessons; I I think I want theatrical performance or "performance" per- But when LECOMPTE could learn a lot about projections. formance, or did you think about it like that? I learned how to juggle, I looked at the end of the book and saw a picture of this guy jug- In The Performance Group there's lots of gling a tennis racket, a garbage can, and a room to develop because there's no over- chain. I wanted to be able to do that, but I riding aesthetic, there's no one way of doing realized it would take a really long time. I anything, which allowed me to develop in a wanted to be able to go right into it at that way I wanted to. With Spalding, we have a level. very good combination of my interest in space and form and in the structure of a Would "Mike" ever do anything that you psychological performance, and in his in- didn't know how to do and so would have to terest in performing, in confessing, showing learn? himself. Also, I think Dionysus in 69 definite- I don't think so. ly bridged the gap between the theatre world and the art world. Structurally it was non- Do you want to make up other characters? linear, and it broke open a lot of ideas about Yes. There's this guy, somewhat along the theatre space. That piece should have been a lines of "Mike," but he's older, about forty- bridge, but I think the aspirations of the peo- five, his stomach is over his belly, he wears a ple who were involved were theatrically- thick white belt. This guy is a little more ac- oriented. The performers wanted to be great in tive, he initiates more action than "Mike." So actors but they had no sense of or interest concept. They far I've really only got the outfit in mind. the meaning of the piece, its And then there's my "Baby" character, it's wanted to be told what they were to do and who grotesque, he looks like a little ape. He wears How do you describe what you do as the to do it well; the director was the person a bonnet, a white diaper, and a t-shirt, and director of Spalding Gray's pieces? made that concept. In performance art, and and talks like a baby. He's four, and even in theatres like Mabou Mines, everyone he walks What I do is organize spaces and people and only has a one-word vocabulary: horsey. is interested in some way in the concept of make situations-really make worlds-and I the performance, not solely in their perfor- make them wherever I am. mance within the piece. I always felt that that Were you hired as a director? kind of performer had a much greater intellectual stake in the performance itself. I came in as an assistant director to Richard Schechner. I was a performer for a while to In performance art terms it's unusual to have explore the other side of what I liked. Then a director, someone who stands ouside a

Downloaded from http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/pam.1979.0.2.1 by guest on 27 September 2021 work and helps shape it. How do you direct a me. No, because his intention is totally removed performance made up of someone else's very from mine. His intention is to I know and I would try to stop with you show himself, personal material, material which seems advertise because I don't see any reason for going on in himself, and he trusts that I'll make beyond question or criticism? him beautiful the grand sense of the word but I can't help or intelligent or attractive in some I'm so involved with form I could put going on. For me it's a compulsion to make way to the audience. It's an act of faith. And it's anything into a structure. It has no personal order out of chaos, I've spent my life doing it, an act of faith on my part, that I meaning for me when, for example, Spalding and it doesn't have to do with personal trust that he is those things. hands over tapes of his grandmother talking. material. Somewhere I'm not trying to be And he never does anything in performance I'm totally involved in the form of it although understood, I'm not trying to communicate that you object to? I think that's a mask for the content for me. to an audience. I'm just trying to make some There The way I'm involved in the content is sort of pleasurable order that will make peo- are a couple of gestures he does that through the form and the one that I choose ple like me. sometimes rub me wrong, that just don't exposes some kind of content-but I don't satisfy my vision of him, and I'll try to stop What kind of things make a pleasurable know what it is until I've chosen the form. those. Sometimes he'll balk a little about order for you? that. So you don't judge the material or worry that That's impossible to explain, it's totally in- What about the other performers? such personal content might lead to a perform- tuitive. Usually they're the shlockie'st I have disagreements with other performers ance dead end? things-emotional, sentimental junk with no sometimes, but not very often because we're narrative, I don't because I don't have any stake in that. just moments. What I do then, all involved in an act of faith. I don't have to deal with it. since I am embarrassed by these moments, is to make performances with all of that emo- So as performance mechanic, you're immune (Spalding Gray walking through room): Last tion cut with what some people call cynicism, to issues like the controversy over the use of night I openly read from my diary to forty what other people might call coolness, just recorded tapes by people who didn't know people and told them exactly what was hap- because I don't want to show too much cheap they were being recorded, or who specifically pening in my life and waited for someone to sentiment. asked that a recording of them be played comfort me. That's what I think Sex and publicly? Death was about, simply recounting my life. Do your intentions ever clash with I also think I'm right at the edge of stopping Spalding's? No, not immune really. What Spalding performing. played with with the subject of his material is what I played with in that very controlled How does that affect the director? I'm so involved with form visual field, the "dangerousness" of the edges If Spalding stops, I just get somebody else as of the material. By "dangerousness," I mean a a performer. Not that I wouldn't want to I could put anything into a certain kind of soppy romanticism and convince him to keep going but I have to go structure. cloyingness about the illness of his mother. I on. walked that line all the time in the piece in the personal material and the decisions about (Spalding Gray): I want to see you stop with why and what form and how to use it.

Downloaded from http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/pam.1979.0.2.1 by guest on 27 September 2021 Is it hard to repeat personal performances? done has drawn on that-you could either use the filters you already have or, as I like to No, all performance is physical actions. As a do, use electronic ones. The first songs I did director, I can give the performers a physical like that were Songs for Telephones, half score where they can forget that any of the LAURIE ANDERSON normal voice and half through a telephone material is personal and see it just as a series filter, that voice of New York social life: "Hi, of actions that they must perform in front of how are you, we should really get together an audience. What I do is make a score that is sometime." Things people keep saying and in essence an abstraction. Now the solo that's the total sum of the conversation, just pieces are a little more difficult, but they still social jive talking that everybody does. I do have a very small and tight form. it all the time. Since I work a lot with tape, I Could you, imagine that Spalding would get used to hearing myself, and when I listen come with some material you would object to myself talking with other people during to? the day, I realize how many styles I actually have, and it's a lot. So the extent to which I It's hard to say because that's hypothetical, use any idea of acting is to use those different and the way we work is that he says forms of voices. something and I'm excited about it, and I say something and he's excited about it. When Also, acting sometimes meant, and probably that stops happening, then we'd be working does mean, acting out. in a normal collaboration. I know we don't I've been finding out a lot about acting just have a normal collaboration because we For years, most of my work would have argued a lot more. There's from moving. just standing around with my hands full something else going on, something sym- was latest piece I did biotic. of my violin. The [Ameri- cans on the Move, see PAM 1. 11 considered a breakthrough because I was able to move my arm. I had a lot of gestures I wanted to put in 1 15 You don't call what you do in your perform- during the snakecharmer song, gestures that ances acting, and it isn't just personality were almost a sign language, beginning with pm eihreither. a hand-waving thing, then a shrug, and so es/exhibits/ on. Also, it was a kind of two-handed duet fot as little as I would call it talking styles. For instance, for boom stand and microphone which came (212) I've used about eight talking styles today, much more naturally to me than trying to age. Call starting with a phone call about a death in think of a way to move, just because I had eeVe space- the family and talking with my mother, then something and it was making sound. screaming at the lawyer in my most efficient, business-like style. A lot of audio stuff I've Do ideas come from your equipment or do

Downloaded from http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/pam.1979.0.2.1 by guest on 27 September 2021 you work for certain effects you've thought felt uncomfortable saying. I'm familiar with Do yotl think that the "I" out of it makes of? that squirming feeling when somebody's tell- Americans on the Move more theatrical? ing something personal and you don't want It works both ways. A lot of times I just sit Probably, and more political too, more to hear it. I always felt it was a mistake being tape things, play with micro- didactic. I've been using "you should" a lot. around here and labeled as an autobiographical artist. I never suggests itself. That I'm attracted to the power of that statement, phones, until something felt I used that kind of material as primary you can follow it with anything and it tends to be a more organic way of going stuff but that it was fitted into this structure there's some thinking go- becomes immediately interesting, not just "I about it, although that made it something else. It was just a cer- you get an idea and then try to think" but "I think you should," and that's a ing on. When tain content that I felt directly connected to sounds like you think different kind of assumption, a more political do it, it almost never and used. You cannot not project yourself in to. I find it's best to start with the one. it's going some way. sound to suggest what's going to happen. Is that directed to the audience? Do you feel So you think of yourself as a character in a different about them since you address the Do you remember the early reactions to your performance in the same way you think of audience that way? first performances when it seemed to be im- yourself as a character in life? your stories were true or portant whether Exactly. But I've started using "you" and I think differently about the world now, and not? Do you think of acting as pretending to "they" a lot instead of the first person in per- insofar as the audience represents the world, else, and non-acting perform- be someone formance-which is probably the main shift yes. concentrated pretending to be ance as in the last few years. "I" is almost completely yourself? Do you feel more like a conduit for material out of it at this point. I use "I" only as some- than a focus of it now? In a way, yeah, and I've just begun to realize one who has gotten some information but how much I love doing that. Part of it is just not as a prime subject, more as a sideline the attention, and the other part is the idea observer. If I use "I," it's very peripheral to You cannot not project that if this experience is going to happen, it the action. a plan for yourself in some way. has to happen exactly now. It isn't And what does that do for you? anything else. You have to be right there and make it happen, and that's really exciting to It makes me really free and I'm happy about me to have to consolidate my energy for that that. You can get pretty narassistic with "I" Yes, it's much more a function of pointing to kind of presentation. No other part of my life very quickly. The worst part was perform- diagrams really, saying "Look over here" and is like that. You only have that one moment ances which used "I" that I had to do a doing a sort of waving action. to make this work or not. number of times. I didn't like that at all. Do people still confuse "you" with Laurie Are there things you've thought of as Because you would have to present Anderson, the performer? material that you wouldn't perform for some something apparently personal that you Not now, but it used to happen. People used reason or another? didn't feel? to think I was their friend because they knew Yeah, but I can't talk about them for the Right. I've repeated a lot of pieces in song so much about me, or thought they did. I used same reason. I've never said anything that I formats and I feel fine about that. to get letters that were quite personal. It was

Downloaded from http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/pam.1979.0.2.1 by guest on 27 September 2021 too much for me to handle, although I was enough of a voyeur to be interested. But I didn't know what to do with the information. Now the letters I get are much more fac- PERFORMANCE ART Magazine is interested in tual, which I like, and full of data. receiving short essays on aesthetics and theory, You also used to wear white gowns in perform- and reviews of performance, music, video, dance, ance and now you wear a black outfit. and literary events from around the world. I used to wear white so that I could be a film screen but more than that, to separate that sort of activity from everyday life. Very ceremonial, now that I think about it. Lately I like black a lot, I don't know why. Which can also be ceremonial. Right. Someone called me a funeral director. Do you ever think you're somebody else when you're performing? I have a vague feeling sometimes, but I don't know who it is.

