Todays post features the work of Performance Artist Yoann Bourgeois. His work continues to mesmerize me and keep me in thrall. This video of a work titled Passants (passers) looks at the life cycle and beautifully illustrates the passing of each generation - as one generation is ending another is beginning. It also visually describes a human life in motion even when it appears to stop. Music is by Phillip Glass played by Kronos Quartet with its kinetic repetitive motifs is perfect for this performance. Enjoy the magic, the wonder, the beauty of this performance. (fyi there is an introduction in french since this live performance was broadcast on French television.)
The "curtain call" itself is a work of performance art. Simply amazing! Enjoy!
If you liked the video above ... here are a couple more featuring the amazing work of Yoann Bourgeois.
I’m sure many of you have heard of K-Pop. Also known as Korean Pop. Well this is C-pop or Chinese Pop. Todays video is from a talent show called The Singer. I suppose the western equivalent would be a popular show (at least in the US) called The Voice. The song, Happy Heart was first made popular by Andy Williams where it spent 2 weeks at #1 on the charts. Petula Clark also had a hit with the same song at the very same time but hers charted highest at #12.
This wonderful song was co-written by easy listening legend James Last and canadian singer/songwriter Jackie Rae. This impassioned performance by Li Xiang Zhe & Zhai Li Suo Tian is pure delight and really swings! So who is who? Li is the guy that starts the song and the bearded guy is Zhai. I absolutely love when Li starts the line, “Music fills…” with that really gutsy sound and Zhai looks at him out the corner of his eye as if to say “where the hell did that come from?”, or maybe he’s thinking, “where’re you going with this?” Totally makes me smile.
It’s a sunny Monday here in Ohio so enjoy this sunny song. Smiles and Cheer.
Over the course of my adult life I have created a few short performance pieces. This is still one to see “the light of day”. I have not had the opportunity to perform it yet – not because of the gun (Americans LOVE their guns) and not because of the text. Simply because of the controversial use of the American flag.
~ LOSING/LOST ~
Setting:
The performance begins before the audience enters the space. When the doors open the audience walks in and is confronted with a tableau setting and the sound of distant thunder.
On stage left is a shadowy faceless figure in an aggressive stance with an american flag flag draped over their right shoulder and arm. The flag must be displayed upside down and in reverse (stars at bottom right and bars at the top). The figure is holding a rifle and aiming it at the figure stage right with the right hand ready to pull the trigger.
Stage right figure is seated at a small table. Angled to face stage front and slightly left almost facing the other figure. on the table is a large glass of milk. The figure just stares straight forward. Standing behind the figure at the table – and almost in the shadows – is a family – spouse and children.
As the house lights dim the sound of distant thunder and faint lightning. At the beginning the interval between lightning and thunder will be greater and should be shortened as the performance continues.
The figure at the table begins to speak. He/She is visibly tired, exhausted, spent with the appearance of nothing left to lose and speaks accordingly with long pauses almost struggling to find the words.
He/She: I have
I have lost
I have lost … something
I have
I have lost my … country
Home of the brave
Land of the free
I have
I have lost
I have lost my country
Home of hope
Land of opportunity
Who will
Who will free me
Who will free me from these unshakeable bonds?
Bondage
Home of fear
Everything lost
Land of Surveillance
Land of the lost
Who will?
(figure takes drink of milk from glass leaving the glass half empty/full)
Who will
Who will restore
Who will restore my country?
Home….
Home….
Home of….
(figures hand still resting on glass – slumps over at table and hand topples glass spilling milk with loud crack of thunder with simultaneous lighting flash. As figure slumps over table the family slumps to floor in slow motion and figure – with flag and gun – at stage left slinks off into the shadows. Lights fade except for one spot light on the corner of the table where the milk that was spilt has turned to blood and is now dripping of the edge of the table. Fade to black)
Entire performance should not last longer than 10 minutes.
So I have been a fan of so-called performance art for quite a long time. It is part theater, music, writing, dance and philosophy.
I first got interested in performance art when I first saw Laurie Anderson on her “Home Of The Brave” tour. My life was forever changed. So I am pleased to announce this new artist, Lilibeth Cuenca Rasmussen, who I’ve never heard of before. For fans of aforementioned Laurie Anderson, Exene Cervenka, Meredith Monk, Robert Wilson, Grace Jones, etc.
THE ENOCH CODEX
I have long been interested in language. The written and spoken word are abstractions of ideas. Spoken it is a “performance” but when “written” becomes “law”…. To get back to the original idea we must often deconstruct language. Irreverence is the highest form of art. Even language has a life cycle 🙂
Enjoy this…the music of Philip Glass from SYMPHONY NO. 5.
Track#3 – “The Creation Of Sentient Beings”
The image above is another work using my “visual glossolalia” approach to creating digital art. It is comprised of the text from seven different photos of signs etc. Added a couple of texture layers for effect.
About the Title. A codex is simply a book that was written on wood or papyrus etc – in a world before paper. Often a codex is affiliated with ancient and “dead” languages from which a code/law is documented. Who is Enoch? The first disappearing act in history?
Enoch walked with GOD; then he was no more, for God took him. ~ Genesis 5:24 (JPS)
It’s interesting that in these early accounts of lineage in the bible all other descendants of Adam are listed as having “died”. Only Enoch is listed as “was no more…for God took him.”
There are other stories of “magical” disappearances like the later story of Elijah(Eliyahu) in 2 Kings 2:11, “Eliyahu went up into heaven in a whirlwind.” and even the ascension of Jesus (Yeshua) in Mark 16:19, “So then, after he had spoken to them, the Lord Yeshua was taken up into heaven and sat at the right hand of God.” It may be loosely related to the story in acts of Philip and the Ethiopian Eunuch (Acts 8:39) where “the spirit of the lord snatched Philip away.”
All these disappearances in the Bible. But Enoch was the first. What happens when the meaning of text disappears and all that is left is the text itself? Can it still be understood? Is one meaning replaced with another? And when this happens how can we be sure of the right meaning? This is something that also happens with translation where the meaning of something is changed when the language is changed from one cultural context to another.
What do you think?
“Language is a virus from outer space.” ~ William S Burroughs
... on being and becoming ... 