Visualeyez 2006

SATURDAY May 27th NIGHT

2006-05-27T23:27:00.000-07:00

photo: La Dragu cleans to exit.
Thank you so very much, Visualeyez xoxoxo !!!

Clemente's pounded performance pork
was marinated overnight and slow-cooked all day
into a succulent stew. Potatoes and yams
were roasted in the same toaster oven I left here
2 yr ago when I performed RISING (an all day bread-making
performance initially created for VISUALEYEZ
then performed in Montreal, St. John's, Vancouver).

So many loose ends: I would love to tell you about
my 2nd chat with Zoe Kreye about her performance process
or tell you about a fabulous Blogg Comment
from Paul Couillard (FADO) in Toronto who articulated
my & Todd's blogging/organizing functions
as another kind of performance.

I am so whipped. So tired. But would much rather stay
another week with Visualeyez Artists in our sweet and
yeasty laboratory of art investigating than return
to my real work/domestic world.
I hold Vida in my lap as we drive to Laura's apartment
knowing she is already slipping away from this time zone
to another. We are going to return to our own communities.
Our own domestic lives. Our bags are packed and we are
ready to go. Ou est ma maison? Donde esta mi casa?
I feel at home with you -- and you with me --
it has been a fruitful Art Home.
Dunke y gracias et merci.

Love,
La Dragu (the scribe)
xoxoxo ToddxoxoxoLauraxoxoxoNormanxoxoxo
LisaxoxoxooJessicaxoxoxooxTanya(virtual)xoxooxo
SindyxoxoxoxoxoThe High School Volunteersxoxoxo
AlisonxoxoxoxoFriends of Visualeyez xoxoxo
and even Karen Kain who wished us luck in our
Visualeyez Programme notes xoxox and thanks
to anyone I accidentally missed.

SATURDAY May 27th AFTERNOON

2006-05-27T17:15:00.000-07:00

photos: ONE NIGHT ONLY performs "Houseguest Project"

THE HOUSEGUEST PROJECT by One Night Only

ONO's site-specific installation was a series of gestures/aktions
that illuminated the uncertain arena of guest etiquette.
How often has your host(ess) handed you his/her keys
and said "make yourself at home" then left for work
and there you were in their private space totally on your own?
Did you look through their drawers? Eat their crackers?
Try on their clothes? Or perhaps you did the dishes,
scrubbed the floors, and hand-washed their socks?

ONO expresses their too little/too much thanks
as Laura's departing houseguests by:
licking/kissing the walls and objects enroute (Blair),
replacing the hostess's floor sweepings with
the guest's obsessively labelled bottles (Anna),
chowing through Laura's homemade spice-y
pickles then lining up copious (funeral) amounts
of fresh cut flowers on her carpet (Felipe),
& handwashing Laura's clothes while wearing them
in the bath then hanging them in the apartment
building's laundry room (Tanis).
There was an evocative video of CU luggage contents
playing on a monitor in a clothes closet.

This highly coded/negotiated terrain of expected
but unarticulated need and desire was very
sweetly exposed in ONO's performance gestures.
Their collective aktions provoked a collegial-dorm
feel in the almost-too-large audience in Laura's
apartment. Although I hate to kvetch about
these almost IDEAL houseguests (they're clean,
thoughtful, and they leave fresh flowers),
I wanted more. Not longer. But more.
More developed aktions and just plain more aktions.
So, dear houseguests, please come back to visit
really really soon! Miss you already.

xoxoox
Love,
La Dragu (the scribe)

SATURDAY May 27th MORNING

2006-05-27T13:28:00.000-07:00

photos: Latin Love by Clemente Padin

CHAT with CLEMENTE PADIN
and Filipe Diaz of ONO
(thanks for Filipe's much appreciated translations)

Zoe and I wake up early to the sounds of congregating
Youth for Christ hotel guests leaving Dayz Inn in their
yellow school bus with signs in the windows:
"Honk if you Love Jesus".
Our hotel certainly keeps entertainment quotient high;
the night before the downstairs bar was surrounded
by 6 police squad cars assisted by a helicopter
with a sweeping search light JUST LIKE in Miami Vice re-runs.
Note: Stay out of Albert's Bar unless you're looking for rough
trade. The hotel restaurant, on the other hand,
serves a terrific breakfast special and the waitresses
are FABULOUS!

At the gallery, Zoe preps her tea tray
for today's 1st performance of DEDICATED TO YOU
while I cut up the marinated pork from Clemente's
performance last night. I am adding veggies,
flour, herbs & more garlic when Filipe & Clemente
arrive for our chat.

Clemente is a 67 year old artist from Uruguay.
He names himself as "poet, graphic
artist, performer, videomaker, multi-media and
networker". His first discipline was and is poetry.
He has been making performance art since 1970.

Earlier this week, I watched Clemente Padin's DVD
documenting 6 of his performances most from
the '80's. Many of his performances employ
his cutting, hacking, or beating meat.
To me, since the meat was beaten/cut
without the respect a butcher or a doctor would use
toward flesh, it felt like torture/violation or
a violent execution. I said his performance, although
centred in his experience in Central America with
The Disappeared, also resonated for me in current
political world conflicts. I asked him if my interpretations
of the meaning of his aktions was within the area of his intent.

Clemente said yes, this was within his intent, and that
for him meat was what was what is "essential"
of the human body. He said all his art was political
and about human rights. Certainly his work is centred
about life, struggle & human rights in Central America
but also for the whole world.

I found Clemente's performance to be a combination of
"classic" akition-based gestures as well as ritual.
The black hood reminded me of Alastair Mac Lennan.
Carolee Schneeman's "Meat Joy" crawled across my
screen-memory as he was beating the meat.
His use of "der Kunst unt Material" reminded me
of art from the performance community of Le Lieu.

However, the whistling, candle lighting and prostration
felt very different to me and was my favourit part.
I felt it was ritual and asked him if he thought of it that way.
Clemente said yes and that there was a new
awareness in Latin America of the place, aktions and art
from aboriginal peoples. It was this shifting awareness
and also it being absorbed into performance that was
what is "new" in both his and in Latin American
performance art practice.