Downloaded from http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/pam.1979.0.2.1 by guest on 27 September 2021 When the Los Angeles Institute of Contem- answered pertinent questions concerning through sound art. In the best works, one was porary Art (LAICA) realized the importance of sound art. Before the show surfaced, it was rewarded with something more than pleasur- introducing the public to the multifold ac- all a matter of "hybridization, interdiscipline able aesthetics, reaffirming the rich rewards tivities of artists working with sound, there and synaesthesia," which it is; but by the inherent in pure sensory perception. were no really clear-cut ideas on the essen- time the performances ended, those who tial nature of this art. But over 35 artists ex- took the opportunity to engage themselves In many cases, this was the subject and hibiting in one space, and two weeks worth of seemed to develop a sensibility in tune with meaning of the work. But the unique quality individual performances, both raised and the remarkable cohesions experienced of contemporary sound art is the ability to in-

Downloaded from http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/pam.1979.0.2.1 by guest on 27 September 2021 clude literal contents-poetic form is often achieved. Whereas the "meaning" might re- tain the ambiguous or even paradoxical What can be described as "west coast innocence" nature of musical meaning, art entered through the doors of conception in a variety can be advantageous at times. In performance art, of ways. The overall characteristic of the whether oriented to sound or narrative, there is far events rest in their ability to arouse a natural sense of participation. The Sound show's less dependence on theatrical theory since we have cohesion provides a new basis for contem- so little creative theatre here to influence us. porary art theory. Now might be a good time for critical theorists to regard the aston- ishing aesthetic unity from a more integrated somewhat definitive catalogue article ex- in a room different than this one we are in," conceptual base. A criticism oriented to the presses, and Richard Armstrong's observa- he tells us he is going to change his im- fragmentations of "intermedia," however tions, too. But it is a little like reading Susan perfect and occasionally stuttering speech true, is going to sooner or later wane in ex- Sontag for the third time-we now know it to into a smooth and perfect harmonization of pressing the expanded realities of sound be all too true. Like so much of the "expanded resonating sound, rhythmically structured art-and performance art. There is a close consciousness," it expands itself into the ob- identically to his speech. This occurs in slow parallel, of course, though what differences vious. transcendental steps achieving orchestral there are can be revealing in the quest for a magnitudes not unlike classic symphonic By the way of illustration, there really is no contemporary art theory. form. These two, and many others, illustrate question of "music" being in any way opposi- Peter Frank's observation tional to sound art. Even in cases where the that "sound pro- Obviously sound art involves sound as a ducing structures combine simplicity and sound utilized is totally lacking in musicality, predominating characteristic. But what is the musical movement is achieved in other ways. complexity, both technical and conceptual." predominating characteristic of perfor- He goes on to say, "There is a great deal Bob Wilhite's performance consisted in a of mance? The temptation is to think in terms of interest in sonic installation on -the west continuous, barely oscillating drone tuned to "theatre," although there are severe limita- coast, part of an interest a gorgeous revolving geometric painted in the subtle tions in conceiving of performance in the sculpture which played against colored manipulation of space, light and time." light of theatrical concepts. The parallel of lighting. The subtle color changes and rela- sound art and music is identical. In both tionships soon became the "musical" aspect What can be described as "west coast in- cases, "sound" and "performance" are the nocence" of the work, which is not only all mentioned, can be advantageous at times. In higher, less limited, more inclusive forms. To but an environmental installation as well. performance art, whether oriented to sound think of music as an aspect of sound, as or narrative, there is far less dependence on "theatre" as an aspect of performance, is far Alvin Lucier's art achieves the highest theatrical theory since we have so little more meaningful to the contemporary mind perceptual intensity, while at the same time creative theatre here to influence us. Ex- that vice-versa. The fact that we have these incorporating a profound literality-actual perimental theatre is non-existent on any limited points of view stems from the disad- words describing actual conditions. Time serious level now. The result is an attitude vantageous orientations of a criticism rooted itself exists both in the usual accustomed toward performance divorced from theatre. in modernist aesthetics. That a transitional continuum of the present, and in a kind of Linda Burnham, publisher of California's dialogue is necessary is beyond question, weird "eternity" as well. By stating exactly High Performance magazine is reported to and this is precisely what Peter Frank's what he is going to do on a tape "somewhere have refused reviewing the performances of

Downloaded from http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/pam.1979.0.2.1 by guest on 27 September 2021 Guy deCointet on the basis that they were Another interesting side-light arose in the Note: The "Sound" show opens Septemer 30 too "theatrical" to be considered perfor- social context of this important exhibit. For at P.S. 1 in New York. mance. No doubt, such issues are destined sometime now California art has suffered to become the critical dialogue of the future from an indifferent press and an impertinent, Clair Wolfe works for LAICA. once we overcome our habituation to moder- academic criticism that has probably done nist criticism. more harm than good. The performances Photos by Michael Levine. were relatively sparsely attended at first. But Another aspect of the nature of contem- as a testimony to the willingness of southern porary art brought out by the exhibit Is the Californians to participate in the art here, willing public response. Here is a relation- once the reviews finally emerged the place ship that, without sacrificing aesthetic in- was well attended, the remaining perfor- tegrity, the "public" can readily respond to. mances filled to capacity. Unfortunately this This art, when it is not profound, is at least only occurred during the last weeks. amusing. It is perhaps the most cohesive and amenable style of contemporary art at present at a general level which only the most Although an important aspect of west coast perfected forms of performance have achieved. art, sound art is engendered with equal thrust The nice thing is that there we can in the east and to some extent in the mid- SUBSCZIPTION distinguish the only way "art" can directly west. But the fact remains that the most relate to "life" without confusing the values viable critical dialogues will emerge from the and decently recognizing art's inherent east. Los Angelenos will be looking forward ORDER FORM limitations-when you walk away from the to the New York presentation as much *as art and it is still breathing in you. New Yorkers.

Downloaded from http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/pam.1979.0.2.1 by guest on 27 September 2021 ARGUMENTARGUMENTThe twin principles of modernism and marketing: seeing -0 freshmi ia promisething in Artist as Businessman f

Anthony McCall and Andrew Tyndall

ARGUMENT (New York City, 1978) is an 85 minute, 16mm, color/sound film by Anthony McCall and Andrew Tyndall. Fashion photographs are used as a starting point for a political investigation of news, advertising, and images of masculinity in the mass media. The film attempts to define the ideological function of avant- garde artists/filmmakers and their work, and raises crucial questions of radical film practice. ARGUMENT explicitly examines problems of the film text aid its reading: relationships between sound/Iiext/image and filmmaker/critic/audience. The film is part of a project which includes the publication of a 30 page book of writing and photographs, and structured discus- sions following screenings.

