Monday, July 9 Performance: “Free
Love and Soft Serve”
documentation text by Nicole Garneau (37)
Intentions:
Monkeys will rule the world.
In 2024, we are all surrounded by a world of peace.
End of worker exploitation, i.e. slaves, sweatshops, etc.
In 2024 I have created an impressive garden. One which is good enough
to be featured in Homes and Gardens magazine. It has rooms made of hedges.
Each garden room has a theme. It is beautiful.
Today Brood 13 was charged with the task of embodying the notion that in 2024, monkeys will rule the world. Thanks to a tip from Rio Robbins, we explored the idea of a world ruled by Bonobo monkeys, which also supports the vision of living in a world of peace. Bonobos have been called the “Make Love, not War” species. According to Richard Wrangham and Dale Peterson, “Bonobos evolved from the same ancestor that gave rise to humans, and yet the Bonobo is one of the most peaceful, unaggressive species of mammals living on the earth today. They have evolved ways to reduce violence that permeate their entire society. They show us that the evolutionary dance of violence is not inexorable." And Living on Earth states, “these peace-loving apes live in matriarchal societies and use sex to deal with competition and anger.”
Brood 13’s internal research revealed that Buckingham Park in Crystal Lake has been a site of love and romance, which we thought supported our campaign for free-love monkeys ruling the world. We wanted to create a beautiful garden for peace and love. On the way there, we stopped and purchased some seeds and stakes. Everyone decorated a wooden stake with messages of peace and love, planted their seeds, and marked the garden with the stakes. As a strategy for supporting the end of worker exploitation, all Brood 13 working artists were treated to soft serve at the Freeze.
Tuesday, July 10 Performance: “Dignity”
documentation text by Lori Moore (17)
We worked more on our individual performances today. It was just Lori, Selena, and Nicole. Our actual performance was based on that card that Selena had chosen about Dignity. So we each went around the McHenry County College and asked people what “living with dignity” meant to them. A lot of their answers were pretty much the same. Then Lori and Selena wrote poems about the answers and performed them for Christine in the Math Office. She loved it! Lori’s read:
Divine intuition
Integrity, poise
Giving yourself the satisfaction of
(K)Nowing
your own self worth.
Inside
your mind, you see a beautiful oak
Tree,
it represents
You,
and all that you live for
Be who you are, then, not even the strongest of winds can knock you down
Dignity
Doing
what you want with no regrets and restraints
Intuition
as strong as an oak tree, no one can knock you down.
Growing
inside is a strong knowledge that you love who you are
No negativity
about self
Integrity
lives strong with you , live
True, believe
in yourself
You love
yourself and no one
Can deter
you from that
Wednesday, July 11 Performance: “Chalk for Peace”
documentation text by Alex Fayer (21)
Intentions:
Everyone will be in a complete state of peaceful coexistence.
In 2024 we will be surrounded by peace, beauty, and harmony—both
inside and out.
In 2024, I hope all of our soldiers will be home for good and no more
will be shipped out ever! again.
In 2024, the masses will look to the arts for models on how to live
in both their public and private lives.
We began today without Nicole, so we played some warmup games. The games got us feeling silly and we started to come up with ideas for a performance based on world peace, inner peace, soldiers returning and people looking to messages in art. Selena suggested we go paint impermanent graffiti about peace with beets. After I picked up Nicole from the train, I told her about our ideas and mentioned using chalk for the graffiti. Nicole returned at lunch and did some research and found an organization that was promoting an action called Chalk4Peace. We decided to join in. We went to Hobby Lobby and Nicole bought some sidewalk chalk and we went to downtown Crystal Lake and drew a mural of peace on the side walk square by Genovese’s Café. Several people asked what we were doing and we invited them to join and some did, including Selena’s mom. We left some chalk and an invitation to continue the peace/piece we started.
Thursday, July 12 Performance # 1: “More Color in the
World”
documentation text by Alex Fayer (21) and Selena Lester
(14)
Thursday was filled with color, hugging, and laughter. We were working with these intentions:
Nicky and I will be good friends.
In 2024 there will be more color in the world, less white, more nuances
and blendings, less stereotypes, caricatures, and more individuality
that is not dependent on media, culture, or economics.
By coincidence, the second intention was Jeannette Louie’s, and we happened to be working with her group. When we split off into 2 performance groups, we came up with the idea of coloring our whites with chalk and hugging each other in the process. Also since the other group was our audience, we hugged and colored them as well. We started the performance not being friends, facing away from each other, then as the performance went on we grew friendlier until we were standing around one another coloring and hugging. Then we ended as good friends and we skipped in a circle and then fell over. Performers in this piece were Alex, Selena, Elyce, Therese, and Angel.
Thursday, July 12 Performance # 2: “Sweeping the Earth Clean”
documentation text by Nicole Garneau (37)
Intentions:
In 2024, the earth will be free of all pollution.
In 2024, breast cancer will be obliterated, and the “survivors” will
be working together to find cures for other diseases, so that others
may have the same hope and happiness.
Today we were joined by Jeannette Louie’s group, who wanted to learn more about performance. Since there were so many of us together, we split into two performance ensembles. We generated material for this performance by doing some written explorations of the themes. Then each person extracted a piece of their own text and created a tableau with all of the other performers, based on Agosto Boal’s Image Theater technique. Each person could craft a still image using all of the bodies of the other performers. For the performance, we moved silently between all of the tableaux after holding each of them for 10 seconds. To aid our transitions, we used brooms to sweep one scene out and another one in.