Davis Freeman’s Too shy to stare
January 10, 2012
Megan Harrold and Matthew Morris in "Too shy to stare", photo by Ryan Jensen
No need to check personal baggage at the door. Davis Freeman’s Too shy to stare, performed at the Old School as part of Performance Space 122’s COIL Festival, is all about the viewer. Nine other audience members and I took turns entering seven rooms and witnessing private performances. In each one, a photograph of the viewer was plastered to the performer’s face, forcing you to stare at yourself and encounter whatever it was that the dancers were doing. Themes of loneliness, vulnerability, desire, and aging were evident throughout this eerily voyeuristic experience. Some made me laugh, others made me sad, and one made me shiver. Staring at yourself for two hours forces you to contemplate your own personal journey, and different shades of the same person.
My experience started several weeks ago when I visited PS122 to have my photograph taken for the performance. One photo required a neutral face with eyes open, and the other with eyes closed. At the Old School, the “home base” of Too shy to stare was a small, dimly lit space with tables, wine, and popcorn. Seven curtained rooms were situated off of two long hallways. Entry into each of the rooms was a two-step process: a red light meant that you could pass a card through the curtain to an invisible hand; a green light allowed you to enter and sit in a comfortable armchair for the performance.
The first room that I entered featured a man (Edward RosenBerg III) playing the clarinet and operating a soundboard. A framed photo of me (eyes closed) was placed on a candlelit table. It was soothing but funereal, and I wondered whether the rest of the performance would unfold as my life in reverse chronological order.
Laura Hicks in Davis Freeman's "Too shy to stare", photo by Ryan Jensen
The other rooms included solos, a duet, and a trio. A woman – with my face – slowly re-ordered several photographs on a magnetic wall to make a circle. One showed an old woman, another showed a young couple. Another room featured three dancers in nude undergarments moving like apes and occasionally groping themselves. And in another, a man and woman – again, both with my face – sat on a long sofa, shifting between formal manners and primal urges.
It was all too easy to get lost in the performative qualities of the experience. Rather than seeing myself – that is, my own full being in charge of my actions – I often saw the performers as just that: performers who were wearing my photo as a mask. Looking beyond this was challenging, but the waiting period between each room (there were seven rooms for ten people, so at least three were always waiting) allowed for some much-needed reflection and whispering with others to find out which rooms they had already visited.
The most evocative experience occurred with a heavily tattooed man (Matthew Morris), who stood at one end of a long, narrow room, mirroring my movements. When he placed my hand on his chest, with his face – or rather, my face – just inches from mine, it was unsettling and surreal. The pairing of an unrecognizable body with a very recognizable face forced me to question who I was staring at, and who was staring back at me. He mirrored my movements, but the person staring at me was a stranger.
At the heart of Too shy to stare is a question: how well do we know ourselves? And how well are we willing to better understand ourselves? The performers know what we look like, but it’s up to the audience members to stare back at them – at ourselves – and find meaning. It can be terrifying, funny, strange, and eye opening.
The Seductive Power of Sleep No More
September 18, 2011
"Sleep No More", photo by Alick Crossley
On Wednesday night, I made my way to West 27th Street to be a guest at the fictional McKittrick Hotel, home to Sleep No More, the immersive, site-specific experience from British theater company Punchdrunk. To call this superb production a voyeuristic undertaking is not entirely accurate. Though the format of the performance allows for the audience to wander freely throughout the five stories of the hotel (which is actually three warehouses) and get as close as they dare to the characters that portray scenes from Macbeth, Sleep No More is more than an exercise in voyeurism, which would be giving the audience all of the credit. Rather, it’s a seduction. The McKittrick and everything inside – the performers, detailed set design, music, and choreography – sucks you into its mysterious, freakish world, and it’s impossible to resist. Fortunately, there are no trespassers, only guests, at this hotel. The characters want to share their harrowing tale with you, so you’d be foolish not to watch closely.
After the other guests and I checked our belongings and walked through a dark, curtained hallway, we arrived in a 1930s bar with friendly hosts and pleasant music. Packed into an elevator, we were instructed to put on carnival-like masks and follow the hotel’s two rules: do not speak and do not remove your mask at any time. I broke the latter rule (or rather, a character broke it for me), but more on that later.
Released to explore the hotel’s five floors on our own, there was an immediate sense of urgency to find the action. The subtlest noise or movement led to a frenzy of running as masked audience members chased whatever it was they saw or heard up and down stairs or through a narrow corridor. Following the pack was exciting, but staying behind was equally rewarding – especially by taking in the brilliant set design by Felix Barrett, Livi Vaughan, and Beatrice Minns. Even in dim lighting, the detail in every room (supposedly there are more than 100) was remarkable. Hand-written letters, taxidermy, locks of hair, diaries filled with dark secrets, jars of sweets (which some people chose to eat), and creepy dolls were just some of the items throughout the hotel. Each room even has a distinct smell. Some were musty, others sweet and floral.