I also asked what made his work/aktions different than
Populist Theatre of Latin America -- the political, agit-prop,
pure gestured work in the street, in union, in mines, etc.
He explained it was both the form of performance
art as being slightly different from theatre but mainly that
performance art was just him and his body without pretending
to be anything/anyone else.

When I asked CLEMENTE if he had questions/statement
about performance that he would like me to put on this blogg,
he replied that it was important to him to bring Latin American
performance to the outside world and see what it means to
people not living in Latin America; he also said it was good
to make art friends around the world and he was having
an excellent time ata Visualeyez.

Clemente and I started "on the wrong foot"
(a peculiar English idiom & oddly a dance expression)
because we clashed over his and my definition
of performance art practice especially in regards
to Tanya Lukin-Linklater's work WOMAN AND WATER.
But over this week, we have gone
from clash to tolerance to respect.

FRIDAY NIGHT May 26th Part B

2006-05-26T19:00:00.000-07:00

photos: LATIN LOVE by Clemente Padin

Part B: LATIN LOVE by Clemente Padin

He performed an aktion-based, ritual with a
performative-video at 6:00 pm in the dark
& dramatically spot lit gallery.

Clemente unrolled toilet paper and while "reading"
the non-existant words on the TP he said:
"blah blah blah blah". He covered his face in a black mask
then lay down on 3 steps of wooden stairs
in various death poses while the video documentation of
"Memorial America Latina" was projected above/upon him.
He removed various layers of Nike-swooshed clothing as
he beat 6 pounds of pork loin with a 2" X 4" piece of wood.
He also beat the meat on a square of newsprint taped
to the wall. He laid down on the floor.

He laid rose petals on the floor in the shape of a body,
whistled to the 4 directions, lit a ceremonial candle for
each direction, then prostrated in front of the candle flame
after coughing and spitting into his hands.

Each time CLEMENTE clapped 2 rocks together, Filipe drew
a cross on the newsprint square. Clemente then
drew his silhouette on the paper, cut it out and
opened a book of stamps/stickers with
photos/names of The Uruguayan Disappeared.
He asked audience members to remove a sticker
and place it on his body. He took the last two stickers
from the book, placed them on his eyes,
and the performance was over.

FRIDAY DAY May 26th Part A

2006-05-26T10:15:00.000-07:00

photo TOP Vida SImon ESCAPE
photo BOTTOM: One Night Only hanging out in Laura's Kitchen

Part A: DOUBLE CHATS: VIDA & ONE NIGHT ONLY

Vida Simon and I met for early coffee at the gallery.
She woke up with sciatic nerve pain so I massaged
her L4- to L-7 and radiant pain areas and then she did
posterior/glutes median hip stretches on the mat.

I asked VIDA about the role of improvisation in her work.
Her performance in the hotel gave me a STRONG
feeling of watching a jazz improvisation.
Vida said it is an important aspect of her process.
She has a long history of working with many improvisational groups
including the well-known PLAY GROUP of women performance
artists in Montreal as well as dance/music/vocal improvisation groups.
Vida enjoys the transformation and the surprise
of shared transformation that can occur in group improv.

It is not unusual for a performance artist to improvise
in front of an audience but he/she usually does it alone.
It is very unusual for performance artists to collaborate
in groups: exception-to-prove-rule is BLACK MARKET,
natch. Jazz musicians and contact improvisation dancers
share a lexicon of phrases/moves & a methodology
of how-to-improvise together. [In fact, flamenco
musicians/dancers/singers have rules of how to signal
beginnings/endings to fascilitate the dialogue/trade
of their improvisation.]

But how do performance artists improvise?
I ask Vida for a memory from PLAY GROUP improv-sessions
(they were, in fact, for process, not for presentation to a public).
She remembered pomegranates once being used by
1 or 2 artists in a circle, left on the floor, then a 3rd picked
out the seeds with pins and told a memory-story for each seed,
a 4th artist attached the pomegranate to her chest
like a bleeding heart, and so on ....
an oppportunity to discover transformations.

I catch up with ONE NIGHT ONLY later that afternoon.
ONO (Felipe Diaz, Blair Fornwald, Tanis Keiner, & Anna Scott)
are loosely based in Regina and tomorrow afternoon shall
perform HOUSEGUEST PROJECT in Laura's private home
from 5:00 - 7:00 pm. You should come!

I asked them about how they collaborate and/or improvise
together and what drew them from visual art-making to performance.
Blair instantly said it was "the immediacey" that she loved about
performance and Felipe agreed saying sculpture-making
does not provide the intense interaction he gets from performance.

ONO's process appears to be more like 4 artists in parallel play.
They agree on a theme/topic and each artist brings an aktion
(perhaps with a prop and/or soundtrack) and through the execution
of their individual performances some improvisation/chance events occur.
But they don't improvise 6 hours a week in a studio nor does one artist
plan/choreograph what the other 3 should do with him/her.

I ask them to describe some actions they've done in performance
and I find them deliciously CONCEPTUAL and very SMART even when
they sometimes are executed with technical problems
and so aren't "perfect". They usually make site-specific work
but have also performed in the holy white cube of the art gallery
and the historically burdened black box of theatre (my adjectives).
Despite my prejudice towards the black box, their recent collaboration
with a modern dance company and a theatre director sounded
FABULOUS. It sounded like they held their ground and still performed
their clean/sculptural/conceptual aktions but they were well-lit
and the dancers kinda whipped around them like turbulent wind.

Every day ONO arrives with fresh flowers for Laura' desk.
What good houseguests they are! And small art-making is left
like treats around the gallery -- small drawings, messages,
a gorgeous WELCOME MAT made out of talcum powder at
the gallery's front door.

Who wouldn't want these guyz as house guests?
Looking forward to tomorrow afternoon's performance.

