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- VERMILION's TEXT -
[Communique: 06.29.03]
"Are there more boys or girls of you now?" - George MacDonald, Lilith
A man on the subway today told me that I have beautiful eyes. Don't give them away, he said. I nodded but turned away. I was afraid of him. By being older than me, and by complimenting me the way he did, he turned me into a girl. Was it because I was wearing a necklace that he took this liberty? If he had said it differently, I might not have been frightened. If he had been shy or hesitated, I might have smiled back. I always try to be a girl when I give compliments, so as not to scare anyone.
Last night I wrote for seven hours in the utterly empty living room of what was once my grandparents' apartment on 79th Street. I wrote prose and poetry and journal. I wrote the beginning of a third version of the desert. I wrote a little article about improvisational theater. I wrote an outline for a new version of the dark ages that goes much further, that maybe finally goes to where it needs to go. Timmy and Laura and Dave were there with me, writing. We were silent the whole night long. I wanted to tell them how much I loved them and how glad I was that they were there, but I could not. I was shut up inside myself, remembering.
Terrifying to be here. Unexpectedly. To be here finally not taking care of anyone. That's what's missing more than the furniture... Tonight I am here as an adult for the first time. The oldest are gone. Two grandparents dead. And my mother has set foot in this place for the last time. "I don't want to get the car," she said. "Once I get the car, I can never come back here again." And that's right. Now I have the last set of keys. They are still on my keychain. I refused to give them up. Tomorrow I will leave them on the kitchen counter and take away my garbage and my sleeping back and my history. The couch is gone where I slept, where I lived for a year. The bed is gone where they slept. She died on it, blood forming on her lips, smiling faintly every now and then as we slipped morphine into her. For she couldn't breathe. He died next to it on the hospital bed. The hospital bed came twice. It came, and it went away. The commode came once. The oxygen machines came and went. The suction machine came and was put away and was brought out at the end and was used and was useless and went away. The clocks ticked. The refrigerator was no longer full.
And then rereading some of my own most twisted writings... I am in insane beast. But I love it. And I apologize for any hurt that I have caused. I have been doing the best that I can. I look at some of my most tortured writings now, in this context, and they are funny. How bizarre. How laughable, the things that upset me the most. All of that in one mind. Is everyone so variable? Perhaps they are, but if they do not write it down then they do not realize. I forget, and then I go back and read, and then I remember.
It is time to heal.
[Communique: 06.27.03]
Performing is always such a thing. I try to sleep enough, eat right, warm-up, center... But it's never enough. Recently at a pub in Ireland I was amazed by the way musicians gathered and spontaneously did what they do. Like another species...
Joanna Mendl Shaw forwarded me an email. It basically said, Take what you've got and use it. I started performing in public -- an old solo about devestation and grief. It's mind-bending to see workers sit down to watch you in Union Square, feel commuters swarm around you in Penn Station, have strangers hug you at the Firemen's Memorial Fountain uptown. You realize that dance doesn't have to be perfect to affect people.
- Jill Sigman in Movement Research (Spring 2002)
again, the need for a craft.
1) a craft is a mask. a skill is something you know how to do. this is what makes the action possible, repeatable. go up onstage and do something. my actors could not do anything because what they were trying to do was nothing. no form. only ideas with form can be accomplished. ideas without form are in stasis, waiting to be born. what is the form that incarnates our ideas? we can never settle for imperfection because there is no task that we can half-do. a musician can at least perform badly. a painter can paint a mediocre painting. but a conceptual artist has nothing to do unless they are doing everything. an artison can lose the art but they will still have the craft. if an artist loses the art they have nothing.
2) the mask gives us confidence. the task that can be accomplished is a mask for what we actually do. the musician can at least go out onstage and get something done. then, in between the notes, art may begin to appear. but the universal "artist" can do nothing without the guarantee of artistry. this is paralyzing. the practice frees you to do anything. unless you are already free, in which case you do not need a craft. you can do work either way. a musician practices scales or rhythms. an actor practices actions, but maybe this is the same as everyday life. a director practices setting up moments, but maybe this is as simple as inviting friends over and calling it something. you take a setting, you invite a cast, and you name it. is that directing?
choices:
Do you prefer, do you think it is better to accept everything that you have been taught, that society has taught, to accept what is considered truth in the circle of your family, friends, and world and what, moreover, really comforts and seems proper? Or do you prefer to strike new paths, fighting the habitual, what goes against questioning? Do you prefer to experience the insecurity of independence and the frequent wavering of one's feelings and moral decisions, often having neither anyone to support you nor consolation, but only having this vision, this mental picture called "truth"? In other words, are peace, rest, and pleasure all that you want? ...
