Eriola Pira  Become a fan

Art curator and writer

Posted: 02/10/2014 4:47 pm EST  Updated: 04/12/2014 5:59 am EDT

Awkwardness in Performance Art

Awkwardness. I didn't really think about it much but it seemed fitting. Not the vest it was written on -- that was a few sizes too big for my

small frame -- but the term itself. I always forget that first "w" in awkward and by now I have become extra careful and sensitive to the word.

Were I to be asked why I had chosen the vest with the word awkwardness on it above a variety of vests with more fun or meaningful words

inscribed on them, this was the answer I was prepared to give -- I had just signed a nondisclosure agreement, which I had not really read,

since I wasn't planning on disclosing much to this group of strangers. Two of my closest friends had brought me here, to what they had

described as a performance art therapy session, and their presence somehow made any potential disclosure of myself even more unlikely.

Einat Amir's "Our Best Intentions," was a crossover between psychodrama, theater and visual art, a video installation and series of nine

evening performances, commissioned and presented by Artis for Performa 13. I participated in the November 20th performance at

Affirmation Arts after work hours, during which a four channel video installation (of a previous performance filmed in Israel) screened in

the same space.

After putting on the vests hanging on two opposing racks framing the entranceway, the 25 or so participants were led into the main space.

There we were split up in to four groups and asked to make ourselves comfortable in one of four sections. The sections were furnished with

the requisite IKEA furniture for a (1) dining room, (2) bedroom, (3) living room and (4) study. The lights went out. Four more people walked

in, each taking a seat in one of the four rooms. A spotlight illuminated the dining room. A secure, assuring and kind woman introduced

herself as the dining room's guide for the evening and asked everyone seated around the long table to do the same, while we other (sections)

watched. The woman led the dining room group through various warm up exercises. Eventually she asked them each to think of a person

they hadn't seen in a while, think about what they would like to say to this person, something they hadn't had a chance to express. One

participant evoked her ex-boyfriend, another his dead sister to whom he wanted to tell about his sons growing up, and so on. The instructor

then invited the man to further share what he would say to his sister and what it would mean to him to say it. Under the instructor's careful

guidance, another participant was asked to play the man's dead sister and carry on a simulated conversation with him about his children and

how they had grown up without her around. A distant sound marked time and not long after the lights turned off in the dining room.

December 15, 2015

Distilled Perspective iOS app Android app More Desktop Alerts Log in Create Account

Spotlight on the bedroom, where the activities were more lighthearted than in the dining room, if not entirely silly. What I at first thoughtwas merely a warm-up exercise, went on for the duration of the allotted time. The instructor (a drama coach, one would think) instructed thegroup through a mishmash of wordplay, free-association games (a version of something called the Martha Game), improv and physicalmovement, often changing the roles and positions of the members. These activities -- usually intended to stimulate group dynamics,cohesion and creative thinking -- in this case served no purpose beyond the exercise itself. Some of the participants took great pleasure inthe wordplay, providing some of the more entertaining moments of the evening. While others, perhaps anticipating a moment when thingsmight take a turn for the more serious, just couldn't loosen up. After that first emotionally charged therapy session, it was a welcome respite,but not for long.

It wasn't until the third group in the living room was activated that the words we wore on our vests came into play and took meaning. Theinstructor led this group through a role-playing therapy session based on the importance the words held for each participant and therelationships they wanted to explore. By sheer coincidence, the group in the living room wore vests with the words Father, Mother, Death,Happiness and, I think, Sadness, on them. When the instructor asked the group to strike a pose resembling or embodying the word theyeach wore, the Father sat on top of the armchair, while the Mother kneeled by the coffee table in a subservient manner, offering a glimpse atAmir's working premise that there may not be any contradiction between performance and authenticity. The Father story became theprotagonist of the scenario and the other group members became therapeutic agents for the young man's struggle between having recentlybecome a father to a son and being the son to a distant father with a history of abandonment.

Now I am glad I didn't sit in the living room. Imagine how hard it might have been for an otherwise excellent instructor to make somethingmeaningful of my struggle to remember that first W in Awkward. No instructor -- no matter how skilled and empathetic -- would be able toconjure up meaningful and therapeutic scenarios out of thin air. But if pathos was not the objective then my story would have been as goodany. While I've referred to the guides as skilled and expert instructors (they are indeed professionals in their respective fields), they did nottransmit any additional knowledge or tools to the unknowing audience. Rather the instructors knew how to tease out subconsciousknowledge from what the individual or the collective body knows, that may be unbeknown to both parties. This isn't exactly a relationship ofequals, but the distance created between the two is manifested as a condition for communication.

From one night to the next the audience-performers and their stories must have varied greatly, making for rather unique but inconsistentexperiences of the performance series as a whole. This is the risk performance art takes when engaging the audience member as its leadingperformer and content provider. If Amir's aim was to fully engage the audience in the making of the performance, the instructors didexpertly manage to involve everyone in the performative aspect. Meaningful experience, however, may elude mere participation. That is, ifwe are to equate meaningful experience with personal introspection, the performing of self, emotional communication, empathy and groupinteraction, then the performance may not always be effectual.