Love,
La Dragu (the scribe)

THURSDAY EVENING May 25th Part C

2006-05-25T21:16:00.000-07:00

photos: Sarada Rauch in DOMIPORTA

Part C: DOMIPORTA

Sarada Rauch spent 4 or 5 days in the smaller gallery
making a grey & pink reversable wall-to-wall "carpet".
We stood on it until Sarada folded/re-folded
her heavy floor covering. We moved from one side
of the gallery to the other as she lifted and folded
(like mom sweeping/vacuuming under your chair)
and we responded to her folding like a slow Red Rover game
until there was bare floorspace to sit/stand upon.
The big folds slowly became smaller folds
and we began to see an origami snail shell
then she crawled into it (the shell was on her back)
and then she left the gallery.

Her simple aktion was clean, sculptural, & aktion-based.
It was "loaded" with meaning(s): the created object, her gestures.
The performance was more like a haiku poem aktion
than a differently-laboured work that comes from
endurance/duration/relational performance.
DOMIPORTA perfectly suited a gallery space
and reflected Sarada's recent transient (no-home) history.

Remembering Sarada describing the displacement/loneliness
she experienced during the alone-time she experienced
as an AUSLAENDER (outsider) in Germany,
I feel both she and Suzanne Caines
are performing from a similar "place" in time.
They both share a performative impulse
originating from an investigation of the domestic without a home
including the territories of immigration/marginalization.

What does home mean if you leave it/lose it/escape it?
Is home where-you-hang-your-hat?
Is it a refuge?
Is it a prison?

Over whiskey with Todd Janes in my hotel room at Dayz Inn,
I vent about the pressure of my domestic life:
MOTHER of 18 yr old girl graduating from High School to university;
DAUGHTER of 82 yr old mother with Alzheimer's;
common-law PARTNER to my best friend of 20+ years;
Squished/squashed to serve/give/support/fix
and be the bottom-line.

I long to get away from the domestic
(like Vida's performance COMPLICATED ESCAPE).
I'd like to navigate and even some day come to terms
with the burden of family history(ies) and politics
(like Naufus's peformance MARIACHI HISTRIONICS)

I want the invisibility of domestic (usually women's) work
to be validated (like Tanya Lukin-Linklater's
performance WOMAN AND WATER) both in our real/daily
(read "economic") world and in the Art World.
Yes, Gorilla Grrrlz, still needed, thanks!

I crave my pressured/fragmented life to have intimacy
and connection with people/community as I feel similarly
desired/needed in the performances DOMNIPORTA and RELOCATION.

VISUALEYEZ is an oasis for me.
An escape from the domestic as we
ironically
pursue what is domestic.

Respectfully yours,
La Dragu (the scribe)

ps: I've just caught up with your posted comments.
Thanks to everyone whose written in!
Write more!
Luv,
md xoxoxoox

THURSDAY AFTERNOON May 25th Part B

2006-05-25T14:30:00.000-07:00

photos: DOMIPORTA by Saradis Rauch

PART B: Chat with Sarada Rauch

It is raining and cold. The wide streets of Edmonton
(parenthesized by shiny/reflective modern buildings)
are full of disenfranchized youth, the homeless/working poor,
& lost aboriginal people. Today's newspaper pix are of
PM Harper grinning through his explanations
of yesterday's civillian casualties. I have a long talk with my personal
trainer/fitness leader counterpart at Grant MacEwan Wellness
Centre comparing Alberta and BC medicare. My mood is grey.

Zoe Kreye is down with the stomach flu; Phillipe and
Anna are not feeling so good. Flurry of pharmacy trips
& hand washing. Artists pitch in to clean the kitchen.
CLEANING ALWAYS MAKES ME FEEL BETTER.
Laura & Norm shop for large meat pieces for
Clemente Padin's performance tomorrow. I feel very
blogged but feel like I am wrestling with a bone,
pursuing a scent, not sure of my question but just
knowing I want to know. I feel frustrated with the
panel discussions (forced conversations) and happier
with my one-on-one chats with each artist although
I feel unable to communicate what was illuminated to me
(you-just-HAD-to-BE-there-ville) through our chats.
It would be better to have Spock's Vulcan mind probe?

I slow down and spend time chatting with SARADA RAUCH.
SARADA is an LA/NY artist who comes to Visualeyez after living
1 yr. in Berlin and doing a 4 month art-residencey in Leipzig.
She self-describes herself as "transient" because she is and has
been living without a home/place or being a visitor/houseguest
for quite some time. She works in painting, sculpture,
video & performance; she is also a successful artisan
and-making jewellery as well as designing/constructing
high-end home decor from recycled natural fabrics.

I asked her what drew her to performance
and about earlier performance work. She said she enjoyed
"the tendered concept" of performance art.
A well-know performance work by SARADA was her devising
a way to get herself & a friend on a US-network reality-TV show
in the Jerry Springer mode with an entirely fabricated drama
of Love Lost Lesbians as a way to deconstruct/criticize
this entertainment's impact on our culture.

She has also performed in galleries & outdoor locations
(alone & with others) doing aktions with sets/costumes/props:
-- stewardess/rockstar gushing red glitter blood from her
heart while singing into a microphone
-- blonde-jock-strapped or naked women pushing
giant astro turf ball up a huge staircase but the astro turf
ball falls again/again and is pushed again by them a la Sisyphus
while also creating performative-sculptures like her vacuum cleaner
tricycle that both spews dirt & vacuums
and her sugar-water pissing machine that choreographs ant colonies.

I laugh when she tells me that she (somehow) landed
at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival and it had been a difficult experience.
Fringe fests are mostly theatre and audience's readings are
informed and drenched by rigid theatre conventions.
I can see producers reading Sarada's work as approaching theatre
and thinking she might "fit" but I also know how difficult/uncomfortable
it is to present work contextualized by theatre. Aaaaarrrrgh.
There are many slippery slopes and blurry boundaries
between performance art and other multi-inter-disciplines
but it is the Motivation and Essential Drive of the art work
that signales the audience/viewer to "know"
if what they are viewing is performance art
or a traditional discipline experimenting in pushing its own boundaries.

THURSDAY MORNING May 25th Part A

2006-05-25T10:19:00.000-07:00

photo: Suzanne Caines in RELOCATION

Part A: Chat with Suzanne Caines

RELOCATION is a very touching work that,
in fact, cannot be touched.
This is why discussing RELOCATION easily seguays
into the role of documentation (esp. video)
in performance art.