Downloaded from http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/pam.1979.0.2.1 by guest on 27 September 2021 The Fiscal Background political, etc.] their investors, more susceptible to market forces. While these pressures would not The 1976 Internal Revenue Service ruling that These forms legitimize the creation and inter- necessarily force all artists to make their work art (not including motion pictures] is an ap- pretation of art-work in terms of discrete tradi- conform to a dominant aesthetic (since, as seen preciable asset, created possibilities for the tions, thus allowing the most militant political earlier, formal pluralism is encouraged), they financing of art that never existed before. It materialist work to stand side by side with would determine the audience-in a very simple meant that instead of capital being invested in mytho-poetic romanticism, all part of the avant- way: the audience is those able to afford to buy the commodity of the art-work, it was now pro- garde spectacle. This has two main effects: the work, namely the rich. Although the rich fitable to invest capital in the "artist as com- first, to defuse the impact of the political work in have always been the market for art, the in- modity." This mechanism operates by making any terms except that of its own tradition; sec- troduction of the artist-as-businessman system the artist into a corporation. The artist is ond, it gives the impression of a fully stocked art through venture capital rationalizes the accoun- therefore personally responsible as president of store which caters to a wide range of tastes. tability of the artist to the elitist market. In this that corporation, for success in the art world, way the artist becomes responsible not only for and in addition, is accountable to shareholders Whatever type of work is in this art store, all the production of art (the limit of an artist's (investors] ultimately to see a profit in the joint types have one thing in common: namely their responsibility under the gallery system], but also, venture by paying dividends. market-an exclusive world of privilege and for the marketing of the work-making con- wealth, defined by the museum/gallery/university tacts, generating publicity and criticism, organiz- This difference makes investment in the artist a circuit. ing distribution, exhibition and sales, fiscal and of- lower risk than investment in the art-work, since fice management. In short, an owner/director of previously in investment in the art-work, pro- At present this market is located around an in- an organization. fitability depended on the taste of the investor; termediary-the gallery. The gallery is responsi- now the onus for success rests on the artist, ble for recognizing saleable trends, individuals, It might be worth mentioning that all these who must respond to market forces-" success" and work, and then marketing them (exhibition, marketing activities have always occurred, but being defined as what sells, what can be distribution and publicity). At the same time the under the gallery system, artists would pay 50 % marketed. gallery exerts some influence over the artist's of sales on their work to the gallery, for the practice to make his work more marketable. privilege of being able to consider themselves The Transition from Self- Thus the gallery makes the artist more account- "fine" artists, separated from these tawdry Employed Artisan able to market forces than under the earlier concerns. 'patronage' system of financing, whereby the patron would pick an artist appropriate to his Co-optation by Excellence Modernism has been founded on a tradition of taste and desire for prestige and fund that in- "constant revolution. " This is a formal not a dividual under his direction. Success, rather than being seen as a function of political description, which elevates the impor- saleability, is culturally defined as being a function tance of "a work challenging previous work" in The gallery system may prove to be a transi- of that mystical quality-excellence. The market an art historical continuum, and defining itself in tional phase in the artist's relationship to capital, is not interested in seeing an art-work in terms terms of its differences from work done a movement that may have been accelerated by of its intervention, but rather as a spectacle, a previously. This constant revolution encourages the 1976 IRS ruling. The introduction of venture singular commodity, the product of individual the creation of diverse or pluralistic forms-for capital into the art world by directly financing the creativity, placed beyond analysis. Since an art- instance, minimalism, mytho-poeticism, concep- artist as an on-going business, would make art- work is seen as the product of individual vision, tualism [theoretical, narrative, performance, ists, by their responsibility to return dividends to then the meaning that the work has can cultural-

Downloaded from http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/pam.1979.0.2.1 by guest on 27 September 2021 ly not be separated from the image of the artist The "i" of Responsibility who produced it. Artists are forced into the-role of marketing themselves as a unique product The most commonly held myth of the "respon- with a singular personal vision, which becomes sibility" of the businessman, however, is his an integral part of the work itself. responsibility to his employees. The small en- The artist-as- businessman trepreneur is culturally depicted as a benevolent Thus a double bind identifies itself: if a work has patriarch, who by hard work, diligence, and impact, the artist who produced it becomes is forced not only character has created an opportunity for culturally defined as "famous"-an excellent art- to assume responsibility for employees to earn money under his protection. ist with a sound track record. Having been thus This mystification of the exploitation of others' defined, this image of excellence becomes more the "aesthetic" theory within labor for profit would apply in exactly the same defusing it important than the work itself, thus which the work is constructed, way under the artist-as-businessman structure. of impact by neatly placing the work-however Here, it would be easy for a successful artist with different from previous work-into that artist's but now also for the saleability a -small business to draw on the vast pool of assigned niche. and success of his or her underemployed and impoverished artists and to use them as research and production assistants, Eliminating the Middleman work, and for the projection of librarians, secretaries, and carpenters, while the his or her own image into the work that they did would be credited to the name, In the early and mid-seventies a tendency within reputation and marketability of the artist as an in- conceptual art developed the imperative that marketplace. dividual. artists should take responsibility for the theoretical grounding within which their work So when the term "responsibility" is applied to an was made. behind it. This led to the demand for the artist to artist, it appears to cover a spectrum of mean- assume full responsibility for the theoretical [at ings, ranging from the original, and apparently The effect of this imperative was to challenge first philosophical, but later ideological and radical "theoretical" responsibility, through the the conventional function of the critic who tradi- political) position within which the work had mean- questionable and all-encompassing "responsibility tionally had acted as a mediator between the art- ing. The introduction of the concept of artist-as- for the whole process," to the highly reactionary ist and the audience, reducing the former to a businessman, with new methods of art financing, and mystificatory "responsibility as employer." voiceless role and the latter to a passive and ig- changes "responsibility" from a seemingly radical norant role. The role of the critic was the theor- but purely theoretical position to an all- tical equivalent of the gallery owner. Both claimed encompassing but politically problematic one. The The conventional structure by which art is made to stand outside the art-work, the former artist-as-businessman is forced not only to and seen is a trichotomy of artist/critic/audience theoretically, the latter economically, although assume responsibility for the "aesthetic" theory (producer, intermediary, consumer]. The in- their function was actually a determining influence within which the work is constructed, but now troduction of artist-as-businessman rationalizes in the meaning system out of which the work was also for the saleability and success of his or her the relationship of producer to consumer by created. work, and for the projection of his or her own im- lessening the importance of the middleman age into the marketplace. In short, this "respon- [critic, gallery owner, etc.). However, the con- The critic first started to lose this privileged place sibility" is no different from the accountability of cept of responsiblity does not challenge the when artists themselves started to see their own any "independent" businessman to his share- structural relationship of artist to audience. The art-work in terms of the "concept" or "idea" holders. artist still functions as one with knowledge/vi-

Downloaded from http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/pam.1979.0.2.1 by guest on 27 September 2021 sion/insight, and the audience still functions as work, but at the same time, to preserve it as a A constructive theoretical practice, on the other passive witness to this "personal" vision. spectacle. Critics have mystified this contradic- hand, would emphasize the embeddedness of art tion by telling stories. They are journalists who within culture. This practice would place art as The element that links the extremes of the spec- account for a work by constructing an anecdote one element within a political discourse. trum of responsibility is the "I" who takes this out of the accidents of its production, set in the responsibility. So, responsibility, far from being a isolated and mythical world of an art historical New York City radical break, is the most recent articulation of continuum. So, in terms of the market, critics June 1978 an ideology of individualism. Despite the possibili- become the arbiters of taste; in terms of art ty of an increase in funds flowing into the art practice, critics obscure the fact that work is a world as a result of the IRS ruling, these increas- cultural manifestation by writing discrete ed funds will still only be available to a small aetiological fables. Work is thus deprived of con- minority of successful artists-those with a text by becoming the last word, the inevitable sound track record. resolution of a narrative.

In terms of resources available, then, there will This critical stance is one element in a structure CORRECTION only be a marginal difference between this and which prohibits the artist and audience from tak- the self-employed artisanal mode of the gallery ing shared responsibility for confronting the pro- Babette Mangolte was incorrectly listed as system or the lottery of government grants. So blem of how meaning is created. This structure: the photographer for the stills illustrating the important effect of venture capital entering Richard Foreman's "Auto-Interview" in PAM the art market is to re-emphasize individualistic 1. The pictures were taken by Joseph Bart- sherer and Denise Simon. competition as the basis for art prac- 1. refuses to allow an art-work to function as The cover photo was taken by Morton Beebe . . . The state- tice-proyiding a new carrot of the big art break an intervention within a specific set of shared social problems; ments in "Paris Letter" were taken from a [investors' capital] for which scores of artists conversation between John Howell and can struggle. This competition is clarified by the Ralston Farina. emphasis on "responsibility," the primacy of the 2. mystifies the fact that a work is both made artist as "l." and seen within one dialectical process; Anecdote, Analysis, 3. reinforces the cultural definition of art-work as commodity, and denies the imperative Discourse that art should demand active engagement;

It is impossible to place an art-work in its social 4. justifies the "ghettoization" of art by both and political context when it is isolated as a spec- admiring and promoting its esotericism; at SUBSCRIPTION/ORDER tacle within a market, and its production is seen the same time it obscures the fact of the in terms of individualistic excellence. This com- embeddedness of art within the social and FORM bination emphasizes the passive function of the political world, where no work can possibly audience and demands an explicatory role for the be ideologically neutral. See Last Page critic. Conventional criticism, therefore, has gone hand-in-hand with the marketplace. In other words, the conventional critic's function is to deny art a context; to place it above The role of the critic has been to "explain" art- analysis.

