Performance Art

My last night in New York I went with my friend to a performance art gallery to watch as she documented the artist. The space was rather small, but felt more comfortable than other local galleries I had been to- it felt more like my kind of people. I planned to be only part of the audience and only for a short while as we were only there to document one person performing. But the moment I walk in I am pulled from my coat and told that I'm going to be an actress. I was given my lines 10 minutes before going on and was very overwhelmed. Another woman came up to me and tied herself to me using a bungee cord- the reason for this, I do not know. The piece used almost everyone in the room and focused on trauma, rape, and harassment. There was a lot of screaming a lot of emotion and afterwards a lot of crying.

This first performance was then followed by a black Man with a God complex telling everyone that he was the "Blackest n*^%$ in the room" and personally I would like to say that his piece shouldn't even be allowed to be called art. As a black woman myself I am very tired of being told that I'm not black enough to feel or know struggle and that I don't fit in with the rest of the club. I later got into an argument with this man and I am happy to say that I will never be seeing him again.

The next act was calmer but all I could feel was rage which really skewed my reaction to the performance. A woman stood on a pedestal with black balloons tied around her body and she did odd things to them that I cant really find the words to describe. There were also headphones attached to her and clear masks that you couldn't breath through. When you put them on you could here all of the sounds coming from inside her as she was going through the actions of messing with the balloons.

The last act was a woman dancing around in a pool of hand soap. I don't have much to say about hers other than that she fell a lot and got her point across perfectly- she should feel nervous, and you should too.

By the end of the night I was mentally and physically drained. art had never made me so emotional for such an extensive amount of time but I'm glad it happened.




  From the same woman who did the balloon piece- ceramic slivers of the same balloons used.


Also I am now a part of an art society in Brooklyn. I should receive e-mail updates regularly, or at least I hope I do because I actually have no idea whats going on and how I even got involved.

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