LIVE performance art #3 Robert Ashley * Dance Day at The Kitchen * Intermedia Festival * Childs/Glass/LeWitt * S.F. MOMA (Space/Time/Sound) * Performance Alla Milanese (Sixto 'Notes Festival) * Performance Books. Reviews Downloaded from http://direct.mit.edu/pam/article-pdf/doi/10.1162/pam.1980.0.3.1/1868714/pam.1980.0.3.1.pdf by guest on 26 September 2021 S2.50 Publishers Robert Ashley's "Perfect Lives (Private 3 Between the Covers: Two Performance 30 Bonnie Marranca Parts)" Anthologies Gautam Dasgupta Conversation with John Howell Ken Friedman Contributing Editors Executive Editor 33 Bonnie Marranca Peter Frank Dance Day at The Kitchen 8 Reviews Ken Friedman Robert Coe Kipper Kids, Pat Oleszko, Eric Editor Berenice Reynaud Bogosian, Sue Heinemann, Elaine John Howell Hartnett, Carolee Schneemann, Wendy Perron, Susan Rethorst, Staff Writers Intermedia Festival 12 Robert Atkins Christina Svane, Luigi Ontani, Statements Sally Banes by Elaine Summers, Marc Camille Chaimowicz, Untel, Design Allan Kaprow, Dick Higgins, Ken- Gautam Dasgupta Robert Coe Linda Montano, Betsy Damon, neth King, Joan Jonas, Peter Meg Eginton Barbara Hammer, Rosemary Frank, Meredith Monk Staff Photographers Tony Mascatello Hochschild, Walter Abish, Johan Elbers Ingrid Nyeboe Douglas Davis, Beth Anderson, Nathaniel Tileston Clair Wolfe Beverly Brown, Jill Kroesen, Peter Dance/Childs; Music/Glass; Film/LeWitt 18 Gordon, Julian Maynard Smith, 1 1980 by Performance Art Magazine. Performance Text/Howell; Photos/Tileston Lawrence Weiner, Pat Molella Art Magazine is published four times a year by Per- forming Arts Journal Inc. Editorial and business of- fice: P.O. Box 858; Peter Stuyvesant Station; New York; N.Y. 10009. Tel.: (212) 260-7586. Unsolicited S.F. MOMA(Space/Time/Sound-The 24 manuscripts must be accompanied by self- Seventies) addressed stamped envelope. Subscription rates Robert Atkins per year: Libraries and Institu- Individuals-$9.00; COVER DESIGN: Nathaniel Tileston tions-$16.00; Foreign, including Canada, add $4.00 per year for postage. Request for permission to reprint any material in Performance Art Magazine Performance Alla Milanese: Sixto Notes 27 must be made in writing to the publishers. Festival Advertising rates will be sent on request. Giorgio Verzotti A Periodical of Performing Arts Journal Publications Downloaded from http://direct.mit.edu/pam/article-pdf/doi/10.1162/pam.1980.0.3.1/1868714/pam.1980.0.3.1.pdf by guest on 26 September 2021 PUBLISHERS' NOTE PerformanceArt Magazine is changing its name *'creative confusion" in the performance world the openness of this world to new definition. to LIVE, and expanding its size and format as of today and this magazine was created to reflect We know from the response to this magazine. this issue. Several factors have contributed to the transformative nature of this activit,,. When nows in national and international distribution, this rethinking about the magazine and the we started the magazine last Spring we didn't that there is a great audience demand for a areas of perfonnance we are covering. realize the extent to wvhich we'd be covering publication about performance, and perform- performances in lofts. clubs, and alternative Namely, the Soho Weekly News seems to be ers, too, have begun to look to us for coverage of spaces. Neither did we anticipate the amount of and their work. We expect to grow into more na- phasing out performance coverage the activity wI h could comfortably fit in the tion a I a nd international perspectives on Village Voice has never expressed much interest, pages of this magazine. in it: other publications coming out of New performance as much as we can, though New York have only given the area token coverage: In our three issues thus far we've expanded I ork actisity will alway s be our focus. As it is. museums and galleries are sponsoring fewer per- coverage in perfoniance art and moved to in- we can't coN er all of it. formance events. That pretty much leaves us to clude dance, film. video, music, and literary LIVE will continue in its established format but explore the vast field of performance activity in readings. The notion of performance itself is we hope to more thoroughly pursue all kinds of New York on a regular basis. The new, larger changing and newer and younger performers performance activit,. trends, and aesthetics - size of the magazine will allow us to increase our are working in all kinds of imaginative cross- from the most out-of-the-way places to the more coverage and amount of photos in a more visual- over areas, helping to snape new audience ideas