Finally the turn of the study room came, where I sat with my two friends and three other people. Our guide gathered us around andwhispered that she wasn't going to make us do anything embarrassing but that all of her instructions would be whispered. First, we neededto take off our shoes and socks. She then lightly tapped on my shoulder and told me to lie on the floor on my stomach and slide. Others werealready performing various instructions she had whispered to them. After a while, I was told to continue sliding but dance with my hands.Now I don't know about you, but I couldn't figure out just how to do this. It was awkward, to say the least. Soon afterwards, we were allplaced in a line, singing in barely audible voices to those watching from the other rooms while doing various repetitive moves. Our sessionended with all of us trying to climb along the walls of the space. I later learned our soft-spoken guide was a dance instructor at New YorkUniversity. I am pretty sure that, without the instructions that produced our movements and behavior, our session must have felt like anenigma to our audience, or perhaps something close to watching a contemporary dance performance.

Amir's work is part of an art historical tradition that has sought to create situations and environments for public participation and socialengagement. This tradition spans theater, visual and the performing arts but has been plagued by ethical and aesthetic concerns. Too manyof these performances rely heavily on the audience member as participant. They depend on socio-political issues to provide content andform and are built of too loose or too rigid structures that allow for participation in name only. Too often a sense of awkwardnessaccompanies participating in such performance art. The above story about why I chose the word "Awkwardness" describes precisely myuneasy anticipation of these symptoms (and the events that might transpire).

Risky and life-threatening art historical performances have, by now, gained legendary status and contemporary art audiences are no longershocked at some of the same provocative, grand gestures of yore. Today, performance art takes place in tightly controlled environments suchas museums, biennials, and art fairs. Performances are so restricted by legal counsel and liability insurance, that no one is really afraid ofthings escalating to an unpredictable, climatic state. Perhaps because performance art is currently basking in the limelight, artists aren't asinterested in harassing, and as a result alienating, the audience member as much as in engaging her into highly structured, but open-ended,situations involving multiple other participant-audience members.

In "Our Best Intentions" there are no cameras, even though the setting is reminiscent of a reality TV show; it's closer to theater but thereisn't another audience outside the participants themselves; and dramatization and connectedness are achieved through narrative and grouptherapy, through play, interpretative movement and ambiguity. The total immersion and complicity of the audience as performers in thisstructured but undetermined situation appear not merely as a tool towards a transformative and cathartic experience, but also as the aimitself. The pathos of traditional theater is present but the speakers are the spectators themselves (actors of their own stories). Knowledgeresides within them; it is not being transmitted to them.

Advertise Log In Make HuffPost Your Home Page RSS Careers FAQ

User Agreement Privacy Comment Policy About Us About Our Ads Contact UsArchive

Copyright ©2015 TheHuffingtonPost.com, Inc. "The Huffington Post" is a registered trademark of TheHuffingtonPost.com, Inc. All rights reserved. 2015©

Part of AOL Lifestyle

MORE:

"Our Best Intentions" was one of two performances I attended at last year's Performa 13. I also participated in Pedro Reyes's "People's

United Nations" (pUN) at the Queen's Museum. In Reyes' performance, I wore a tag that bore my name and that of the country I was born

in. In Amir's performance, I could be identified only through the word on my vest. pUN stretched over two days and included time for

socializing, when we weren't conscripted in activities and games based on improv comedy, therapy sessions, and team-building exercises --

conflict resolution by other means. But it was bogged down by time wasted on instructions and the management of over 130 participants. A

tight, and rather lackluster program of events that heavily depended on prompts, directions and their repetition left little room for humor,

play or much substance about any of the serious topics that were brought to bear. Personal, national, and global stories were shared and

solutions offered in earnest, but I got the feeling we were all just awkwardly going along with it, rather affectatiously. This all must have

seemed even more humdrum to museum visitors.

Where Amir's efforts succeed is in the creation of an intimate, familiar, but curious setting for a group of strangers to share personal stories,

emotionally connect, physically interact, play, perform actions, and ultimately perform the self. There is a structure in place with a strict

tempo and strong direction, but these don't overwhelm or define one's experience. The lighting, sound effects and rhythm between the

scenarios create an ambiguous mise en scène and sequence of actions that produce the heightened sense of awareness, curiosity and

disposition necessary for participation. Participants in "Our Best Intentions" are both active participants in a collective performance as well

as what would be otherwise be considered passive viewers. By making room for both of these types of participation, without privileging

looking over action, interpreting over making, Amir dismisses the opposition that most other performance art makes and attempts to upend

and create a space where these two forms can co-exist on equal footing.

Pedro Reyes Art Queens Museum Einat Amir Performa Artis Performance

Huffington Post Search