Steve Bailey's Secret Performance Assignment

I have thought a little bit about a personal performance piece. I would recommend it last for three of the four days because that fits better with your numerical theme of 27. Here are some elements I would recommend. You can add to or subtract from the list to make it more specific and interesting for yourself:

Create a personal performance that involves public interaction where participants may or may not know they are involved in a performance and includes the following elements:

1. Over three days, discuss topics from the Chicago heat wave with nine people (total of 27 interactions). Possible topics - How hot it is today (whether it is hot or not), the fragile state of the elderly, Chicago's lack of a social service net during a crisis, etc. You may think of sharper or more subtle topics.

2. Change your clothes nine times over the course of three days.

3. Bring a small object/relic/artifact that signifies the Chicago heat wave and place it on three surfaces for three days with no explanation unless there is enquiry.

4. Document any responses from the your interactions. Condense them into some form of writing and give them to someone you do not know and ask them to pass it along.

5. At the end of the three days wrap the object you brought in another copy of the writings, place it in your mouth for 27 minutes and go out in public. You cannot talk for those 27 minutes no matter what happens. This seems a bit complicated but the way to use the "assignment" is to add your creativity to it and adapt it to your needs.

Hope this helps.
Love, Steve

Thursday, March 31 Day #1, Secret Performance in Providence, RI. I was attending the Performance Studies International Conference on the campus of Brown University. At a conference during which everyone is either performing or talking about performance, the most subversive thing to do may be a secret performance. So I asked Steve Bailey of Jump-Start Performance Company, San Antonio, TX to help me with the structure. I told him that I wanted it to utilize the number 27 and its numerological calculation, 9. At left is what he sent me.

1. I engaged 9 people in conversation on the topics Steve suggested.

2. I decided to omit this task since I felt it would interfere with my participation in the conference and also I didn't bring that many clothes.

3. I placed a bottle of water on the surface of a sculpture on Brown's quad.

Monday, March 28 11:00 am, Harrison Street Bridge in Grant Park, Chicago. I started to think, if some parts of the body hurt, then what is the dance I can make? So I did a full-body roll over the Harrison Street pedestrian bridge starting at the tag that said "Solar" and ending at the graffiti that said "Anarchy = Equality."

(Left: Grant Park. This is what the skies look like today, but the photo is from travelocity.com.)

Saturday, March 26 7:00 pm, The Chateau hotel, Bloominton, IL. Performance of new work entitled Star, dedicated to the 10th wedding anniversary of E.J. and Jill Garneau.

(Left: EJ Garneau and the person dubbed the "EJ lookalike" for the night.)

excerpt from Star:

EJ is a great base: feet planted on the earth, core strength engaged, the entire surface of his hand in contact with her pelvis, her center of gravity. EJ locks it in so it looks still and solid, but he really maintains it through a series of constant micro-adjustments. He’s got a jaunty left hand posed on his hip, and he’s smiling to make it look easy. This is what their love is like.

I know I don’t need to explain to the gymnasts and circus folks here what the physics of this move demand for the one on the top. But for the rest of us: there are two halves to this trick. Jill has to have incredible balance and muscular control to pull this off. She has to flex and send energy flying out of every limb. But most of all—and this is the part that would trip me up—she has to look fearless. And be fearless. She can’t just trust EJ—she has to trust her own strength. And this is what their love is like.

But the other thing I’ve seen, which has not yet been documented on film, are the moments when the roles are reversed. There is EJ, one hidden arm planted on Jill’s shoulder, flying light and shimmering in the sun. And there is Jill, solid as a rock, the entire surface of her hand in contact with EJ’s center of gravity. And they’re both beaming, like it’s no work at all, as if to say to the rest of us, “you should try this some time.” And this is what their love is like.

Friday, March 25 8:00 pm, performance of new work entitled "Star," dedicated to the 10th wedding anniversary of E.J. and Jill Garneau. It made Katherine cry, so I know something was working.

(Left: EJ and Jill perform the Star. Photo by Katherine Klein.)