When I watched the performance, my automatic response
was that I was disturbed the general public didn't know
they were being videotaped.
But almost immediately this thought was re-informed by
the mall architecture and the pervasive amount of surveillance
in all malls and in most urban space.
If Big Corporations can watch and listen to us talking
in front of Birk's Jewellery and La Senza Lingerie,
then why not Suzanne or you or me?

Watching Suzanne in the mall is to see a professional-looking
survey worker engage with the general public.
In reality, she is asking them questions that may or may not
engage them in a discussion about home
along with their feelings/values around the idea of home/community.
It is stunning how many people are eager to enter a moment of
intimacy with Suzanne while surrounded by mall-people traffic
and cues for commerce. Individuals often tell her deeply touching stories.
Her performance testifies to our need for social contact
and connection.

Suzanne made her first performance THE BLUE HAMMER
in a hardware store in London, England, in response to living
there for a year in relative isolation with only shopkeepers to chat with.
It is her experience and understanding of being the lonely outsider
that resonates in BLUE HAMMER (asking hardware store shoppers
to test 3 hammers in exchange for a blue plastic one she made herself)
and in MEATLOAF EXCHANGE (giving homemade Canadian meatloaf
slices to rural French seniors wwhile traveling with a local vendor).

Suzanne's work is both relational and intervention performance.
In RELOCATION she is moving farther from object-making and references
to commerce. She is plunging deeply into human exchange.
The exchange with the public is touching to hear/watch
on video documentation but is even more powerful to hear
these stories re-told by Suzanne.
The power of this work lies inside the artist herself.

WEDNESDAY May 24 EVENING Part D

2006-05-24T20:30:00.000-07:00

TOP photo: audience dancing with tea towels apres CLEANING AND LOVING (IT) and MORE ...
BOTTOM photo: Todd Janes joins La Dragu in "a few small cleaning gestures"

Part D: Me/Todd & Suzanne in
An Evening of Performative Videos With Talk

I convinced Todd Janes
to join me in a few
performative cleaning gestures
before/during/after
screening of FADO's
CLEANING AND LOVING (IT)
and
MORE CLEANING AND LOVING (IT).

Todd is well-known for his intervention
performance work whereby he pays for
metered municpal parking spaces
on downtown streets but instead of parking a car
he irons in the parking stall (with a cordless iron
or plugging with extension cord.)

By the time we scrubbed the baseboards & floor,
the gallery reaked of Pinesol. In stereo, we skillfully (esp. Todd)
ironed 2 crisp white shirts, The performance ended in a short
X's & O's parade-choreography with tea towels.

Suzanne Caines showed exerpts from her Edmonton performances
at city malls as well as earlier work including MEAT LOAF EXCHANGE,
GO MOOSEHEADS GO, and THE BLUE HAMMER.
There was a quite excellent circle discussion
about Suzanne's work that evolved into a discussion
of the role of documentation in performance work.

WEDNESDAY May 24 EVENING Part C

2006-05-24T18:00:00.000-07:00

photo: Artists' Dinner

Part C: Chianti Restaurant on Whyte Avenue

The friendly and knowledgeable wait staff
helped me choose a full-bodied red wine
that was splendid with chicken breast, seasonable
vegetables & light sauce served with spaghetti.
Dontcha love the good oil (olive)?
Perfect!

WEDNESDAY May 24 AFTERNOON Part B

2006-05-24T14:13:00.000-07:00

photo: Zoe Kreyer with one-on-family performance

Part B: Zoe Hostess with Mostest

All afternoon while I talked & blogged, Zoe Kreye
had a FULL appointment schedule of
one-on-one & one-on-family performances.
In fact, Zoe is doing two different performances
throughout the week.

I ran into her in the gallery kitchen inbetween sessions.
She was baking biscuits & cookies, assembling tapas,
preparing juices,& fruits then carrying trays into
a quiet room that was also full of paper and art supplies.

DEDICATED TO YOU is an appointment to meet Zoe
with drinks, food, and conversation. This rendezvous
serves as a place to allow art/daily life to converge.
It is a wish for a point where art can be created
through human interaction. It is not documented
although there are a few stills of the performances
before they begin.

The second performance is the mapping project
[described in CHAT WITH ZOE BLOG Sat. May 20th].

I've not participated in her performances, yet,
only witnessed her preparations.

WEDNESDAY May 24 DAY Part A

2006-05-24T11:55:00.000-07:00

photo: Vida Simon in ESCAPE

Part A: More Gym! More Vida!

Two things make this a FABULOUS MORNING!

Grrrreat workout at GMacEwan 7:45 am:
20 min. bike, 10 min static machines UP body,
15 min. ellyptical, 10 min static mach LWR body,
10 min. row machine, 10 min ab/back mat,
15 min. stretch, shower/steam/shower/steam/shower

AND

Terrific performance 10:00 am by Vida Simon.
Vida performs ESCAPE 4 hours every day
in her posh 18th floor room at Edmonton Coast Hotel & Resort.

Jessica (gallery crew member) escorted a small group of us
to Vida's room that is almost entirely papered with white newsprint.
6 or 7 charcoal drawings leaned up in a corner where Vida, dressed in striped
pajamas, continued to draw/write/erase/re-layer drawings and writings
as we settled noisily on papered chairs, bed, endtables.
The largest wall had thoughts/journal entries and daily topics.

"Tues: childhood/excavation, Wed: becoming an artist,
Thurs: economics, Fri. excape/freedom, Sat. folding stories.
Escape. I dreamed of this for a long time. A complicated escape
but not really a retreat because with you ar here."

Vida seemed to draw images from memories, dreams, what she saw
out the hotel window, herself looking at her self looking out the window,
images of brains/walnuts, hands holding/surrounding, events of glam hotel life
like swimming in the spa pool; each one erased and re-layered
by negative/positive layers of charcoal and more images.