established spaces. ly expansive format atid design. about the nature and shape of the audience ex- perience. The title LIVE, we feel, better reflects There is great deal of what one might call the dynamism of the performance world 3nd The Publishers SUBSCRI PTI ON ORDER F ORM See Last Page 2 Downloaded from http://direct.mit.edu/pam/article-pdf/doi/10.1162/pam.1980.0.3.1/1868714/pam.1980.0.3.1.pdf by guest on 26 September 2021 PERFECT LIVES (PRIVATE PARTS) Robert Ashley Perfect Lives (Private Parts) deals with "life in the corn belt." Are you from the Midwest? iece resembles most the way live performances are I think where I grew up, Ann Arbor, Michi- 1e well, such as baseball the edge of done when they're done really gan, is considered to be right on and the Midwest. The slides and map showed covera ge where there are huge numbers of cameras Galesberg, Illinois, which is on the far eastern therefore a huge number of choices of what to show. edge of the corn belt. When I first drove across the country about ten years ago, I'd never really seen that geography and how it There will I)e six channels of imagery and one camera will be focused exclusively to that changed, and I started thinking about that each one wi th a different subject. The chan- area, and so on. What we learned at DTW is image of flatness. I was also reading a lot nels are set up in pairs. For instance, the out- that we need more room, so that those sub- about Egypt and geometry, the measurement door landsc apes will be compared to the jects can be more separated. What I expect of the earth and architecture, and all those piano players' landscapes-the keyboard, his the audience to see is us working on the tele- ideas about how the earth is divided up. I hands. And there are templates for all of the vision. For the Fall, I'm not thinking of it so thought about the Midwest flatness being various laye rs of the parts, the musical layers much as the presentation of a theatre piece, something like other flat places on the earth. I and video i nagery, and those templates are but as a presentation of the way somebody really got interested in it because it was flat filled out by pictures of real things. Each song from the Kitchen would (o television. rather than because I was there. Everything I has its own template. The staging this Fall And all of these different subjects will go into a know and about the place is so imaginary, I don't will be like that at DTW but expanded master feed for broadcast? really know anything about the Midwest. taken apart . The separate areas, like Blue one subject, will Exactly. The master video will be made as a Since the DTW performances were "in pro- Gene at the keyboard, who is selection from six different channels, three gress," what else will we see at this Fal's per- each have one camera devoted exclusively to and pre-taped channels and three live camera formance and broadcast? that. Jill an d David are another study, 3 Downloaded from http://direct.mit.edu/pam/article-pdf/doi/10.1162/pam.1980.0.3.1/1868714/pam.1980.0.3.1.pdf by guest on 26 September 2021 feeds. Each of those six tracks will be com- ferent cameras. This Fall there will be an ar- plete in itself for each of the seven songs, so tist at each camera and that artist will be do- that it becomes a kind of virtuoso mixing ing something like a piece in his or her style piece. As a television technique, it goes away but following those templates. I'm giving from the narrative style of camera work that them a geometrical boundary, a shape defini- you mostly see on commercial television. This tion within which to work and do something piece resembles most the way live perform- in their style that's unique so that each chan- ances are done when they're done really well, nel will look like a different artist did it. such as baseball coverage where there are And that's true of the music for each song as huge numbers of cameras and therefore a well isn't it? huge number of choices of whr to show. So the technical model for the piece is baseball rather than a movie. It's definitely not a film style. I'm more interested in mak- ing a setting in which Blue How are your six channels going to relate to each other? Gene can play the piano so The video material is being designed to relate that you can really see him those different channels in a geometrical way play the piano. which is what I call templates. For instance, in The Park, the template is simply the low BLUE GENE TYRANNY horizon, which means the bottom half of the That idea of geometrical layering is very ROBERT ASHLEY screen.