Thursday, March 24 9:45 pm, performance of Karen Christopher's assignment for the year. Once a month she wants a live performance on her call phone (which is programmed to play Beethoven's Fur Elise when I call) in the theme of loving letters to a faraway object.

I read her a new piece on the subject of how two people found words to negotiate their physicality from a distance, and what happened when those bodies came into contact with each other.

Wednesday, March 23 6:00 pm, Hokin Gallery at Columbia College, 623 S. Wabash. It Hurts Worse to Break a Leg: in collaboration with Sassbox performance ensemble and Indi McCasey, there was an improvisational, audience participation performance centering around the ideas of combating the social isolation of the elderly, marking the 1995 Chicago heat wave, and contemplating mass deaths from natural disasters. Sassbox made a beautiful soundscape of water in a galvanized steel tub. I wrote on chalkboards with a mouth swab and watched the text disappear. When my mother called me on my cell phone, I sat down to talk to her and audience member Maureen (left) took over writing on the chalkboard.

Tuesday, March 22 3:00 pm, on the ferry that travels back and forth between the banks of the Mississippi river, New Orleans, LA. Spring Planting: Day 3.

Today was the culmination of the Spring Planting performances and the fulfillment of Ru & Gerryll's performance request.

Six eggs bearing the spring intentions of Ru, Gerryll, Anne, Tonia, Doreece, and Nicole were released into the swirling waters of the Mississippi river off the back of the Algiers Ferry.

Katherine Klein works with water.

Wednesday, March 16 6:00 pm, Hokin Gallery at Columbia College, 623 S. Wabash. It Hurts Worse to Break a Leg: in collaboration with Sassbox performance ensemble and Indi McCasey, there was an improvisational, audience participation performance centering around the ideas of combating the social isolation of the elderly, marking the 1995 Chicago heat wave, and contemplating mass deaths from natural disasters. Sassbox made a beautiful soundscape of water in a galvanized steel tub. Nicole wrote on chalkboards with a mouth swab and watched the text disappear.

Everyone who made calls explained to the person they were talking to that they were doing it as part of a performance. Does this explanation mediate the ethical questions about people participating in the performance without their consent? Are we exploiting their desire to converse with their younger relatives? Is this patronizing? I am really interested in feedback on these issues.

Tuesday, March 15 10:30pm open mike at Trace hosted by Polyrhythmic Arts Collective. Once again I pulled the genius move of convincing one of my favorite performers, Lisa Buscani (left) to join me, thereby treating myself to her unique stylings. And plus I had a witness when I heard someone read a poem in which he rhymed SCHISM with JISM.

I didn't need to add any fuel to my fire last night by performing Prove Your Poverty. So I sang "Oy, Da ne Vecher," hoping that it would feel like cool water running down my back. And there may indeed have been a few drops.

Monday, March 14 8:00 open mike at Kafein in Evanston. I still have a lot to work out with the Prove your Poverty piece. I'm editing on the fly in front of the mike. I'm 5 years out from the events I describe in the piece, and I'm wondering if I'm still too angry. I'll try it again tonight.

Sunday, March 13 PAC/Edge Festival, It Hurts Worse to Break a Leg in the coatroom at the Athenaeum Theatre. 5:00-9:00 pm.

In this performance I stood in the lobby of the Athenaeum Theatre and wrote the following in water on my chalkboard for patrons of the PAC/Edge festival:

If you can read this, please tell me anything you remember about the 1995 Chicago heat wave.

Some things people told me: 1) 73 elderly women and 56 elderly men died. 2) I was in Pittsburgh at the time. 3) I lived in an SRO and there was a seething funk throughout the building 4) over 200 people died 5) I was 14, busy killing brain cells. But in the 1999 heat wave some guy was drunk & carrying a case of beer on his bike and got heat exhaustion and fell off his bike and died. 6) They had to store bodies in refrigerated meat trucks. 7) I was in Victoria, KS and when we had heat waves all the crops would die and all the farmers would be in church praying for rain.