Like a child with an oversized set of paper/tools, Vida wrote words
directly to us in the audience, changing meaning by adding numbers/letters:

"desire to create pictures at age of 3/
not conscious choice/ a search for a visual language"
altered to "desire to draw at age of 35/need to embody visual language".

Her work touches on home/away, public/private, representation/identity,
history of visual/performance art, memory, dream,
oppression of domestic life, and so much more.

Vida Simon took Child Pose from yoga and breathed, She opened walnuts
and gave them to audience, ate them herself, placed them on her drawing.
Was it an ear? A medula oblongata? She stood and looked out the window
and when we looked at her looking, we looked at her drawing and saw
her looking in the same pose she embodied. Watching Vida is like seeing
a skilled jazz musician freely improvise. Bearing witness and being there
in the audience is like watching a bird fly.

This work thrilled me. It suceeds in meaning so much with so little.
Every gesture and action is loaded like a boiled down tincture of meaning,
representation, symbol, sign, code, ritual.... Watching good performance
is like watching/feeling an onion peeling in front of your very eyes.

Tomorrow, I shall have to get up even earlier
so I can have MORE GYM and MORE VIDA !!!

Love,
La Dragu, the Scribe

TUESDAY May 23rd Part D

2006-05-23T23:30:00.000-07:00

photo: Panel Latitude 53

Part D: DOING DOMESTICITY
Panel Discussion
8-10 pm

Thirty-five people joined the talking circle.
We covered topics about art and culture
including notions of:
1. wild/domestic ie. animals, spaces
2. urban sprawl & loss of rural
3. safety/refuge
4. claiming/controlling space for self
5. public/private
6. gender/race & economics
7. oppression in the domestic
8. owning/renting/losing domestic space
9. transient space
10.. blogging/FRIENDSTER/E-families & communities
11. fractured/disparate/isolated domestic life
12. tribes/fear of others/religious-extreme

We also discussed evolving performance art practices
of relational performance and intervention performance
in terms of the domestic.

I really liked the high school students who shared.
They are aware, smart, & observant.
And active volunteers at Latitude 53.

***
Exhausted, we stagger back to Dayz Inn.
Zoe and I are punch drunk with fatigue
of social intercourse/panel discourse and can't stop
giggling and talking about art until finally we turn
out the lights and at last sleep
sharing borrowed (temporary) domestic space.

TUESDAY May 23rd Part C

2006-05-23T18:00:00.000-07:00

photo: DaDeO Cajun Restaurant on groovy Whyte Avenue in Edmonton

Part C: Artists' Dinner

I had Ya-Ya combo of spicey
blackened shrimps/scallops & rice
and it was FABULOUS! Sweet-potatoe fries
are to-die-for. Zoe drank something blue.
Blue is a good colour for a cocktail.

5: 30 pm Kicking back with Looser Talk amongst
artists than this evening's upcoming panel discussion
that astute Todd Janes describes as
"forced conversation".

xoxoxo
later, la dragu (scribe)

TUESDAY May 23rd Part B

2006-05-23T13:15:00.000-07:00

photo: Suzanne Caines in RELOCATION

Part B: Edmonton Centre Mall

This is Day 3 of RELOCATION. It is an Intervention Performance
work by Suzanne Caines that could also be
viewed/framed as Relational Performance.
Suzanne performed Day 1 & 2 at
West Edmonton Mall (world's largest)
but today has re-located
to Edmonton Centre.

Dressed in neutral office gear and a clipboard,
Suzanne approached people as any other surveyor/market researcher
has done in everyone's experience at the mall.
Except Suzanne asked questions about home and community:
"where are you from? when did you leave?
what do you miss about the place you left?
how do you replace this in Edmonton?"
During these conversations with perfect strangers,
there were many intimate and poignant moments
in this constructed discussion about what "home" means
that raised many questions about what we mean
by home or by domesticity.

Lisa (of Visualeyez crew) discreetly videotaped
some exchanges in the mall
without the surveyed knowing this was being done.
Lisa did not hide but was far enough away to be
so discreet that she was not noticed.
Lisa and I took some stills like undercover agents
or private detectives (ie. camera under our coat,
or lens out of our purse; pretending to be
mom & daughter tourists shooting pix
under pervasive Go Oilers flags).
The audio was captured by wireless microphone
on Suzanne's clipboard.

Suzanne shall present a few clips of RELOCATION
(video documentation of her performances) at Latitude 53
Wednesday May 24th after the 8:00 pm screening of
CLEANING AND LOVING (IT)
with Little Performance by Todd and moi.
You should come. Totally.

TUESDAY May 23rd Part A

2006-05-23T10:25:00.000-07:00

Tanya Lukin-Linklater as Bird Spirit in WOMAN AND WATER

Part A: CHAT with TANYA LUKIN-LINKLATER and
My Reading of WOMAN AND WATER

8:00AM-GYM: 25 min. bike, 10 min. elyptical trainer,
10 min. row machine; 15 min. cable cage; 15 min physioball;
5 min. wobbleboard; 15 min. yoga; shower & steam. YUM!

I meet with Tanya and son Toby for breakfast on rooftop
of Latitude 53: coffee, toasted bagels, juice.
We breastfeed (well, for me, memories of...),
prevent Toby from jumping off the roof,
yak and laugh before the rest of the artists arrive.

Tanya has some serious academic cred!
From Kodiak Island, Alaska, she graduated in English
from Sandford University then got
her Masters in First Nations Education
at Univ. of Alberta . In 1998, she started to work
in dance-theatre. She researched opportunities
to study Native Theatre and discovered there were
more opportunities in Canada than USA
so she came to Toronto's Centre for Indian Theatre.
She also studied 3 summers at Banff School of Fine
Arts with Muriel Miguel who founded
Spiderwoman Theatre in USA.

Tanya has been working with IMAN SUA who is
the Spirit of Ocean and UNNAM SUA who is the Spirit of Land.
Visualeyez's DOMESTICITY call appealed to her parallel exploration
of women's work: constant and often invisible. Her work is often
performed to remember and honour her grandmother
whom she vividly recalls carrying all the water for her family.
Tanya says she could develop a series of performances
just with the carrying of water in many ways. I like her impulse
to combine aktion-based performance gestures (with weight/burden)
with her evolving sense of story-telling/spoken word.
WOMAN AND WATER is both performance and dance
and executed but in a way that blurs both boundaries.