V: "Existence is horrible." / R: "That's an emotion that results from being bourgois. Living's fun if you have adventures." / V answered that R was forcing him, V, to choose between a boring (boring is valueless) existence as a father, an existence heightened depressed or unchanged by moments of placing his cock inside the same cunt and moving (it) in the same manner, and an unstable existence with a child who was half pure imaginative will and half tiger. V had the marks of the claws on his hands...
"When I was a girl, the strongest feeling in me was to go out. That's how I put it. As far out as I could go, in any way, concerning anything. Then beyond. I didn't know what out meant, or it was this feeling I had in me. Like banging my head against a brick wall. Doing anything really stupid or really repetitive or sex was an easy way (at that time) to get out of jail. / "Once out, then everything mad and all shining, wet. I actually saw angels rise out of the bottom of the sky of night where I was at university in Connecticut. Since then, to me only angels, and never God, have mattered."
- Kathy Acker, in memoriam to identity
[Communique: 06.26.03]
There is a story that there were once poets. One of these poets loved no one. For he didn't want to be touched. He fell in love with a woman with whom he couldn't fall in love, for she was married. Because she had begun to be interested in him but mistrusted men, she told him he could have her after, and if, he lay in bed with her a hundred nights and didn't try to do anything to her. On the hundred and first night he could do what he wanted to her. The poet agreed. On the first night, they lay in bed together and she told him to talk. The second night she started to hurt him. Night after night she hurt him more. She humiliated him publicly. She dragged him through the streets then brought him back to her flat where he crouched in a corner of the bedroom while she told him what he was. Women had sexually bored him. He was no longer bored. For his body had nothing more to hide: positions of pain and humiliation, contortions, gestures piercing through the deepest shame, signs of childhood, even the silences which belong to the world of dream and death. On the hundred and first night they fucked and he died.
- Kathy Acker, in memoriam to identity
thinking about: grad school and nursing school / Grotowski and Peter Sellars and Radiohole / sex parties and sexual perversions / Stephen King's greatest epic and the third iteration of the desert /
But for today... I am sick.
Bleh.
[Communique: 06.12.03]
Listen to this...
Scholars have advanced many reasons for the use of Masks by the players of the Commedia dell'Arte, but they miss the obvious one -- that Masks improvise for hours, in an effortless way. It's difficult to 'act' a Commedia scenario at any high level of achievement. Masks take to it like ducks to water.
Masks don't fit so well into 'normal' theater, unless the director understands their problems. The technique of 'blocking' the moves has to be abandoned, since at first the Masks move where they want to, and it's no use getting the designer to work out which Masks are to represent which characters.
The biggest problem is that the Masks refuse to repeat scenes. Even when you tell them they are going to take part in a play, they insist on being spontaneous. If you force them to act in plaus, then they switch off, and you are left with the actors pretending to be Masks.
... Masks aren't 'pretending', they actually undergo the experiences. I remember an actress whom I asked to approach a man lying in a 'wood' to ask him the way. The class were impressed and said her performance was very truthful. Then I asked her to repeat the exercise as a Mask, and everything was transformed. The Mask was afraid of being in the 'wood'. It thought the man must be dead and was terrified to go near him.
- Keith Johnstone, Impro
Sounds like Kody. Sounds like Timmy with his makeup and surgeon's mask. Sounds exactly like my vision for neverland and the desert. Sounds like exactly what I have been trying to reach and have not been able to. Sounds exactly like no theater that I have ever seen.
So now I know what comes next. I have been searching for the maskless mask, but I have only gone at it from one end. I have demanded of maskless actors that they be completely possessed for an hour or more at a time. I have tried to convince them to abandon themselves to these insane characters and worlds, but I have never given them the safety that a real Mask provides.
In my notes for neverland I wrote at first about beginning with mask work and then progressing slowly through to the "maskless mask." Why did I drop this idea? Why did I start with "normal" improvisation and try to get possession out of that?
It doesn't matter why. I know now what has to be done.
[Communique: 06.11.03]
We don't know much about Masks in this culture, partly because the church sees the Mask as pagan, and tries to suppress it wherever it has the power (the Vatican has a museum full of Masks confiscated from the 'natives'), but also because this culture is usually hostile to trance states. We distrust spontaneity, and try to replace it by reason: the Mask was driven out of theatre in the same way that improvisation was driven out of music. Shakers have stopped shaking. Quakers don't quake any more. Hypnotized people used to stagger about, and tremble. Victorian mediums used to rampage about the room. Education itself might be seen as primarily an anti-trance activity.