Friday, March 11 8:00 pm, "La Femme Festival" at Monarte Gallery, 1926 W. 21st Street. There's a monthlong art exhibit up in the gallery, and tonight was "Bohemian Night," an evening of performance.

I was prepared to do F&F: sourdough bread in my backpack, boots collecting street salt to season it all day. I had checked out the floor with Letty: no carpet. But when I met the 8-year-old girl collecting $1 donatins at the door with her pink piggie bank I rethought that plan. So I read Bodystory instead.

Leticia has made Monarte so beautiful: a storefront gallery, cafe-to-be in the back. She's selling art objects and textiles to support a cottage industry in Chiapas. After a night of poetry she sends Rafael home for his guitar to wrap things up.

Thursday, March 10 5:00 pm, Millenium Park, downtown Chicago. Let's call this, what dance made this picture?

For someone who doesn't regularly perform in shows that would be called modern dance, the addition of some actual choreography to my movement vocabulary was a thrill last year while I rehearsed for Lucky Plush Productions/ Walkabout Theatre's Voyaging. I started pulling this phrase out to perform as a party trick for all of my non-dancer friends. It was so different to do something that was so clearly modern dance; it always got a great reaction.

But last night when I did it in the snow that had just fallen on the smooth stone walkway of Millenium Park I was shocked to look back at the gorgeous geometry of this dance. Was that my toe carving those perfect circles? How did I manage that much symmetry and grace?

So thank you, Julia Rhoades, for the phrase. And thank you, Krenly Guzman, who taught me that the trick is to leave both feet in contact with the earth.

Wednesday, March 9 6:00 pm, Hokin Gallery at Columbia College, 623 S. Wabash. It Hurts Worse to Break a Leg: in collaboration with Sassbox performance ensemble (formerly Big Smith) and Indi McCasey, there was an improvisational, audience participation performance, designed especially to engage students, centering around the ideas of combating the social isolation of the elderly, marking the 1995 Chicago heat wave, and contemplating mass deaths from natural disasters. Sassbox made a beautiful soundscape of water in a galvanized steel tub. Nicole wrote on chalkboards with a mouth swab and watched the text disappear. Students, faculty, and staff filled in the tables and placed calls to parents and grandparents.

One audience member has raised some ethical questions around the idea of placing calls to people who may not know that they are part of a performance. They contribute content to the piece without their knowledge. Are we exploiting their desire to converse with their younger relatives? Is this patronizing? I am really interested in feedback on these issues.

Photo: Ben Pancoast, Columbia Chronicle

Read the Columbia Chronicle article.

Tuesday, March 8 12:30, Columbia College. "Women in Bush's America: New Directions, New Connections."

I'm not quite ready to commit to the idea that portraying myself on a panel counts as a performance, but I was interested in how I might borrow a page from Virginia Woolf, for whom A Room of One's Own was a performance/lecture. So continuing yesterday's theme of "making the body radically present," I interrupted my own speechifying about the politics of the body to climb up on my chair and do a 360 degree turn and make sure that everyone could actually see the 34-year-old middle class white queer female temporarily-abled body to which I was referring.

This piece was also inspired by bell hooks, who writes in Teaching to Transgress about how one of the ways we can radicalize pedagogy is by acknowledging the presence of the body in academic settings. I noticed that in general, I could not really manage to limit my physical energy to a chair behind a table in front of a microphone.

I would also like to acknowledge the other members of the cast: the books I displayed, spines out, to which I referred during my talk. I shamelessly steal this idea from the Fear of Freedom performance, in which we all carried our books on stage with us, kept them near our bodies, read from them during the piece. We thought of the books as characters in the performance. So the other characters in this piece were But is is Art? The Spirit of Art as Activism; Teaching to Transgress, Pedagogy of the Oppressed, Theatre of the Oppressed, Heat Wave; and Representations of the Intellectual.