Tanya blurred dance and performance very successfully in her blanket circle;
she did Inuit-style throat singing then employed traditional Aleut dance
to embody Bird Spirit. Less successful, was the dance she did at the edge
of the pool. It was modern dance and felt like we were idling our motor
and waiting until the performance could resume.

In fact, Tanya says her new challenge is to look for and develop
performance gestures/aktions so she can cross water
(ie go from Spirit of Land to Spirit of Water).
She agreed that this first attempt (dancing at the edge of the pool
in an attempt to cross from land to water) was not quite what she
wanted. So, she is going to continue to work on this challenge.

When she came out of the pool, her brief story-telling
about her grandmother was moving. It felt true
(ie. not sentimental, manipulative or mawkish as it could be done
with acting for theatre or film/tv). Then she entered "real time"
in the giving of food and blankets.

Many First Nations performance artists started in theatre
and evolved into performance artists and/or visual artists.
They often bring actual or subverted traditions of story-telling
and ritual (old & new) making it a constantly evolving practice.

Tanya Lukin-Linklater is a performance artist.
She also makes dance-theatre and teaches within various communities.
Certainly, hard-core throw-it-down-old-school-aktion-based-only
performance art traditionalists would not and will never accept her
as a performance artist. But then, they have never accepted me either.
I have been battling THEM for 35 years. Fuck the Patriarchy!

Love,
La Dragu the Scribe

MONDAY May 22nd PART C

2006-05-22T19:10:00.000-07:00

Tanya Lukin-Linklater WOMAN AND WATER

Part C: Food & Ribbons & Food

Tanya gave out blueberries, oranges, water, salmon, cream
cheese, crackers, and bread. The salmon came from her
fishing village in Alaska. She explained to the crowd that it was
important for them to eat or take away all the food she had provided.
An older woman who was sitting and drawing
spontaneously came forward to give Tanya a painting
she had just made while sitting in the park.
Tanya gave out ribbons to the crowd.
[I am still wearing mine.]
Finally, Tanya asked her children to help her give away
all the blankets from the blanket circle.
Every single thing Tanya brought wtih her to the performance
was eaten, drunk, or taken away.

MONDAY May 22nd PART B

2006-05-22T18:09:00.000-07:00

photo: Tanya Lukin-Linklater WOMAN AND WATER

Part B: Bird Spirit/Strawberries/Pool Story

Tanya circled, chanted, & embodied vocal spirits.
After her basin was filled with water and strawberries,
she washed the fruit, stood, circled the blanket & ribbons
then slowly transformed herself into a bird.
[Her movements were hypnotic and centred -- the opposite
of the "pretending" of theatre.]
She walked to the pool and the crowd followed.
Tanya danced into the pool, submerged and swam.
She played and splashed with the children.
Then she came out of the pool and sat and told a short story.
She was raised by her grandmother who was wise and
provided for everyone. Even though her grandmother was dead,
she still missed her very very much. Tanya wept.

MONDAY May 22nd PART A

2006-05-22T17:29:00.000-07:00

photo: Tanya Lukin-Linklater "WOMAN AND WATER"

Part A: Blankets, Ribbons, Circles

The enigmatic & efficient Todd Janes
took me shopping to Whyte Ave's Army and Navy
to buy ribbons & cream cheese for Tanya's performance
plus dishcloths & tea towels for Todd and me.
[I have pursuaded Todd to do performance-gestures with me
before/during/after my video screening of
CLEANING AND LOVING (IT) and
MORE CLEANING AND LOVING (IT)
Wednesday at 8:00 pm
[Be there or be square]...

We joined the other Visualeyez Artists
(including Clemente Padin of Uruguay
who arrived after a 32hour flight)
at the Reflecting Pool in front of Edmonton's City Hall.
The Reflecting Pool is full of happy splashing children
as it is 25 degrees and very sunny. The pool is surrounded
by The Art Gallery of Alberta, CBC, Citadel Theatre,
the general public and a 3-person security team in good humour
but still an active presence managing the homeless, street youth,
working poor and transients who also claim this pool as their own.

We need more cream cheese so I go to ANOTHER mall.
When I return (with light -- 50% less fat), Tanya Lukin-Linklater
has laid out 6 or 7 blankets in a circle
and encircled them with ribbons. She slowly walks around her blanket circle.
A gallery crew person hands out slips of paper saying
"This is a performance by artist Tanya Lukin-Linklater"
with descriptions of who she is and her art practice
along with the how-to's to contact Latitude 53.

Sunday NIGHTtime May 21st PART D

2006-05-21T23:27:00.000-07:00

photo: Naufus in MARIACHI HISTRIONICS

Part D: My Reading

Naufus's performances are action-based
endurance art often employing
altered consciousness aquired by
effort-work and no sleep. His work addresses
class, race, gender, power by examining and
working with his personal history.

At first, each of Naufus's actions
in his performance seemed chosen
in direct opposition to his estranged father.
Naufus -- young, gay & overweight
sings slightly off-key.
His dad -- older, macho & moustached
is a professional Mariachi musician.

Watching Naufus perform with his lexicon
of white eggs, white milk, & white condoms,
I feel him actively navigating
the Race ! Gender! Power! choices
both he and his father have made
and have had made for them.
They appear opposite and yet Naufus's aktions begin to blur
and bend creating options for the dialectic.
The vibrant orange cowboy boots look like high-heels.
He gathers the eggs falling out of his jockey shorts
and his knees come together a la Marilyn.
He morphs into a slightly transgendered
both pretty and handsome
and he becomes the sexy man/woman.
His second song, literally fuelled
by hot chile peppers, reclaims passion and tears
from the corny Mariachi repretoire.
There is a return to home but not as the prodigal son.
More a son becoming a tolerant and open one.

The performance was shorter than I had expected.
I would have gladly and happily seen this performance
at three or four times the length.