Downloaded from http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/pam.1979.0.2.1 by guest on 27 September 2021 RACHEL ROSENTHAL

After living and working in New York and 45" Am,heA"Paris, how did you end up in California? After 1953, 1 came back to NYC and decided I wasn't going back to Paris. And that's when I got to be friends with Bob Rauschenberg and Jasper Johns and continued my friendship with Merce Cunningham and John Cage. I got very emotionally involved with some peo- Rachel Rosenthal was born in Paris. In the ple in that group-it was a boiling cauldron early fifties in New York, she was an assistant of seething emotions-and I felt there was to Erwin Piscator at his Dramatic Workshop, just no way for me in that situation. Also, I and later danced with the Merce Cun- felt very energized and yet dominated by ningham Dance Company. After moving to their charisma and somehow I felt that if I California, she founded Instant Theatre didn't leave this atmosphere, this group, I (1956-69), and during the seventies worked as would never find what I had to give. Which a sculptor and co-chairwoman of Woman- was one of several reasons I went out to space. Rosenthal began presenting solo per- California. That was in '55. formances in 1975. What were the beginnings of Instant Theatre? After I moved to California I started a workshop. At first it was just a simple actor's workshop. I was giving the actors exercises and improvisations-things I was thinking up. They enjoyed them so much that they REPLAYS, 1975 stopped working on scenes and only wanted to do my ideas, exercises, and themes. One day I said, "We've found a new theatre. I

Downloaded from http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/pam.1979.0.2.1 by guest on 27 September 2021 think we have something very wonderful here, let's do it for an audience." And then everybody disappeared. What happened? The actors were all up-and-coming Hollywood hopefuls-people like Tab Hunter, Tony Perkins, Susan Hallison, Rod McKuen, Vic Morrow, and Judd Taylor, who is now a director. They all said their agents would never allow them to do it, it's just too crazy and way out. So I was left with just a painter, a dancer, and an actor who had been an engineering student at MIT. The four of us decided to hell with everybody, we'll do it all by ourselves. And that's how Instant Theatre was started. It was just a little box space and there were risers and, instead of putting chairs on the risers, I had pillows. That was in '56. THE HEAD OF O.K., 1977 Who was your audience? In those days the audience was mostly poets CHARM, and artists. 1977

Did people associate it with Happenings in New York? claims, and there's no proof-there's no mechanical or electronic documentation, One of the problems we had is that we associated ourselves with but there are a lot of eyewitnesses. It was a theatre that was theatre instead of with art. It was always affiliated with theatre the precursor of Happenings, Action Art, art performance, and Theatre because there was, at the time, to me anyway, no other affiliation of the Ridiculous. possible. It suffered from that, because people's expectations of How have the history books passed your theatre by? theatre were such that our theatre was considered totally way out. A lot of people just didn't accept it or understand it, and the artists for Because we did it in California, and because I was maybe personally some reason stopped coming, possibly because of the affiliation afraid to come out. I think that if it had come to New York it would with theatre. have been very important theatre. Over there it was really buried. For awhile it didn't matter to me because in those days I had very Zen ideas-it's very ephemeral, it's for now, What kind of performances did you do? and so on. Then later on, I was very sad because I had nothing to show and everybody was getting recognition and credit for all kinds of things that I had done long I'ni sort of embarrassed really to tell you about what Instant Theatre before. So I say I'm embarrassed because it really sounds like sour was. Because it sounds very self-serving and I'm making really high grapes in a way.

Downloaded from http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/pam.1979.0.2.1 by guest on 27 September 2021 How about now-do you find a theatre audience or an art audience for your work? Now I'm very happy that historically the two have come together, in what is now termed art performance. I do my work in galleries. I want to branch out and do things which are really between the two-between theatre and art-because I think my work is very theatrical actually. What was the theoretical basis of Instant Theatre? The whole premise of Instant Theatre was that you could create theatre spontaneously, and collectively, and I assure you that it didn't come from theory. Because first of all I'm not a theoretical person, I'm an action person, and I never would have had the chutzpah to come out with such a theory if I hadn't seen it happen first. I saw it on stage. Then I started to codify my training methods in such a way that about nine months of training would enable the performer to do it.

Can you describe the training approach you influence. They were found sets-things that devised? we would find in back alleys or that people would give us-old chairs, old window There were two things that were important in screens, tar paper. Instant Theatre. One was the development of a free creativity in the individual, and a cer- So we would start out in this set, and the INSTANT FAIRY TALES, 1977 tain style, a certain form of work that would space and the mood of the set would get kind of push them into an aesthetics which things going. One person would start and, (The Devil with the 3 Golden was my aesthetics really, and then also the very much like action painting in a way, Hairs - Bros. Grimm) ability to create with others, to be subser- would set the first touch of paint if you will vient, to the whole. In training we used a lot on the stage and then other people would of movement, a lot of vocal stuff, awareness come and bring things and build a piece, the exercises. In the beginning, I even used idea being that you had to be very aware, massage. I did everything to get people very sensitive, to what was happening, loosened up, to bring things out. enhance what was happening, or bring colli- sion. Surprisingly enough, these pieces had When you got together to do a piece, what tremendous form, they always achieved their exactly did you do? own kind of inner logic and had a beginning, There were four ways of doing pieces. The middle, and an end, not in a narrative way, whole company would do pieces which but somehow in a formal way. would last a whole act, like 45 minutes to an hour, that were completely free and that Another way was what we called a point of would start simply from a set. And the set departure. Very often we asked the audience would be a big assemblage on the stage. The to give us oither a word or a phrase or a mood INSTANT THEATRE, 1977 aesthetics of the period were very much an or the name of an artist or the name of a

Downloaded from http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/pam.1979.0.2.1 by guest on 27 September 2021 THE AROUSING 1979

writer or whatever, and that would be the point of departure. We also had what we called forms, and the forms were very much like (SHOCK, in music, where you have say, in classical music, sonata forms, symphonic forms, or whatever. They were set forms which were always different because the content would She came to my theatre. I was never influ- always be different. Finally, we would do enced by her. She only became structured improvs, but we would do very few prominent in THUNDER) the beginning of the sixties and of them, because, simply, there was very lit- Instant tle time. Theatre was long before that. To tell you the truth my influences were really John Cage Were you influenced at all by Viola Spolin's and my painter friends. I was also influenced theatre games and techniques? by Artaud.

Downloaded from http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/pam.1979.0.2.1 by guest on 27 September 2021 What about the Black Mountain people? You were working simultaneously, or maybe a few years after them. THE DEATH SHOW I was influenced by Black Mountain only in a roundabout way, 1978 because I knew John [Cage]. There are precedents in artworld performance, even going back to the Bauhaus or Black Mountain Happenings. But in theatre, the only avant garde group that was know at the time was of course the Living Theatre. Were you aware of them? I knew the Living very well, and, as a matter of fact, King Moody, my then husband and partner, had worked for them in New York. They asked me to come to New York to teach in their theatre. That was in '60. It just didn't seem possible then. They were still doing plays; avant garde theatre was literary then. And improvisational theatre has always been literary in the theatre world context. So you really were doing art world stuff.

CHARM, 1977

GRAND CANYON 1978

Exactly. You see this is why we had so much trouble. Because people just did not understand. They enjoyed it, because it was so visual, so -beautiful, but we also broke down space and time, we broke down personality components, and we used objects in a very de- materialized way. This is why I become very jaded sonetimes. I see so much theatre which bores me because in the years we did Instant Theatre we did so much of that stuff in such a fabulously beautiful way. Sometimes we bombed but there was always something exciting about it because of the fact that we worked with so many different things.

Downloaded from http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/pam.1979.0.2.1 by guest on 27 September 2021 How did you move then from group perfor- very harsh on myself, very self-destructive, mance to solo performance? and I felt ashamed of most everything that had happened to me or that I had done. In '66 I quit doing Instant Theatre because of Through the women's movement, and my trouble with my knees. own growth, I was able to take a whole new PRINTED MATTER, INC. How many years have you been doing solo appraisal of my work and change it around to ARTISTS' BOOKS performances? work for me, instead of my being smothered. I got very involved in establishing a woman's Since '75. space and in several of the galleries that Are your solo performances self-consciously were women's galleries. I started to see a autobiographical? great deal of women's work. At that point I started to do performances which redeemed Artists' Books, Magazines The way I've been functioning with those per- my life by turning it into art. formances has been to sort of try very and Audioworks truthfully to get to the bottom of different There are always surprises when people use phases of my life, so that by the time I die all very directly autobiographical material, The 1979 CATALOGUE my performances, end to end, will recreate aren't there? lately that the end result of is now available my life. I've found My main surprise, I'll tell you, has always the honesty and truthfulness I try to put into with ZOOO titles! been the response of the audience. When I recreating my life is a total mythology. That prepare a piece, I always think it's just terri- was really an interesting discovery for me, to ble, that it's going to bomb, that it's com- find out that this structure of recreation had pletely narcissistic, and so personal that become a myth and runs parallel with me. It's nobody's going to accept it. Now, I know that Order NOW by sending $2.00 made up of the same ingredients, and yet it that's how I am, so I just don't pay attention (NYS residents please is a complete fabrication. anymore, no matter how negative I get. Then add 16o sales tax) I do it for an audience, and my big surprise is plus 60o for postage and handling to: Has the women's movement and feminist always their response, which is completely politics influenced your work at all? personally involved and with them going I owe a tremendous amount to the move- through a certain private catharsis of their own. With each piece, although now I'm ex- ment. I think they brought me out. For about PRINTED MATTER, INC. 5 years, I was totally isolated. I was doing my pecting a bit more, it's still an incredible ex- Dept A-5 sculpture and living in the Valley. I stopped perience. 7 Lispenard Street Instant theatre in '66 and I got involved with NYC, NY 10013 the women's movement in '71, '72 I think. Did your performance work change? (212) 925-0325 bookstore hrs.: Tues.-Sat., 10-6 It didn't change, it began. I think the movement enabled me to accept myself and my life because up to then I felt that my life had been a complete waste and a mistake. I was

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B6r6nice Reynaud

The New Music, New York festival organized -"Collage" musicians, to be found mainly in by The Kitchen Center June 8-19, 1979, was the younger generation, who wish to invaluable in reconsidering the problems raised tegrate in their compositions "impure" by the definition of what is called "New musical environments-e.g., jazz (Garret Music." Judging from the pieces offered dur- List), pop (Laurie Anderson), rock (Rhys ing the event, three main tendencies within Chatham). the diversity of practices emerged, even though the work of a single composer Beyond these divisions, however, the most sometimes reflected more than one tenden- interesting musical form displayed at the cy. The tendencies break down as follows: Festival was "performance music." This notion is ambiguous in music for, in the same -Musicians whose work is based on indeter- way that one can say that all music is minacy or at least on a controlled drift of the "repetitive," all music is "performance" as material during live performance, such as well. Unlike painting and cinema, music is Robert Ashley, David Behrman and Pauline nothing but the live realization of a pre- Oliveros. existing score. If in theatre the relationship -Minimalists who, according to Michael between "score" and performance is rather Nyman in Experimental Music: Cage and ambiguously defined in western culture, with Beyond, have created their music in reaction theatre often viewed as text, the ambiguity to indeterminacy, such as Philip Corner, does not exist in music. In music it is general- Philip Glass, Jon Gibson, and William Heller- DAVID BEHRMAN ly understood that a piece does not exist mann. before its performance: its history is that of