Monday, March 7 5:00 pm. Today was actually the third installment of a piece called Pick up and Move OCAP and was Lea Pinsky's second performance assignment. Today's assignment was a lot simpler than the last one. The instructions were, "Let's do something right now."

Pick up and Move OCAP is a movement piece dedicated to the OCAP office re-shuffle in anticipation of the arrival of a new Executive Director and represents the fulfillment of my daily inclination to pick up one of my co-workers and carry him/her around. In some offices this might seem like a boundary violation, but nothing happens without consent. I actually have a theory that our engaging in a regular yoga/pilates practice together has made our bodies more radically present in the workplace (thanks, Edna). And a lot of people at OCAP are already movers. We get excited about something and we want to dance.

Saturday, March 5 7:00 pm, Hothouse, 31 E. Balbo. "Girlie Q Variety Show," I performed "The Belted Lady."

Some people relish in a love bite they earned on Saturday night. I enjoy my belt burns: the animal skin that chafed my neck and chest, the licks I took. We all wear turtlenecks on Monday morning.

Saucy Cockteau has decided that she needs to transition all of her belts to leather. She has proven too strong for imitation belts: they were ripping and flying on Saturday night. And she has started to crave more of the leather smell that wafts up from her torso, warmed by the sweat of exertion.

Friday, March 4 10:00 pm, Andersonville. Structured improvisation with Morrison: integrating the body into the environment.

Thursday, March 3 9:00 pm, Salon Carly, Hyde Park. There were piroshki filled with sweet potato, leek/white potato, and mushrooms. There was beet caviar and tashkent carrot salad. There was a little vodka. So the occasion called for Russian songs: Moscow Nights and A Little Snowstorm Blows Along the Road.

What's the matter my darling? Why do you look so sad? Why is your head hung low? It's so hard to express, and yet not express, everything that fills my heart.

(my favorite verse from Moscow Nights)

Wednesday, March 2 6:00 pm, Hokin Gallery at Columbia College, 623 S. Wabash. It Hurts Worse to Break a Leg: in collaboration with Sassbox performance ensemble (formerly Big Smith) and Indi McCasey, there was an improvisational, audience participation performance, designed especially to engage students, centering around the ideas of combating the social isolation of the elderly, marking the 1995 Chicago heat wave, and contemplating mass deaths from natural disasters. Sassbox made a beautiful soundscape of water in a galvanized steel tub. Nicole wrote on chalkboards with a mouth swab and watched the text disappear. Students, faculty, and staff filled in the tables and placed calls to parents and grandparents. I heard a young woman begin her call this way:

"Hi Grandma, I'm in this class and we're here in some kind of performance where we have to call an elderly person. What's that? No, I didn't say elderly. You're not elderly. I said older. I'm supposed to talk to an older person..."

Tuesday, March 1 6:30pm, the hill at Montrose Harbor. On any given week, I'm mildly obsessed with Rob Brezsny's Free Will Astrology, but last week's Aries horoscope felt like a vindication (of January 10):

During a morning hike in the hills, I scavenged for omens to use in your horoscope. Nothing pertinent appeared until I was headed home. While rambling down a trail from the top of the ridge, I spied the back of a man moving towards me. It took me a while to realize he was walking up the hill backwards. As he passed me, I heard him giving himself a pep talk. Later I told my 13-year-old daughter Zoe about this scene, seeking her insight about what motivated him to engage in such an odd mode of travel. To my surprise, Zoe said she'd done it herself. It's a psychological trick that helps make a steep ascent easier: You stay focused on how much you've already accomplished rather than being overwhelmed by the heights that are ahead of you. I recommend that you try this yourself, Aries.

So today it snowed, but of course we real Chicagoans were not surprised. We've seen enough blizzards in April to know that winter was not over. And it was cold enough that it didn't melt before I could get my reds on and get to the hill at Montrose Harbor. I ran a counterclockwise spiral dance starting at the top of the hill and circling down and out to the bottom. And then I tried walking up the hill backwards, watching the landscape expand, the big picture unfolding before my very eyes.