Love,
La Dragu

Sunday NIGHTtime May 21st PART C

2006-05-21T23:15:00.000-07:00

photo: Naufus in MARIACHI HISTRIONICS

Part C: Sparklers and Firecrackers

Naufus took us to the gallery's rooftop.
He lit and handed out sparklers and set off
firecrackers from inside his cowboy boots.

Sunday NIGHTtime May 21st PART B

2006-05-21T22:30:00.000-07:00

photo: Naufus Ramierez-Figueroa in MARIACHI HISTRIONICS

PART B: Cowboy Boots and Love Songs

Throughout Naufus's aktions, he wore vibrant
red/orange cowboy boots.
A recent home video of his father singing
and playing guitar that he shot during a recent visit to Guatemala
was projected on the gallery wall.

Once tied up, stuffed with eggs, and draped in
milk-filled condoms, Naufus bit and spit out
many hot!hot! green chile peppers.
While his eyes streamed with tears,
he sang a 2nd passionate Mariachi-style
Spanish love song via karoke.

Sunday NIGHTtime May 21st PART A

2006-05-21T22:27:00.000-07:00

photo: Naufus Ramierez-Figueroa in MARIACHI HISTRIONICS

Sunday Night May 21:

After gym time [30 min cardio/20 min abs/10 min stretch],
I went to the gallery for Kitchen Dinner Party [salad, bread, cheese]
and "MARIACHI HISTRIONICS" by Naufus.

Part A Eggs and Milk:

Naufus peeled 42 hard boiled eggs. The gallery smelled like sulphur.
He stood on a chair and sang a Corrido Romantica song
from a video-projected Spanish Karoke CD.
After pouring 16 litres of milk into a bucket, he opened condoms
and filled them with milk by his mouth.
Rip. Unroll. Dunk. Spit. Again. Again. Tie.
(The milk-filled condoms looked more like breasts than penises.)
Then he stuffed the eggs into his jockey shorts and tied himself up with a rope
to which he tied the milk-condoms.

Sunday DAYTIME May 21st THE SCRIBE sayz

2006-05-21T18:03:00.000-07:00

photo: Zoe Kreye in "DEDICATED TO YOU" rooftop Latitude 53

Sunday DAY May 21:

After an urban night soundscape at Dayz Inn of shattered glass,
body punches, puke-ing, bottle-passing, and car wheels spinning on gravel,
we arrive at Latitude 53. The handsome Todd Janes brews dark roast
coffee and serves lemon poppyseed muffins.
We slam into gear.
Energy cranks up several notches.

La Presse arrives. Artist interviews for radio/newspaper
are conducted on the roof top
inbetween Zoe Kreye's first performances of
"DEDICATED TO YOU".
I can see Zoe hostessing on the roof through the glass panes
but cannot hear. Tantalizing.

The gallery is de-installed from last night's gala then prepped up
for Naufus Ramierez-Figueroa's performance tonight
"MARIACHI HISTRIONICS".

LITTLE CHAT WITH NAUFUS RAMIEREZ-FIGUEROA
in Latitude 53's Kitchen:

A coupla' days before coming to Edmonton,
I saw Emily Carr Institute of Art & Design's Grad Show in Vancouver.
Naufus (like 2004 Visualeyez artist Julianna Barbaras)
took The Slow Boat to Art School Graduation; they both got the diploma
in May but both are very active artists with bodies of work.
[Not sure what this title "student" means? Nor nomenclature "teacher".]

Naufus's 3-dimensional piece "ASHEN VISCERA TO BLOOM" was made in
the shape of intestines covered in very fine white crocheting (like lace
or tatting). The needlework was executed by his mom/an aunt/a friend
who live in Guatemala and also by Naufus who learned how to do it
during a visit with his mom 3 yr. ago.
Although I get Joyce Wieland/Judy Chicago nods from this piece, it is a
stronger/visceral/embodied work inspired by Naufus's childhood nightmares
of being eviscerated by soldiers. He moved to Canada when he was twelve.

I ask Naufus about "WANDERING LIBIDO"
(a performance I saw at Gallery Gachet for 2003 LIVE Biennale
in Vancouver, BC). I recall a series of extremely
foccussed/executed aktions including frying pork fat in an electric fry pan
and smearing the fat on the floor, chopping and fying Barbie dolls in pork fat,
smoking cigars through mouth/anus, kneeling/wrapping, etc...
To me, his performance embodied the oppressive presence of FAT in the bodies
of The Poor and The Mentally Ill in that poverty/obsesity/diabetes/meds for most
mental illnesses all contribute to obesity. Naufus said that his performance was
based on his reclaiming his body after being prescribed "Haldole"
for PST (post traumatic stress disorder). The drug distanced/separated Naufus
from his body especially during sexual feelings/actions and the performance
was a way to reclaim his body.

"THE SUN IS CROOKED IN THE SKY - MY FATHER THROWN
OVER MY SHOULDER" is an already LEGENDARY performance
in our Living Art History.
Naufus performed it in Toronto for FADO.
[Go to FADO's webpageand read their article.]
It is a one (100) hundred hour durational performance!
Naufus calls it "an active meditation". I love this term
as it identifies some of the qualities/challenges/strategies
and joys of Durational Performance Art.
In "THE SUN IS CROOKED ...", Naufus wished to address
power and knowledge from his mixed ancestry (white & aboriginal)
as evidenced in many generations in his family history.
He devised aktions for the first 13 hours of the performance
then improvised the last 87 hours. Here, as well, Nauafus was dealing
with power, gender, culture, embodiment/disembodiment and reclamation.

I asked Naufus what attracts him to Durational Performance.
He said it gives him time to allow things to happen,
to get into his body, and to get into the mood.
I laughed when he said he wished it took him less time to get into the mood!
His performance tonight is scheduled for only 3 hours.
Performance starts at 7:00 pm.
Be there or be square.

