For starters: the performance was fun. It was smart, rhythmic, dynamic, and fully committed. (yeah that sounds a lot like the NY Times review)
To further validate the NY Times quote in the press material for Everyone, the piece sparked questions:
- Throughout the piece it felt to me like The Audience was always The Audience. We were always watching and almost always distanced from the performers by their hightened experience. So, when is The Audience not The Audience?
- What does it mean that there are so many cliches of contemporary/post-modern american dance in this piece (the hipster functional outfits, the staring at the audience, the taking off of shoes, the singing, the kissing, the rough movement style, the personal witty story about, the reflection on the process of art making)?
Let’s start there. Maybe someone would like to respond. Mr. Campbell?
Hi, Galen. Re “the audience was always the audience,” I am such a perennial audience member that I have come to really appreciate the anonymity of the audience experience. In the dark you are free to be anyone; you don’t need to answer, you don’t need to decide. It’s this glorious free space that audience experience provides.
But I have to admit that at “Everyone” I was rather disappointed to remain audience. I had the feeling I wanted to be seen, and knowing that the company is touring this piece made me feel less seen–I doubted the seeming focus of their staring.
Comment by Lightsey Darst — 1/11/2008 @ 8:15 am
I too felt disappointed about not eventually or directly being pulled from audience member to audience participant. My teenager who was with me, on the other hand, was probably immensely relieved that I didn’t get up and writhe and roll around on the floor with them, because I REALLY wanted to. My legs kept twitching in anticipation.
My favorite feeling of the evening, though, was how the different personalities permeated my aura. That sounds so cliched and or new agey, but I loved that feeling.
Comment by Kyle Samejima — 1/13/2008 @ 7:27 am
Hi, Kyle. So why did you want to join in? Was it the inverse theater situation? Was it the performers? I’m asking you because I’m wondering where I got my own obscure desire to be seen.
Comment by Lightsey Darst — 1/14/2008 @ 4:53 pm
That’s a good question. Maybe it’s because of the inverse theater set-up, maybe because when I took a career test in my early 20’s it said I should be an entertainer, maybe because the time I went to Patrick’s Improv I got to writhe around on the floor and move around with other dancers and I realized how much I liked writhing around AND doing it in front of an audience.
I also read in Camille LeFevre’s review before I went and somehow mistakenly got the impression that there was more audience participation. Well, we were kind of invited in the front door, but didn’t get to sit at the table to eat.
And how about you? Any idea why you wanted to be seen?
Kyle
Comment by Kyle Samejima — 1/15/2008 @ 10:52 am
I think the advance publicity had something to do with it (it did sound as if there would be more interaction than actually occurred). Walking through the back of the theater, facing out at the audience, the lighting, maybe even the title–it’s called “Everyone,” after all.
Why did I want to be seen, though. . . One does not get too many chances to be actually seen by others, and perhaps that’s something performance could do. We’ll have to live with the reality that this performance never envisioned us as other than heads on flexible stalks. Or. . . well, messing with the audience is cool in dance, but not too many people do it very well. What is the audience capable of doing and willing to do (besides turning those heads back and forth)? What kinds of interaction can a performance accommodate?
Comment by Lightsey Darst — 1/15/2008 @ 2:23 pm
I was seen by the performers, and I guess I too wanted to be seen more or maybe more acknowledged. What I wanted was a sense of evenness. It is interesting to contrast the experience of Everyone staring at me and Jerome Bel looking out at me while “Killing Me Softly” played. Jerome brought me to him. Everyone made me feel my place as audience. That is actually pretty interesting. I think I enjoyed Jerome’s more, but Everyone is an interesting experience.
Ultimately I felt like there were more, deeper investigations that could have been performed in this piece. I wonder how much of that had to do with the publicity. Hmmmm.
Comment by Galen — 1/15/2008 @ 10:01 pm