A scene from "Sleep No More", photo by Sara Krulwich/The New York Times
Encounters with the performers were unpredictable. In bedrooms, a ballroom, on a pool table, in a dining room, or in a closet (all with eerie, fitting sound designs by Stephen Dobbie), characters including the Macbeths, Macduff and his pregnant wife, servants, and witches undressed, muttered maniacally to nobody in particular, lunged at each other in battle, or danced wildly under strobe lights (with smart, contact improvisation-inspired choreography by Maxine Doyle). They were aggressive, distraught, fragile, and sensual. Witnessing their mostly wordless stories unfold in fragments was dream-like: the details were hazy, and I felt a bit out of place, but still desperate to know what happens next.
Regarding the second rule, the one that I broke – do not remove your mask at any time – I had every intention of following it. In fact, wearing a mask only heightened the voyeuristic pleasure of the experience (“We can see you, but you can’t see us!”) But while wandering through a wide hallway, a slightly ragged, melancholy gentleman in a vest grabbed me by the wrist, pulled me into a room with him, and bolted the door. My initial fear wore off as I learned – without any words exchanged – a bit more about this man, who owned a shop with precious stones and many curious potions. Aside from sharing that he removed my mask and thus broke the McKittrick’s rules, I won’t reveal the details. But I found myself gravitating back to him later in the performance to learn more about his story and heartbreak.
The cluttered apothecary in "Sleep No More", photo by Sara Krulwich/The New York Times
In spite of the incessant thrill of chasing characters and watching bizarre events unfold in the most unusual of places, there were moments of frustration, like when I got lost in a maze of a forest with only a few other masked people around (note: if you have a poor sense of direction, as I do, you’ll most likely end up lost several times throughout the performance). Punchdrunk empowers audiences by giving them almost total freedom, but the downside of choosing your own path in the McKittrick is that you’re on your own. If you can’t find your way, or become bored by your surroundings, nobody is there to guide you elsewhere.
Sharing how my experience concluded at the McKittrick would spoil the fun (or rather, the shock) for anyone planning to see Sleep No More, but suffice it to say that I was entirely disoriented after leaving the 1930s and returning to West 27th Street in present day. What happened in the hotel felt worlds away, and as with any eventful, puzzling dream, I’m still trying to put the pieces together.
Sleep No More continues through November 5th at the McKittrick Hotel, 530 West 27th Street in Manhattan.
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The Leader as Artist
September 10, 2011
I’m reading a book called Reframing Organizations: Artistry, Choice, and Leadership for one of my graduate courses, and was really struck by a paragraph that I thought was worth sharing. The authors, Lee G. Bolman and Terrence E. Deal, were discussing the lack of imagination that is all too common in leaders and managers, and how important imaginative thinking is in order to tackle organizational challenges. I agree wholeheartedly with them.
“Artistry is neither exact nor precise. Artists interpret experience and express it in forms that can be felt, understood, and appreciated by others. Art embraces emotion, subtlety, ambiguity. An artist reframes the world so others can see new possibilities. Modern organizations often rely too much on engineering and too little on art in searching for attributes such as quality, commitment, and creativity. Art is not a replacement for engineering but an enhancement. Artistic leaders and managers help us see beyond today’s reality to new forms that release untapped individual energies and improve collective performance. The leader as artist relies on images as well as memos, poetry as well as policy, reflection as well as command, and reframing as well as refitting.”
-From Reframing Organizations: Artistry, Choice, and Leadership (Bolman & Deal, 2003)
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Good Advice from Ira Glass
August 30, 2011
I came across the above video of This American Life‘s Ira Glass talking about what makes a good story. As I listened to him explain the common scenario where a budding report has “killer taste” but might be making work that is “kind of crappy”, it became clear that his advice to continue making a lot of work applies to all creative individuals. The fall dance season is approaching, and with that comes an incredible amount of programming that features both emerging and established choreographers and dancers. As I read press releases with artists’ bios and the descriptions of their work, it’s refreshing to take a step back and consider the years and endless amounts of time that they devote to their craft. Even the ones who we – the public and the press – consider to have “made it” and be at the top of their game are still creating work to find “that special thing” (Ira’s words) that they want it to have. Hopefully they can look back at their old work and laugh at themselves the way Ira does at the end of this video.
MoMA’s PopRally and “Talk to Me” Exhibit
July 29, 2011
Guests playing Copenhagen Game Collective's B.U.T.T.O.N (Brutally Unfair Tactics Totally OK Now) at MoMA's PopRally on July 27, 2011
On Wednesday night, MoMA’s PopRally transformed the museum into an interactive video game party. All games featured in the sold out event, called Arcade, were selected by Kill Screen and inspired by MoMA’s newest exhibit, Talk to Me: Design and Communication between People and Objects.
In addition to allowing visitors to walk through the exhibit – which is dizzying in size and includes some mind-boggling projects, all with QR codes and interactive features – the event displayed large-scale video games on several floors and in the Sculpture Garden. One of the games, Limbo, created by the Danish independent game studio Playdead, was hauntingly beautiful, described in the program as creating a world that is “reminiscent of both a Tim Burton fantasy and Ed Ruscha’s work from the 1990s.” Watch Limbo’s trailer below, and head to MoMA to see Talk to Me, on display through November 7th. Make sure to bring your smartphone to take advantage of all of the exhibit’s interactive features. As the New York Times review put it, Talk to Me is “made for the texting, tweeting, social-networking, app-downloading, smartphone-wielding museum goer.”