Downloaded from http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/pam.1979.0.2.1 by guest on 27 September 2021 its interpretations. This very notion of inter- pretation underlines the position that a traditional musical performance is hermeneutic, and the purpose of each different rendering is to reveal the hidden meaning of the text (the score). This understanding of the score as text can be related to the Judeo-Christian view of text DAVID exemplified by the Kabbalists and the Church Fathers: truth is nothing but the in- ; VAN finite rediscovery of the hidden meanings of the text. It also displays a Borges-like vision - TIEGHEM of eternity as an absolute potentiality (the score) experienced sensually only through the theoretically infinite number of its nearly identical repetitions. In contrast, performance music is based on these two concepts: (1) ship of instruments to musicians. This is in contrast to the classical the refusal of a meaning transcending the physical properties of the tradition which views the instrument mostly as a tool, to serve performance and (2) the emphasis on the uniqueness of the present another text, whose rendering must be completely mastered. Here moment. Improvisation technique, as in jazz, was the first blow also one can see the influence of improvised jazz pieces in which the struck against the classical conception of the score, and the indeter- subject is the relationship of the composeriperformer to his trumpet minacy principle brought by Cage and Fluxus was another. or piano. Numerous performance pieces emphasize the dramatic value and visual aspect of the instruments used. This is more ob- less The traditional conception of the score implied-albeit vious when these instruments are non-conventional, such as the If space is conceived as a precisely-a certain relationship to space. rocking chair that Hellerman rocks in Squeek, or the multiple toys of subjectivity field open to human activity, and music as expression and gadgets manipulated by David van Tieghem in A Man and His property; it only and interiority, then music is denied any spatial Toys. This second kind of musical performance is based on the no- it. This is, within "New passes through space, and eventually fills tion of process, but it also has visual concerns. Music," the conception of such composers as Glass and Steve Reich. Conversely, "performance music" is concerned with the A third kind of performance displays more obvious visual concerns, rediscovery of the spatial characteristics of music, reflecting the in- and the Kitchen Festival provided several examples of it. In some fluence of visual arts. For Corner, for example, music is a bridge be- cases, it was the result of a collaboration between a musician and a tween subjectivity and external space because "you have in a score visual or performance artist-such as trombonist-composer Peter the three dimensions of space: width, depth, plus the fourth dimen- Zummo's and dancer choreographer Stephanie Woodard's con- sion of time." trapuntal solos-or Charles Amirkhanian's concrete tape music accompanying Carol Law's surrealistic color slides. The rediscovery of space can be performed through purely musical means (as In the thick resonances of Corner's music, or the superim- In other cases the performances were solos dealing with words and posed layers of Phil Niblock's), but it is often connected to a even narrative elements: this sub-category is closer to "music rediscovery of the dramatic role of the instruments and the relation- theatre" as well as to "regular" performance art and uses as a

Downloaded from http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/pam.1979.0.2.1 by guest on 27 September 2021 co Charlemagne Palestine's show was also N rather problematic. In contrast to Anderson and Kroesen, he is not primarily a perform- 0 ance artist but a composer who, in addition to his concerts, gives performances (mostly without music). There is, of course, a relationship between the two and the pro- gressively more obvious dramatization of Charlemagne's music is paralleled by the dramatization of his persona as a performer. The sole subject of his performances and video tapes is the narcissistic mise-en-scene of his narcissism, and he is usually quite good at that, with his acute sense of live improvisation. But I didn't like his appearance at the Kitchen, perhaps because the darkness was not as total as necessary to create an atmosphere of quasi-magical "ter- ror," or because the audience, not mentally prepared for such a performance between five different shows, responded poorly, and was consequently incapable of behaving as a mirror/accomplice for the brilliant self of the performer. Performance being a "syncretic" art, the PAULINE OLIVEROS most successful ones were a mixture of the previous categories. For example, Robert Ashley's Woltman (created in 1964) was a piece of music theatre with partially improvised electronic feedback. Dressed in a classic suit, Ashley emitted long shouts in a PETER microphone on the front of the stage, giving medium the body of the composer/performer. Unfortunately the 15-20 every appearance of contained distrets minutes scheduled for every composer was too short for enjoying GORDON while "Blue" Gene Tyranny in the this kind of performance. Performance Art Magazine 1 described background played expressionistically on an Laurie Anderson's performance, Americans latest on the Move, and electronic keyboard. The tension created by the excerpts one could see at the Festival were nearly as good as the the piece was nearly unbearable-it sug- whole piece. I would like to be able to make the same statement gested a real drama while being wordless. about Jill Kroesen whose previous performances I liked very much, but she seemed rather uncomfortable in the Festival situation. David Behrman's Touchtones explored quite

Downloaded from http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/pam.1979.0.2.1 by guest on 27 September 2021 successfully the subtle reactions of elec- achievement of mathematics, the ontological tronic circuits to live "noises" caused by Ar- truth of numeric patterns, while at the same thur Stidfole. Alvin Lucier's Work in Progress time being able to express an individual's for Amplified Piano was unfortunately received feelings and imperfections. Performance by the Kitchen audience (perhaps bored by techniques reconsider the problem by using its minimalist evenness), but I found it a chance, error, and/or improvisation to disrupt quite interesting and even moving piece. or to enrich musical pieces produced by Visually it consisted of what I would call an mathematical or electronic devices. The use "animated sculpture": the juxtaposition of of the human voice when non-classically the stylized statue of a man's head to the trained-consequently a less reliable instru- body of the performer at the piano (George ment in the classical sense-fills this need Barth). Musically it combined scales slowly for error and imperfection. Pauline Oliveros's played to their barely audible feedback, like a piece, The Tuning Meditation, was a good ex- mist invading a landscape. ample: she simply asked the members of the

Performance Music: (1) The refusal of a meaning transcending the physical properties of the performance. (2) The emphasis on the uniqueness of the PERFORMANCE present moment. BY ARTISTS EDITED By AA BRONSON AND PEGGY GALE Phil Corner's Gamelan: Italy Revisited-l audience to sing sustained tones while * NFORMATIOON NBY Vito Acconci, Marina (Regolato) created a sense of deep space not Abramosic, Laurie Anderson, Ben d'Amnagnac, Joseph breathing. People's voices rose, were y Daniel Buren, COUM, Gathie Falk, General Idea only through its music but by the remoteness modulated together like a tide, and Luigi Ontani, Charlemagne Palestine, Reindeer Werk, faded out Clive Robertson, Ulriche Rosenbach, Tom Sherman and of the instrumentalist, hidden in a room spontaneously, creating an unexpected separated * CRITICAL COMMENTARIES BY: Bruce Barber, from the performance space polyphony. Charlie Morrow, obsessed with MadaGloria Biccocki, Fuio Salvadon, Kenneth where the audience was sitting in darkness. numbers and chanting, performing alone, Coutts-Seit, Peter Frank, Rosalee Goldberg, Dick Higgins Bill Jonesirdele Lister, Gistind Nabakoreski Whereas the heavy texture of two tapes by mixing breathing, experimental singing, a Chantal Pontbriand, and others. Phil Niblock-Four Ar AN IMPORTANT BIBLIOGRAPHY: over,400 entries at Arthurs and Two Octaves meditative state and narrative chat with the hooks, magrain articles and catalogues on peror. and A Fifth-played simultaneously, it was audience, represented perhaps the epitome mance by artists fom 198 to 1978. An invaluable combined with live improvisations of two in- of this kind of performance-an intelligent Edition: 2000 copies strumentalists (Joe Celli on oboe and Arthur synthesis. Formsat: 320 pp.8 in.x 10 112 i, Stidfole on bassoon) fighting to produce sus- PrT 0n8d00 tained topes similar to the ones prerecorded on tape. B6r6nice Reynaud produces AM ARERPGL 21 WVdS -11 (cc-daM5. 1W52 It has been music's aspiration-since the Bi- programs for French radio. ble, since Plato-to reach the perfect

Downloaded from http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/pam.1979.0.2.1 by guest on 27 September 2021 REVIEWS REVIEWS REVIEWS