- Keith Johnstone, Impro
to trance out. via heat, to accept rocks and smoke into your lungs, to live through a leader who is singing, to sing yourself. via masturbation, to cum alone until you are empty, to fuck your other selves, to dream direct into existence your body's physiological reality. via sex, to share in the power of nerves, to give one another the drug of touch, to swim in a mixture of known and unknown desires, to find all orgasms simultaneously. via dance, to absorb the music (or silence) without personality, to become the drummers in the cave, to go jungle thickbeat or thick forest of cello strings, to become not your body but embodiment. via theater, to improvise spontaneously, to take on character as a pure context for yourself, to create without needing to remember. via life, to crack open personality, to wash your bowl instead of naming it, to do the moment as it stands, to perceive the world in the full of its dirt and glory.
to create deep improvisational theater. i do not think that there is anyone doing this work in new york city. i am not ready to lead or to teach this work. i do not know where the boundary between personal and performative should be made. where are the performative trancers in this city? where are the american loa?
[Communique: 06.10.03]
The gift of listening, and knowing how to listen. I found that out early in the game with Miles. It was incredible. The notes that came from him were a real combination of his own creativity and his ability to hear what everybody else was playing and incorporate that into this core that would come out of his trumpet... Very often Tony Williams would be working on one kind of rhythmic idea, I would have some other idea that could be harmonic or something, and Ron Carter would be doing some kind of bassline, and they would be three separate things. And then Miles would play a phrase, and then I knew what it was that we were all doing.
... Jazz musicians have a tendency to work toward being non-judgmental. An individual musician playing in a band, what goes through his mind is that whatever happens moment to moment, my responsibility is to do what I can to make that work and make that fit. And not to say Oh, I don't want to hear that, or I didn't like that. We stay away from that. The whole idea is to make everything work. Which I believe is what we're supposed to do in life, is to try to make it all work.
- Herbie Hancock
[Communique: 06.09.03]
Everything is so much more complicated than I realized! I know nothing! How wonderful! I am going to go wash my bowl.
[Communique: 06.07.03]
Phase 1 of the desert is over.
dear H.
first of all, thank you so much for writing. afterwards i ached to know what the three people who left were thinking and why it disappointed them so much. tuesday's performance was a disappointment to us all, in fact. everyone was frustrated afterwards and perhaps even for some of the same reasons as you. i've been thinking and talking very hard about this show and the questions it raises for the last couple days, so i can't put all of my complex feelings and thoughts into this letter. but i'll try to answer your questions just a bit and if the answers interest you then perhaps we could have coffee or something and talk further.
the basic question about structure: we arrived at what we have through a workshop process starting from just ideas. what we have now is a daily routine from morning to night which the characters proceed through each day. every day it comes out differently but the routine is the same. jack always wakes up and does pushups. bridget always has an attack of arthritis at noon. gil always gives a sermon in the afternoon. that is our only script, and it is constantly subjected to change without notice.
the goal? to create an image of queerness. i guess i would love it if we could create that in each performance, but the way it's turning out with this kind of theater (this is my second piece of unscripted theater) is that you really only get worthwhile results when you stop trying to overdetermine what will be included in each performance. i think now that the image of queerness we create may only be visible to people who see two or three or four or five of our shows. tuesday was a bad night for everyone. i have been debating with my co-director what the role of the director is at this stage of the game and he had convinced me to pull out more than i now think i should have. he can do that gracefully but i cannot, so there was a weird energy in the space, people looking for cohesion and me weirdly refusing to lead in any way.
i wish you could have seen it yesterday. from the first moment it was different and -- to me -- amazing. jack didn't wake up first, as he usually does. he didn't do pushups. gil had to wake him up and then bridget started doing his pushups. from then on the span of the day had real cohesion. it had the feel of taking place in actual time. conversations that were dropped came up again later, and in the more relaxed atmosphere much more beauty and meaning were found. and because of that it was that much closer to the original vision of queerness that inspired this project...
which is this: a city in a desert. an allegory. the city represents patriarchy, order, control, hygiene, power. outside its walls is a vast junkyard where the city throws all of its trash, and there among the trash live the squatters, dwellers, strangers, monsters, queers... exiles from the city. beyond the junkyard is the mythical desert: open, infinite, without borders or barriers, perfect, and perfectly lonely like death. two complementary visions of queerness, then: one the one hand, the angels, harmonic, balanced, smooth, slow, eternal, androgynous. and on the other hand, the ministers (better called freaks): kinky, perverted, off-balance, fetishized and fetishizing, poly-gendered, fractured.
i know you probably didn't see much of that on tuesday. i believe it was more visible last night. and of course, you are very much invited tonight and tomorrow night to find out what happens. as always i can guarantee nothing, but if the actors can find the place of honesty that they found last night, then at the very least you will see some moments of genuine beauty.
thanks again for taking the time to write.
yours - "Letter to the Orange-Haired Girl" things to try: [Communique: 06.04.03]
I am learning what (this) theater is. Above all, one goes about one's business. When onstage, one's face becomes hot and one cannot think. Acting is being able to get back to that real place, even while being watched. To relax onstage. To stop hiding. To strip naked.