Love,
La Dragu The Scribe

Saturday May 20th La Dragu The Scribe BLOG

2006-05-20T22:17:00.000-07:00

photo: Opening Gala at Latitude 53 with Edmonton band AUDIO SQUADRON

Saturday May 20th:
Two blocks from Latitude 53 is the Grant MacEwan Community College.
It has a FABULOUS Fitness & Wellness Centre with large gyms, pool,
aerobic classes, squash/rcketball courts, steam rooms.
I buy a 10 visit pass. My first visit:
1 hr. alternate 10 min. cardio/strength
15 min. abs/back on physioball
15 min. stretch/yoga/fascial release
20 min. shower/steam

I arrived at Latitude 53 only 8 min. late (breathless & guilty).
Only one artist was twitchy to get a move on and
stay on schedule -- fellow Virgo Sarada Rauch.
We made a date to do colour-coded filing, dusting & desk-neat-ening later.

Sharp and quick-witted Todd Janes through us in the gallery's Soccer Mom Van
and took us to a "smaller" Edmonton mall for Suzanne Caines' wireless microphone,
Sarada's wallpaper, Naufus's firecrackers, and Zoe & my gym locker locks.
Todd dropped us at Stoney Plain Road -- full of FABULOUS 2nd hand stores,
pawn shops, and a brisk street trade in HOT bikes/small electrical equipment.
We agreed to meet at Opening Gala at 8:00 pm featuring local band Audio Squadron.

A LITTLE CHAT WITH ZOE KREYE

Zoe Kreye is my roommate at Dayz Inn. She scored a fridge for us.
We shopped at Save On Foods and stocked up on salad, fruit, yoghurt,
and "real" milk. While eating, showering, lounging
and watching Madonna on MuchTV, I asked her about her art practice.

Zoe does Relational Performance Art.
This kind of performance has a strong presence in Montreal
(ie. Sylvie Coton, Karen Spencer, Rachel Echenburg, Jessica MacCormick etc.)
which is where she has been living the last few years.
Zoe comes to performance from sculpture and other 3-dimensional work
but chose performance as a way to answer her own questions
about her place/relationship with her art and the audience.
Zoe describes showing sculpture in a gallery but finally
the audience presence in the exchange feeling too limited
(ie. comment book at the gallery entrance).
When she first did performance aktions in more presentational performance,
she felt like the only change in art/artist/audience interaction
was that SHE had become the sculputre.
Asking herself how she could get past this feeling, she turned
to a kind of performance that is very intimate and usually executed
one-on-one.

For more than a year, Zoe has done a series of performances
asking people to come to her studio and map their life by drawing it on paper.
Some people ask Zoe to draw what they describe to her,
some draw with her, some prefer to draw by themselves.
All choices ask the bigger questions of what does collaboration mean
and how does an artist place her/his self IN RELATION to the audience
(one or many) ESPECIALLY if the audience is doing something WITH the artist.

[The performative maps have included:
a professional gardner's 10 year memory map of a favourite neighbourhood of gardens
a Norwegian summerhouse from someone's childhood
a mother's 1 yr. map-diary tracing locations during her pregnancy, birth of her child,
and first few months of raising her new baby.]

Zoe felt the maps were quite wonderful in their own way
but as objects they could only hold a fraction of the intimacy
of what occured during the one-one-one LIVE exchange
during the performance.
She is bringing these concerns and questions to her new work
"DEDICATED TO YOU" . Zoe is accepting appointments for a
rendezvous on the rooftop of Latitude 53 through out the festival.
Contact her at: ZOEKREYE@YAHOO.CA
or call 423-5353 to make an appointment.

Love,
La Dragu

La Dragu The Scribe BLOG Friday May 19th

2006-05-19T22:25:00.000-07:00

photo by Debra O'Rourke | "Cleaning and Loving (It)" | walk & roll performance by La Dragu | FADO, Queen's Park, Toronto, Ontario, Canada
Friday May 19th:

I find Edmonton FULL of lilac blossoms and WARM at 20 plus degrees.
The ever effervescent Todd Janes stashes
Naufus Ramirez-Figueroa, Blair Fornwald (of One Night Only)
and me at Dayz Inn and it is all coming back to me.

EDMONTON: wide streets, dry winds, friendly people.

Gallery Latitude 53 hosts a Visiting Artist/Festival Crew Welcome Barbeque
[Menu: meat/tofu burgers
mesculun salad
baked potatotes
fresh fruits]
Although we're still missing a few artists, we start to get to know each other a little.
Do some organizing, scheduling,& investigating.
How do we get to the infamous Edmonton Mall (largest mall in the world)?
Where can we buy batteries?
Paint?
Firecrackers?
Wallpaper?
2nd hand bathing suits?
Can we sort out our mixed up hotel rooms: Naufus is sleeping with two women artists tonight
but we think we can work this out in the morning.

We screen my 18 minute RENT DO video
(one of 3 videos addressing our theme of DOMESTICITY
I brought in lieu of performing).

Our talk shifts from bus passes, hardware stores, gym locations
to the pros and cons of documentation in performance,
the different needs of site specific/relational/durational performance art,
and we begin to talk about what REALLY interest me:
artists' process and aesthetics.

I have a quick chat with Tanya Lukin-Linklater
about "dancing into performance art" and the intenstity of MOTHER's TIME.
Mother's Time is a technique artist-momz acquire.
With it, they create/develop art in tiny slivers of alone time
ie. while sitting on the toilet or shopping at Save On Foods while holding
a sleeping infant.

Although we have arrived from 10 different time zones
we are all tired and it is time for bed. Time for more art tomorrow...

Love,
Margaret Dragu (The Scribe)
xoxoxo

La Dragu Scribe

2006-05-16T15:42:00.000-07:00

Tanya,
The Learning Curve is Steep
but not insurmountable.
How am I doing?
can you read text?
can you see image?
this is me from
RENT DO
the video that I shall
screen along with
CLEANING AND LOVING (IT)
and
MORE CLEANING AND LOVING (IT)

xoxoxo
margaret dragu of finn slough, bc

Welcome to Visualeyez 2006!

2006-05-15T21:21:00.000-07:00

Welcome to Visualeyez 2006! Watch this site for daily blog updates from festival animator Margaret Dragu!