(a folding chair, a suit of clothes), mess- making (cat litter spread on the floor, liquid WARREN STREET FESTIVAL spilled from an overturned box of bottles), dance-like movement (a sort of jig while putting on the suit). His actions were accompanied by a semi-intelligible audiotape which 5 Evenings. and at the same time, a little disappoint- turned out to be Joyce's reading of 75 Warren Street (July). ing-is the genre itself getting soft down at Finnegan's Wake. The tone was un- the farm club level? Aside from the accepted characteristically subdued and tentative with Creative Research, an informal umbrella quota of bad acts, most were simply occasional flashes of Rose's intense presen- group of performers, sponsored a week of unremarkable. Yet a couple of positive points tational attitude and emphatic timing. events by associates and friends, each even- did seem clear. First, the large number of ing featuring four to six performances of dance performers as a group made up an The first two-thirds of ERIC BOGOSIAN's dance, music, film, and poetry readings as across-the-board exception to the rule of lit- piece was preparatory; a woman in a dress- well as the standard brand one-person show. tle interest, showing that the idea of a ing gown applied garish make-up while Bogo- The bare loft, with its minimal technical "downtown" dance continues to develop and sian moved around adjusting audiotape resources, was a low-key set-up for both the attract thoughtful performers. And further, equipment which played diatribes spoken by sketches of experienced performers and the the week of events was well-attended, alternating male and female voices. Bogo- initial peices by newer ones. Ideally, this demonstrating that a constant audience re- sian then applied make-up to himself and the situation should have turned up plenty of mains fascinated with this most unpredic- woman changed into a black satin pants suit. minor surprises, works saturated with per- table of art formats. Finally, the pair stood near the audience, the sonality, originality, and just plain idiosyn- woman repeating Bogosian's whispered cratic talents which are performance's Some brief comments on individual perform- fascist, sexist statements. Some real strongest qualities. ances (I attended four of the five nights): dramatic meanness threatened to develop at this point, but the elements of Aggression That these delights were in short supply is PETER ROSE improvised with some of the Chic-Germanic decadence, partial nudity, somehow consistent with such enterprises, props and activities from his the circular gender switches, loudspeaker sloganeering, which always contain hints of Vanity Fairs, heavens: objects pulled out of a garbage can the woman-as-puppet and man-as-despot im-

Downloaded from http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/pam.1979.0.2.1 by guest on 27 September 2021 ages-remained undeveloped hints as the threw up the words "extinct" and "atlantis." spooky as when he threw himself to the floor, piece ended where it could have begun. The piece seemed to be an Apocalypse song- then rolled over to look at the audience in poem a la Patti Smith (Rifka wore a torn that characteristically uncomprehending EILEEN MILES read prose anecdotes of les- t-shirt and black jeans) but their performance way of the disturbed. While hardly a complex bian life and love in the city in a nervous man- presence was hardly up to such a lurid, sym- choreographic statement, the piece exuded ner which involved lots of cigarette lighting bolist message. "personality" as Gelabert showed a strong and beer drinking. As writing, the episodes and consistent interior focus. were no great shakes but were entertaining enough as filtered through her wise-cracking My favorite all purpose downtown trombonist personality. A coda to her urban jitters occur- GARRET LIST, played a couple of duets with red hours later when she ran, laughing, past trombonist GEORGE LEWIS. The "etudes" Magoo's windows and disappeared up Sixth were obviously difficult (one of them original- Avenue in a headlong sprint. ly written for seven trombones, not two) and involved all sorts of virtuoso breath and tone FRANK CONVERSANO intermittently per- control which their playing rendered with formed some dance-like movement while skill to spare. constantly adjusting a transistor radio's wandering signal. All the while-and it was a CONNIE MAY is an out-of-shape dancer who while-RANDI FAIN lay slumped over at a spent the first third of her piece putting tape desk. This hermetic and unfocussed action lines on the floor. She then barely essayed ended in an obscure climax when a stream of some basic movement while counting aloud red glitter dropped from Fain's clenched and naming various objects she had placed hands and Conversano snatched up the within the tape outline. These actions were desk. accompanied by an unintelligible audiotape of random racket. JACOB BURKHARDT showed a fiftyish film, a sort of Son of Pull My Daisy which featured ANN MESSNER showed a film of in- set-pieces of furtive gay dockside sex, an congruous activities in public places, the fun- argument between a man and a woman, a niest of which was a lengthy sequence of a poker game with outlandish stakes, an armed scuba diver's waddling progress through robbery of the other players by one of them, crowded subway cars. his escape and accidental dropping of the POOH KAYE offered some super-8 films, the loot on the street. All of these scenes were most striking of which featured animal-like set to a jazz soundtrack and edited in a quick, behavior filmed at fast speed. In one, she bur- energetic style. Unlike most such quasi- PA RKINSONIRIFKA rowed a hole while squatting in a forest adolescent movies, this one was well made glade; in another, she lay across a chair, and fairly entertaining. CESC GELABERT performed a dramatic alternately on-her stomach and back, perform- CAROL PARKINSON played dissonant dance in which bursts of awkward, almost ing swimming-crawling motions and rolling chords on an electric organ while JUDY contortionary movement were followed by up into a resting position. The films strongly RIFKA chanted and shouted some in- facial mugging and a slow recovery and conveyed animalistic images without evok- distinguishable words. Visual accompani- preparation. There was a strong suggestion ing any particular beast (the second se- ment was comprised of slides of what ap- of the loony in both gestures and facial ex- quence could have been insect- as well as peard to be a stegosaurus stencil through pressions, sometimes comic as when his animal-like). Further, Kaye managed to add a which one could glimpse television and leap against a wall resulted in a large and small plus to the general dismal history of movie images; the slides also repeatedly clearly unexpected hole, and at other times nudity in performance by creating enough

Downloaded from http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/pam.1979.0.2.1 by guest on 27 September 2021 distance (the film medium, the highspeed) so apparent involuntary non-stop gyrations of Periodically she stopped upstage to that the exhale kinesthetic transformations worked his body with a literal image of blind urgency. breath in rapid puffs and flap her stiffly held on her hard athletic body were not lost in any A trio of GABRIELLE LANSNER, JANA arms. Three times she paused sexually-tinged to crawl a step overload. JENSEN, and Moulton explored throwing the and a half. Although refreshing in its brevity John Howell body to the floor, walking in skewed paths (under five minutes) and successful in its girl- made interesting with pivot spins, catching, robot-on-rails character, the study suffered e****.0 spinning, and throwing bodies plucked from -from an unnecessary repetition of the odd phrases of violent semaphoric movement arm and hand gestures; a longer list would be A quartet by MOLISSA FENLEY worked out and then thrown back into the air to clumsily more interesting. At the end Armitage fell in- simple paths on various levels of spatial com- regain balance (these women are fearless). to the audience, an attempt to theatricalize plexity. Reminiscent of Dalcroze Eurythmics, All of the above were tightened up and the basically workshop ambiance. folk dance, and Lucinda Child's work, Fenley challenged by an insistent conforming to works with a basic clapping, stamping, and metrical fives and eights. Moulton posited DIANE TORR and JULIE HARRISON wrestled, running motif. Using 4/4 time, she plays with this vigorous lexicon, then lightened it with a mimed, talked, and massaged their way aural counterpoint when the group splits to ball game, an intricate passing of three balls through It's About Time. Notable mainly for duets and visual complement in the simple at breakneck speed. the unusual-for the "weaker" sex-forms of sculptural arm shapes. Augumented behavior such as fist fighting and bullying at one KAROLE point with wood blocks, the piece was most ARMITAGE, resembling a stick verbal challenges, the piece presented successful when the driving 4/4 tempo was figure on speed, walked hysterically on the historical and behavioral stories of time. At matched with an almost loony-kids on the heels of her feet in a figure-eight around two one point they mime humanity's ascent from playground-enthusiasm. vaguely art deco occasional pieces. She four-legged to two-legged beast; at another punctuated this route with isolated arm and they lazily gossip on film while dancing in JLit from behind by the light of an empty film hand gestures lifted out of everyday contexts slow motion silhouette. A mini-lecture on the projector, YOSHIKO CHUMA sat in a chair, and a fixed, startled expression on her face. organs of the body (body tempo) is delivered, aggressively facing away from the audience, and performed several violent activities: deliberately smashing a beer bottle, reciting a list of English words (probably from a vocabularly list prepared for foreign language students), reading a Japanese story extremely quickly and theatrically, pat- terning her feet in a bowl of water and finally MOUL TONIJENSENI spilling it. These actions, and a short jump- LANSNER ing, stamping dance on the chair were car- ried more by Chuma's very strong persona than by an imagistic cohesiveness. Apparent- ly worn out at the finish, she sang a lullabyish Japanese song to the four walls of the space. CHARLIE MOULTON presented his brand of athletic dancing, often on the edge of violence. Dancing alone, he punctured his c- limb-throwing style with a walk from wall to wall with his eyes closed, complementing the

Downloaded from http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/pam.1979.0.2.1 by guest on 27 September 2021 structure on the proceedings. Apoplectic Fit is with its Qualls, Apoplectic Fit. photo-realism of the Soho variety Daryl Chin and Larry of a cold wintry Theatre for the New City, July. mise-en-scene suggestive evening at a loft peopled with the NYRB crowd. performers had the glan and prac- But only if the For better or for worse, performance art of the NYRB intellectual mafia virtually synonymous with mannerisms tice has become (or of those French actors who appear so presenting autobiographical elements in a films, to which Apoplectic Fit elements often in Duras's performer's life. Although external closest to), then perhaps the evening the performance matrix, they seems do intrude upon may have had more going for it. Unfortunately, are filtered through a subjective con- seemed bewildered by their in the performers sciousness-reality is denied its autonomy the event was burdened by a total vis-a-vis per- lines, and the melt-down process activated lack of energy or commitment. Nonetheless, sonal mannerisms and one's own being in the to create live art out of found ob- of Daryl Chin's the attempt world. The same was true without the imposition of either self or a culled as they jects, earlier performance pieces, structuring consciousness was in itself an in- were from a highly personalized mythology. In one that, as the perform- on sub- teresting notion-and Apoplectic Fit, however, the reliance proved, may always have a failure a plane of objectivity-so ance ject matter shifts to mechanism built into it. much so that the authors of this quixotic piece relegate their presence to the sidelines Gautam Dasgupta as directors-with texts lifted verbatim from Djuna Barnes's Nightwood and Yasunari Kawabata's Beauty and Sadness. (The objective nature of the presentation springs from KAROLE ARMITAGE the fact that any other text or texts could easily have been substituted for the above two, with Torr talking and Harrison limply serving and one is never made to feel that the choice as sample body. Two fine prime movers in a of these particular texts adds either to the free-for-all, unpretentious and formally fairly ongoing myth about both Chin and Qualls, or tight. to a pleasurable encounter with the uses to which the texts are put within the piece itself.) SUBSCRIPTION/ORDER Margaret Eginton On stage, five performers in various stages of FORM languidness make slender attempts to dramatize the texts as they painfully (and Page. reluctantly) act out half-hearted gestures and See Last engage in conversations riddled with quotes from Sontag, Weil, Michaux, and Cioran. Enclosed in a chic Madison Avenue setting, this heavily-weighted symposium, by what appears to be a bunch of precocious grads, lumbers through without the slightest hint of parody or any attempt to impose a cohesive

Downloaded from http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/pam.1979.0.2.1 by guest on 27 September 2021 Alberto Guatti, Intervals. Artist's Space (April).