The three people who came from publicity walked out in the middle. Only the three friends remained. What does it mean for something to "work"? I know I'd rather have an interesting failure than a boring success. And is it really up to me anymore? In any case I feel sure again that something is here even if no one else can see it.
There is still no party. The conditions are not there for the production of liminality. This is still something to work on. This is still something for us to find. I have decided that Kody is wrong about us stepping out of the process. I am thinking of a show that I was in last year that I hated, and how unfair I would have found it to be told that it was my responsibility to enjoy myself onstage. As if it were up to me to generate the performance material itself! None of these performers had that in mind when they decided to take part in this.
Like the Song. Face hot, mind unable to settle, but make it settle. What is the event? What is the need?
We don't know how to guarantee anything. Is that okay? What if the price of admission is for the chance to witness a few glorious moments of TRUTH? And you are not guaranteed anything.
From now on: No more rehearsals, because as Micha says, there is no such thing as marking. It's these rehearsals that have allowed us to create something which is meaningful to us but incomprehensible to others...
... but when it is not even meaningful to us?
[Communique: 06.03.03]
The desert is an arena for action. Literally so, as 'arena' comes from the Latin harena, 'sand', and in particular the sand that was spread on the floor of an amphitheatre. To provide a plain surface so that spectators could see clearly, from above, what was going on. Perhaps because as the event progressed, there would be more and more marks in the sand, to remind spectators of how much they had already seen. To soak up the blood.
Julian Richards
[Communique: 06.02.03 - 5pm]
and yet... re-reading old journals, thinking about myself in love before, in high school, in college... it feels like some things never change... how is it that i am having all the same issues and insecurities that i have always had? how is it that i am still scared of not being wanted, still trying to make things go according to some idea of proof, still worrying about what it all means and whether i am perceiving it all correctly and which story i am allowed to believe in... aren't some things different? aren't i different now than i was then? and is that even the hope? what if that's just who i am?
i feel like i've been writing the same things in my journal for years and years in some long vain effort to convince myself of what i already know but can't believe. will i ever be convinced? will i ever open up? but of course i will, and of course i won't. you don't learn things once but many times, and every time again it takes work.
mentors have their mentors to return to.
i have been open, free, loving, caring, kind, generous, deep. i have been shallow, scared, manipulative, spoiled, hurtful, masochistic, cruel. and will i continue to be all these things for the rest of my life? and will i be only: if i were free: what would i choose to do: today: ?
That I would be good even if I did nothing - Alanis
[Communique: 06.02.03 - 3pm]
From the little reading I had done I had observed that the men who were most in life, who were moulding life, who were life itself, ate little, slept little, owned little or nothing.
Henry Miller, Sexus
sand mud sweat rain fights fucks dances. loves til thoughts would die. songs will come to breath puke gasping pissing density. goodbyes not always sobbing in through night air, holding yelling water thinking. fired from fire, drunk on drowning, heirs to the air we breathe. earth to earth, moonface calendar, our ancestors speak to us through orange rocks and crying in the kitchen. nate doesn't want to die, timmy's hair black and all. arizona sand is red, school bus yellow is making a comeback. if i were moulding life, whose mold would i be? if i were free to do anything, what wouldn't i do? why do the masses want fascism? time to make telephone calls.
the desert opens tomorrow.
Hits since 03/22/02:
"I do not know," she answered.
"You can count them, surely!"
"We never do that. We shouldn't like to be counted."
"Why?"
"It wouldn't be smooth. We would rather not know."
ben
June 4, 2003
- spontaneity (no rehearsals)
- collaboration (no director)
- installation (no strict temporal frame)
That I would be good even if I got the thumbs down
That I would be good if I got and stayed sick
That I would be good even if I gained ten pounds
That I would be fine even if I went bankrupt
That I would be good if I lost my hair and my youth
That I would be great if I was no longer Queen
That I would be grand if I was not all knowin
That I would be loved even when I numb myself
That I would be good even when I am overwhelmed
That I would be loved even when I was fuming
That I would be good even if I was clingy
That I would be good even if I lost sanity
That I would be good
Whether with or without you..
vermilion's text = journal of a rootless cosmopolitan
all text by bspatz
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