if this gets messy
April 23 - April 30, 2013
duration: 6 days & 28-hours
locations: Arastradero Preserve, S. Service Road (Stanford), Lausen St. approaching Thomas Welton Art Gallery (Stanford), Half Moon Bay State Beach, Bernal Heights Park, The Oval (Stanford), Piggott Theater (Stanford)
materials: ice, nylon rope, paint, text from Kierkegaard’s Repetition, metal buckets, black balloons, sticks, dirt, earth, wooden chairs, string, 23’x60’ canvas
if this gets messy was performed for 8 consecutive days. The piece foregrounds repetition in order to unsettle familiar patriarchal measures of progress.
It began with six different site-based performances that took place in public space.
It culminated in a consecutive 28-hour performance that took place in a theater.
In the theater, the site-based performance scores were repeated. A seventh score, created for the theatre as its own environment, was added to the cycle of scores in hour 13.
Once I stepped onto the stage, I did not leave, take breaks, eat, drink, or sleep. As with all of my long durational performances, I had no clock with me on stage.
Video archive of if this gets messy available on PerformVu
Day One: “Embrace” - Duration, 1-hour
with Ryan Tacata and Rebecca Ormiston - documented by Sarah Berkovich
Day Two: “Still Labor” - Duration, 1-hour
documented by Elizabeth Kohnke
Day 3: “Vibration” - Duration, 1-hour
documented by Sarah Berkovich
Day 4: “Relation” - Duration, 1-hour
with Kiyan Williams - documented by Sarah Berkovich
Day 5: “Wait” - Duration, 1-hour
documented by Elizabeth Kohnke
Day 6: “Bound” - Duration, 1-hour
documented by Elizabeth Kohnke
Days 7/8: if this gets messy - Duration: 28-hours
April 29th, 3pm - April 30th, 7pm
documented by Elizabeth Kohnke
hour zero, stepping onstage
hour 28, stepping offstage
Timelapse of the 28-hour finale
Responses and Reflections
In the video below, choreographer Ann Carlson and Sculptor Terry Berlier respond to if this gets messy and talk with me immediately after the conclusion of the weeklong durational performance. Introductions by Helen Paris of Curious Theatre Company (UK).
CREDITS
if this gets messy by Raegan Truax
sound by: Derek Phillips
performers: Rebecca Ormiston, Kiyan Williams, Ryan Tacata
production team: Dante Belletti, Kellen Hoxworth, Brendon Martin, Angrette McCloskey (lighting), Sydney Skelton Simon
video: Sarah Berkovich, Elizabeth Kohnke
talkback: facilitated by Helen Paris with respondents Terry Berlier and Ann Carlson
additional support from Stanford University Production Staff in the Department of Theatre and Performance Studies