Speed and issues of representation coded this nine second performance work, Inter- vals, by Italian performance artist Alberto Guatti. For the past few years Guatti's work has been seen internationally; many of these pieces have been based on scripts that Guat- ti suggests can be performed anywhere at any time by any performer. Intervals appears to have been a departure from Guatti's earlier work, not just in its minimal aspect, but in its absence of dramatic text. It does continue, in a rather unobtrusive and neo-rationalist way, to sug- INTERVALS gest a general distinction between people- who-watch and people-who-do, between things "public" and "private" that appear in stant flash of perception that occurs during the figure in his "Nude Descending the Stair- a concrete represented fashion in an ar- an automobile accident. Rather than play case." Guatti obviously has condensed and bitrary public space. with distended images, Gugtti contracts the heightened the scheme, but his roots remain temporal demands on the The work is performed viewer and greatly clearly planted in continental thought. in an empty gallery intensifies the interplay between time and space that has been set up with a long arc- image. The unconscious Jill Silverman shaped "J" faculties compen- of folding chairs. A spring board sate for the speed and heighten sits on the floor the overall in the band of the "J" and sensations of perception. This then is com- gymnastic mats lie on the floor behind these pletely distorted within this infinitesimally, Joan Jonas, Upside Down and Backwards. chairs. Once the audience is seated, the short Sonnabend Gallery, May. lights interval of activity. go out, and a strobe light begins to Sylvia Whitman, South. blink. The strobe slows down for a moment, Intervals evokes the early Muybridge animal Solomon R. Guggenheim then quickens its pace. A whistle blows and a locomotion studies where physical move- Museum, June. man in blue starts to run toward the au- ment was photographed in sequences and Mel Andringa with the Drawing Legion, dience. The flashing light and accompanying then printed as a series of images in succes- Belshazzar's Feast. sound breaks the image of the runner into sion. More important is the possibility that Time and Space Ltd. Theatre, July. frames. He hits the springboard with both Guatti might be seen as part of the current feet, sails into the air and somersaults above trend in Italian arts toward neo-rationalism. the audience and lands on the mats behind There is undoubtedly a strong sense here of a After a period of being watched and made them. The piece is over. re-enactment of certain futurist manifesta- use of by a "theatre of images," a staple per- tions. Sensation and concern with speed, formance genre that might loosely be termed The work lasts only nine seconds, but is fragmented motion presented in fractured "imagistic personality display" now appears visually powerful in a rather uncanny way. static frames, motion appearing in a com- to be looking back. To the typical format of The mind perceives the instantaneous speed pletely visual plane, these are caught in visually-oriented vignettes built around props of the event with the clarity not unlike the in- much the same way that Duchamp captures and audio-visual equipment, some per-

Downloaded from http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/pam.1979.0.2.1 by guest on 27 September 2021 formers have selectively added theatrical once when she plays a music box and sings Whitman's responses to her brother's mar- trappings ranging from narrative as dramatic over and over in a child's sing-song, "let me riage back home in South America; Part 2 graph to lengthy duration complete with acts in," and again when she repeatedly pokes her presents more free-associative, surrealistic and intermissions. Also, the tendency to fingers in a skull's orifices with the concen- images to a tape recording of Steve Reich's merely exhibit rather than develop events tration of a child's perverse curiosity. Here appropriately dreamy Music for 18 Musi- seems influenced by new concerns for Upside Down and Backwards retro methods cians. All of these pictorial props are brought thematic coherence and flamboyant subject came to terms with Grimm's "right side up out, set up, exhibited, and taken off at a matter. The result is an altered product and forwards" material to make something deliberate pace by performers who display no which resembles something more than a curious and touching. attitude other than that of doing a simple didactic outline but less than theatre. It's an task. Their blank presence generates an unwieldy hybrid guaranteed to startle both SOUTH uneasy, almost dispiriting effect which purists of the performance-as-gesture school damped even successful and witty images. and theatrical performers of no matter how Some nice ones, like the giant whale which unconventional an attitude. The promise of was awkwardly erected, were married by something novel has been delivered in per- clumsy execution. Other pictures of little in- formances documented throughout both terest in themselves-such as an oversize issues of Performance Art, but like any other airmail envelope-were left stranded by this of the recent cross-bred fashions, this one matter-of-fact parade. Lacking any action or has its ungainly offshoots. Three examples: interplay between performers or between performers and props, even South's most Joan Jonas's Upside Down and Backwards striking visual, a neon horse, came and went attempts to exploit classic narrative while with little impact beyond an initial delight. short-circuiting its psychological conse- quences. In performance, this approach adds Although more theatrically conventional, Mel up to a non-theatrical show of theatrical Andringa's Belshazzar's Feast presents a material. So the piece begins with Jonas visual drama more expounded than acted seated and reading two Grimm Brothers' out. Its subject is the history of an unfinished tales, but her voice is prerecorded on tape painting of that name by an obscure eigh- and the stories have been cut up and inter- teenth century artist, Washington Allston; woven to deliver the form of a narrative this convoluted tale is intercut with anec- without its meanings. The imagistic scenes dotes from Andringa's life. As might be ex- from the stories are acted out in succession pected from a former Robert Wilson Byrd, the in front of three panels painted with child-like sets were wonderfully designed and con- drawings of landscapes, but this linear pro- structed, and technical details well handled. gression is propelled by a similarly collaged And some of the five scenes were wacky con- musical audiotape, not by story or character. vergences of elements somehow stuck A lot of the action and imagery so generated together, such as a tableau of the painting gives off the air of willful obsfucation, like which turns into a vignette about a Macy's those structuralists who exercise a brain- ,sales department which included a decorator cracking vocabularly on the simplest literary run amok and a woman who constantly ap- forms, and for the most part, Jonas's double pears with requests for directions; this ac- game is equally self-canceling and uncon- Sylvia Whitman's South shows two lengthy tion played to Handel's Belshazzar music and vincing. However. a few moments are as. sequences of gigantic images in the caver- was punctuated by Andringa's earnest ex- evocative as either unadorned illustration or nous space of the Guggenheim lobby. Part 1 planations . about the set's incomplete- formalistic diagramming could ever produce, is made up of personal pictures triggered by ness. Here Andringa's engaging, off-hand

Downloaded from http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/pam.1979.0.2.1 by guest on 27 September 2021 Carl Paler

THE SCHOOL FOR MOVEMENT RESEARCH The Museum of Modern Art Sculpture Garden (July-August). (selected reviews from the series'10 concerts)

Yoshiko Chuma, Make More Room. Forti made use of the waters of MOMA's set- Simone Forti and Peter van Riper, UmlAui Owe. ing to begin her piece, emerging like a wet seal, sleek and playful, sensitive and aware BELSHAZZA R'S FEAST of the sounds around her. Her motion was not mimetic but rather a deliberate, thoughtful presence as a store clerk set designer There is a sense of anticipation in Chuma's consciousness of the space she spread her centered a nicely timed flow of comic work. The unexpected, leaping urgency limbs In to occupy. Her gentle placings were surprises. which characterizes her movement has a enhanced by Peter van Riper's music, clever- But most of the piece suffered from a casual volatile energy, a sense of burning, as though ly rolled about on portable speakers, echoing pace and activity which she were trying seal sounds, bird whistles, all recorded per- barely sketched to shake herself loose from cussively rather than established its points. A lengthy all the burdens of humanity, release the ten- and mixed with his own real sounds sequence presented in a marvelously sion which humanity carries within itself. Her of birds, animals, wind pipe, multicircular rendered luncheonette never got beyond body is controlled tightly like a ball of erup- corrugated brass tubing and fog horn clar- some repetitive mimicry of banal exchanges. tive release. inet. Small wooden flutes and recorder were An entre-acte reading used to create those natural man-made of Allston's letter Animalfinsect-like crawlings, sounds which which had been re-edited by some lawn- an aero- van Riper creates so well. dynamic balance of the body lying in quiet mower method was simply aimless. Belshaz- motion Forti slithers and gyrates in conscious mo- zar's Feast, is redeemed by the breath, the breath like the painting itself, is a visual of space. The body event which tells more than expressive responds to it shows, and the violence in history. Her body screams what is seen sprawls in uneven fragments, -3, a with erratic 0 mixture of invention and inertness. impulses reflecting the suffering of humanity. Her body energy responds to Cb John Howell the inner mechanism of complete consciousness and reawakening to response. Cb Her use of the grid created by the large concrete squares of the outdoor patio was sym- bolic of an extension of that confinement which she expresses so well. Before the movement ended, her long pole was dredging the waters of the fountain, and her body was being immersed into the cleansing moat, floating great and motionless, suspended in MAKE MORE ROOM liquid motion.

