What is art?… baby don’t hurt me, don’t hurt me, no more… Or perhaps, do in the case of performance art.
Marina Abramovic
I have explored the depths of Performance art and ‘Pain as performance’ as my topic for dissertation. I have undergone creating my own performance art works in the past years, exploring simplicity and the idea of everyday things as performances. To the extreme, i indulged myself into the exploration of physical pain and endurance for a performance called ‘LIMITE’ of which was very successful and very eye-opening. Now, i love performance art. But i have done it already. For this reason i want to steer away from what people may expect of me. I want to explore all kinds of performance styles with the chance i have, but using my experiences from my study and practice of the works of Marina Abramovic, Orlan and Kira O Reilly. I want to explore the body as site for performance, but i want to combine all elements of music, poetry and theatrics with this- instead of keeping the two separate.
Abramovic is somebody of which I have always been influenced and inspired by. The work we looked at including her performances such as rhythm 5. and rhythm 0 are works I have admired for many years. I feel personally compelled by her willingness to go to such limits of performance, and her ability to use performance art in a way that explores the body and pain as representation for society. Her performances challenge the audience to think, be shocked, and in some cases like that of ‘rhythm 0’ and ‘the artist is present’ she invites the audience to be a part of the performance.
Marina Abramović: Advice to the Young (2013)
How do you know if you are an artist?
Am i good enough to venture into spoken song? This is something i have never openly done…
I took some advice from Abramovic herself, noting that she too went from performance art and site specific performances to theatre.
‘If you wake up in the morning and you have some ideas and (…) it becomes almost an obsession (…) you have to create (…) you’re definetely an artist but you’re not a great artist you’re just an artist. To be a great artist there’s all different types of rules, and you really have to… it’s like you’re obsessed… it’s like there’s nothing else on your mind (…) it’s the complexity and intensity you put into your work and also the great artist has to be ready to fail (…) the real artist always changes their territories and they go to the land they’ve never been. (…) Ready to fail, that makes a great artist.’
(Marina Abramovic- Advice to the young (2013)
Spalding Gray
‘As careers in the theatre go, talking about yourself was one of the more improbable ways to make a living until Gray (1941-2004) honed it to a fine art.’ (Young, 2012)
Spalding Gray Segment From Swimming To Cambodia (On Cold War Soldier) (2012)
“I like telling the story of my life better than I do living it.”
THE ART OF STORY TELLING
Gray is a solo performer known widely for his ability to tell stories. When exploring him in depth as a class, it was clear that he had a raw talent to perform stories, voices and characters by himself. Gray uses minimal set, costume and lights, yet we become captured within his performance alone. It is through his ability to multi-role, his eye contact and his general manner of performing that i have studied and noted as pointers within my own performance. I love his quote, stated above. It is something of which my piece can relate with, wherein i enjoy telling of how i am scared but still hopeful of the future, yet it terrifies me to be in it! The unknowing, the uncertainty. I enjoy the way that Gray tells his story, with solid eye contact and it is as if there’s no thought going into his words. He does not have to remember what was said, it is just like a quick retelling, a sort of offloading of his day. Almost as if he is a lifeless body that just tells a story, his body and mind is the tool for transferring a story to us. He isn’t wasting time imitating other people through an abundance of body language, costumes or even really variating his voice at all. This is intriguing, and also something i found works ironically well in certain performances. A graduate within our uni was very successful within his solo performance as he played Margaret Thatcher, yet kept the same Yorkshire male accent that he had, whilst dressed entirely as her. (Callum West, Solo Performance 2015)
I am beginning to realise at this stage that simple is effective. Gray simply tells his story.
What i can link his work to is the style within ‘With a Little Bit of Luck‘, when Sabrina Mahfouz tells her story, even with the accompaniment of live music and lights she simply stands and delivers her story to the audience. It is the notion of music and staging as an accompaniment to her performance, and not the other way around that i want to achieve. I do not want my set or costume and music to distract from the words in any way.
“Actor Spalding Gray has a way with words. Especially in the spoken form he’s made famous: monologues delivered in direct personal address to a live audience. Intelligent, funny and disarmingly confessional, he sits at a table with only a glass of water and his outline of key words, ports-of-call in his freewheeling, autobiographical odysseys that strike resonant chords of cultural anxiety in his listeners”(Brandes, 1992)
Matt Chewiwie’s Artist Statement (2008)
Upon watching this video i was influenced by Matt Chewiwie’s love for life, his optimism and his ability and need to make people laugh.
“I’m not trying to tell anyone how or what to think or trying to tackle any type of big political or heavy issues”
I really admire the fact that Chewiwie’s work administers a degree of metaphor, and leaves the audience with a lesson or feeling towards life and that is, not to take it as seriously. He does this, without actually telling the audience or viewer directly to do that.
References:
Marina Ambramovic – Advice to the young (2013) Youtube Video added by Louisiana Channel. Available at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Ck2q3YgRlY
Matt Chewiwie’s Artist Statement (2008) Youtube Video added by Matt Chewiwie. Available at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4yJPZfFOrsc
Spalding Gray Segment From Swimming to Cambodia (On Cols War Soldier) (2012) Youtube Video added by Videowave Music. Available at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5YcVey0vQ9w