Downloaded from http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/pam.1979.0.2.1 by guest on 27 September 2021 tions, not slick, very passive and emptied of in front of her torso, head horizontal to, but emotional content. At intermittent points, as Mary Overlie, The Figure. not touching, the ground. She presents the she rolls about on the concrete blocks, she body as a sculptor would, in arrested motion. picks up her cowbell for signal rings. Van Two more such frozen-in-an-intermediate- Riper's face becomes art in itself as he Mary Overlie's The Figure asserts a gift for place positions follow. The final one is a ver- moves in and around the piece, pulling metal making imagistic worlds out of odd spaces tical seated position. At this point the other speaker carts at random to redirect their and a stripped down dancing vocabulary. The three dancers walk somnambulently forward sonar messages. space itself helps to create metaphor, some- toward the museum's glass wall. With one

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Cb THE FIGURE :3 CD X CD (b

UMI AUI OWE

The piece becomes a concept of wonder- times quotidian, sometimes referential, to the ment, all relevant and possible, and Forti's art of dancing itself. Overlie illustrates space bluelgray clad body pulls the seal's energy much as the early modern dancers illustrated with it. Van Riper reaches up to the darkness music, not simply defining perimeters, but of the evening with his clarinet and his con- stretching them with the addition of self. These voluted circular flute bellows like the Molimo "stories of spaces" are made with movement of the African pygmy to which he likens the which rests between the pedestrian and the concept of the sound. Hollow bamboo pipes choreographed gesture most often termed are played off the sides of his cheeks, paral- "modern dance." They might as easily be ges- lel and rhythmically tapped. The small black ture drawings on architectural blueprints. The bird whistle echoes the innate. Again the Figure takes its subject from the found qual- concrete grid is used for the propulsion of ities of the garden and from Overlie's musings body movement and design as Forti quietly on the human form in sculptural terms. brings us the evolution of consciousness in arm gesture, they point up the presence ot. one of the simplest of animal forms. Four dancers dressed in soft pastel sexless the sky and then, before retracing their steps, costumes resembling pajamas stand on the pause with palms open to the audience. This Cate Miodini footbridge which spans the reflecting pool. sequence of Overlie leaving and the other Overlie walks down the steps and along a three joining repeats three times as Overlie strong diagonal path to a far corner. Quickly, introduces and asserts the presence of four she leadenly falls to a recumbant position. moving bodies different from, but related The shape is long, one leg slightly off the to the huge Henry Moore and the reclining ground, feet relaxed, hands carefully placed Maillol nude.

Downloaded from http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/pam.1979.0.2.1 by guest on 27 September 2021 The third time the sequence occurs it melts ing is clipped, and the tempo remains without a clear transition brisk, into a unison Susan Rethorst, Long Sleepless Afternoons. qualities which emphasize the tone of dancey phrase which spreads throughout the muscular agitation. space and breaks any illusions of slow and simple geometry that the audience might In Long Sleepless Afternoons, Susan The structure of all this action, a run-on suc- have expected. The phrase consists of a skit- Rethorst presents a single-minded dance on cession of solos, duets, and trios in canon tering walk with palms open frontally, a a simple theme which carefully skirts the and counterpoint, and a final sequence for sweeping arm gesturing away from the mere literal mimicry and conceptual all five dancers is unremarkable in itself. body's vertical axis which motivates a similar triteness which so often mars such mood What is of interest are the unique responses leg action (something like a parallel bent- studies. Its generalized subject of insomniac the dance makes to the irregular, open legged rond de jambe en dehors which opens restlessness is conveyed through blunt, awk- garden space. Rethorst's dancers come and the hip a little more each time that it is ward (though not awkwardly done), almost go during Long Sleepless Afternoons, a com- repeated), a lunge strongly forward and se, ies grotesque movement, such as a woman lying monplace but one which works very well of jumps in a mild first position with a col- on her back with legs spread, or a difficult here; the entrances and exits from the lapsed fifth position port de bras and a tilt in balance held until the dancer topples, or numerous points around the irregular perform- the torso. Somewhere in this tuned cadence Rethorst pulling at her leg from a seated ance area create several small-scale dramas. there is also a plied attitude with a twist position until she too falls over onto her side. This result stems from another effective toward the lifted leg. It looks like a ballet for Throughout the piece, positions are rarely feature of the work, an usage of the entire rag dolls. This phrase is like a song, full of held, and then only briefly, movement phras- space in a decentralized way. The isolated thrills but unmannered; it occurs often and is areas, those of the raised platform, the pool, used as a transition or section divider. and the strips outside of the large area be- LONG SLEEPLESS AFTERNOONS tween the museum proper and the pool serve All the movement contained in The Figure ap- as settings to more or less the same degree pears to be drawn from each dancer's inimi- as the natural rectangular arena. Such equal table body history. With such histories Over- treatment retrieves them from the peripheral lie illustrates the body's natural prediliction or idiosyncratic use to which most perfor symmetry and line, not the schooled formers uneasily put them and allows for a straight lines of classical dance accented by more varied showing of Long Sleepless At ter- a curved shape in the arm and neck, but a line noons'limitedmaterial. at once all akimbo and perfectly clear. The body's form follows function, naturally. So The last section, a unison quintet of kneel- The Figure has two subjects, the graceful ing, lying, twitching, rolling, and crawling shapes inherent within and without the directly addresses that aspect of the garden hu- most man figure, and that figure influenced by and resistant to dance, its stone floor. The presented in a space dedicated to a schooled finale's length, about one-fourth of the entire work, eye for three dimensional line. It's a dance and its head-on vigor assert dance's claim sculptors would appreciate, performed in a on such alien ground. At the same style at once warm and distant. time, the movement sums up a forceful kinesthetic statement about a physical feel- Margaret Eginton ing of discomfort, fretful irritation, and unachievable relief. John Howell

Downloaded from http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/pam.1979.0.2.1 by guest on 27 September 2021 ing on the use of space. Whereas India & After structing is a geography of the spirit outlined (America) has reverberations outside the by the images and feelings he attaches to Spalding Gray, India & After (America); Sex & world of the story, the other talking pieces certain events in certain places, namely the Death to the Age 14; Booze, Cars & simply compile data about Gray's life, offering psychic territory of his New England College Girls. crazy-quilt situational juxtapositions in place boyhood. The Performing Garage, September. of a point of view. Gray is dengerously close to the kind of self The radical gesture of the solos as perform- absorption that leads to breakdown or ance pieces is Gray's refusal to play a role for madness, most certainly beyond narcissism. his audience-which is ironic in that, unlike His work is provocative as a theoretical exploration of the Spalding Gray's three solo "talking pieces," most experiments in art which point to their model, and for its reckless line between per- as he calls them, form a kind of oral history uniqueness, his emphasizes the sameness of increasingly imperceptible forming and not performing. I think Gray's that expands upon the metaphoric treatment experience between himself and his audience. solos are about the way an actor prepares to of the autobiography he presented in his It is art refusing to be art. create that "Other" between the self and the trilogy Three Places in Rhode Island. I don't Yet, by virtue of its context it is art, and from role, and as such only a stepping stone to think the pieces would be as interesting in that perspective what I miss in the new work what he will do in his continuing concep- themselves if they weren't a part of Gray's is a mediating consciousness which tualization of the performer as material. ongoing anatomy of melancholy. Frank, direct transforms raw experience into a new equa- (Gray is seated, and there is no setting other tion between the artist and the world (the Bonnie Marranca than a desk and chair), unpretentious, "other"). Gray gives us only a self-portrait therapeutic, the solos create a portrait of an which merges his private and public worlds. unexceptional narrator-Gray-in various David Antin has been doing his similar "talk- stages of his life from adolescence to ing poetry" for years, but he situates his per- manhood. The more imagistic trilogy strikes sonal experiences in an epistemological me as lyric poetry and the solos as prose frame, whereas Gray is simply concerned with treatments of the same thematic ground: two developing a personal mythology. sides of Gray-the performer devising a nar- In a larger context, Gray's work pinpoints rative self (role), the other unmasking that self. where performance theory is at the end of the The subject matter of the solos is fairly ob- seventies. One has only to compare his vious from the titles, but India & After monologues with the earlier work of The Per- (America), unlike the other two which simply formance Group of which he has been a unfold linearly as stories, is an experiment in member for ten years to trace performance narrative strategy. In this teasing theatre history in the sixties and seventies: from ritual game which requires the assistance of to process, fiction to data, cultural an- another performer, Meghan Ellenberger, Gray thropology to personal diary, the chorus to the is given a word randomly chosen from a dic- solo voice as mode of speech. tionary, and a time limit in which to associate of his story, in whatever the word with a part Gray's talking pieces represent self- sequence it relates to him. absorption in a relentlessly pure perform- Though this technique is not new to the novel ance situation, and the concomitant refusal or film, it does open up new possibilities as a to make judgments about the world at large. dramatic device, especially since very little at- It is an attitude that expresses no commit- tention has been paid to experiments in time ment to a future, irrevocably bound to its own in performance, most experimentation focus- sense of loss of the past. What Gray is con-

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