performance lecture

Performance Lecture

Something in the way “she” moves.

(Performed naked with a microphone)

(Enter) I just had or I am having this dream. It's an anxiety dream, you know the ones… (HAND SIGNALS) When you're standing in a public place, then you look down, and realise…

and there was no fourth wall…

This performance is called

Something in the way “she” moves.

It's not what you do it's the way that you do it

The poetics of space

The poetics of self

Or one and of/or the other…

If we can all take, I mean if you, you who are not I, if you can all take a moment to observe the ones closest to you - they may be ones - and by this I mean at least twos - who are blurring the edges of you - I mean do they turn you on? Are they turning you on? Could you take or are you taking them in or out or on right here, right now… on the floor - taking space, your place, taking time, spending your time, always and or anyway…

What I'm trying to say is that this paper is about meaning.

(When I used to listen to the album Grease, Frankie Valley would sing “grease is the word is the word that you heard it's got groove it's got me-in. “I” used to think that Frankie Valley was a real show-off for singing this and thought it was a bit rich seeing as he only had a very small part) So what I'm trying to say is that this paper is about me - in.

I know what I mean - I mean I will tell the truth, just never the whole truth.

Imagine a field…

And then… imagine a bigger field…

Imagine their or even your bodies up here - next to mine - instead of mine - eclipsing mine - absencing mine… exceeding mine, filling me to overflowing and flowing over and out and beyond… where I'm at.

I am a woman burned alive. I am burning a woman alive.

This paper is called in a field I am the absence of field

Mind the gap

Or mind in the gap

Or in between a rock and a hard place, what time is it?

About being here… things and no things wouldn't be the same would they, if Tom or Dick or Harry stood up or entered her,

I mean here and now and up in this field…?

This paper is called the politics of presence in the performance act

Practising presence

What is presence anyway or can presence be any old way?

What does it mean to perform with one hundred percent commitment in the present tense?

This paper is about how different people make us feel different things and how how we do what we do means more than what we do

If I told you that 'I' was masculine and that the where 'I' wasn't was feminine, and if you could suspend your disbelief and come with me - I mean - don't go and come without me - and know that if you can wait with me - and if you can invest in time - that I promise you I will come… again and again and again…

Then - and now then now then now then

How 'I' enter space would go and be the most political of somethings and nothings.

I'm trying my best to wake up. I've got sleep in my eyes and dreams fading (LIE DOWN UNDER MICROPHONE STAND)

This paper is called 'I can see myself in her(e)'

In this dream I saw a lion fucking a wolf

In this dream my palms were wet and my mouth was dry

In this dream the revolution had stopped at Starbucks

And all the beautiful people had slipped off the covers of magazines and turned straight into coffee tables.

In theory I read my palm - my hands dappled in the fluid move-moves

But to my horrorrosea - in practise they were tied and the author had chopped off my tongue.

In super 8 style and shameful nostalgia I was a small child eating sand: Some singular indulgence… autonomous prick bursting my bubble.

One binary digit making all the circles flat

And where once I had seen myself in her, where I had smelt her all over me there was nothing.

As much ado as I could do about nothing I did do.

And there was, for my own significant eternity no thing to see

I clung to my books of the marinas and the oceans… and I entered the desert.

I laid down the parchment….

I used scrolls as stepping-stones…to stop my feet from burning.

I surrendered my story and all her stories and when I awoke from this dream my body had vanished without a trace. Vaporised.

There was literally nothing left. (REMOVE MIC FROM STAND AND SIT UP)

This paper is called do I have a body?

This paper is called and if so where is it? Is my body some how 'where'?

This paper is called to be or not to be

What does it mean to be in between?

I can feel you coming in the air tonight. Oh lord…

This paper is called without words.

And when all the words have burnt to cinders in the midst of a sun that will not rise and will not fall will we forget to remember that we ever thought we knew who we were and why we didn't get what we wanted…

And all that will be will be being in or of or at being and then what of this?

What of this field then?

Where would we be?

In this field so fearful, which prefers sight s.i.g.h.t. Over site s.i.t.e. In between you and me and me and me. Something in the way she moves touches me.

She is the relationship I have with my selves.

This paper is called - (START TO WALK IN A CIRCLE)

This is desire.

I desire to engage - to feel something… anything, to express my selves I mean to put myself out there, to revolt to turn full circle, to put my stomach in my mouth, to drown in her - and to be - washed up - exhausted and changed. Reaffirmed. Revised. Thought through. Thought through. Thought through.

I am in two minds

I am in here in my body, only visible through it, and I am looking at you. Trying to concentrate on my words. And I am out there in the room, looking in, looking like you seeing me.

Do you mind me?

Do you think of me?

Do you mind that I want to take you in, to feel you so strongly that it fucks up my head and I don't have a fucking clue what's going on anymore?

Am I parched? (DRINK)

I is not singular

I is at least one other. And another

Can you feel me?

Can you bear to be felt? (DO THE CRAB)

Am I spilling off these pages?

Can I ask you questions from here?

How can I make you come?

Can you see me or hear me from there?

Do I have something to prove?

Can you feel me brush past you?

Can you smell my perfume?

Does this not matter? And does that not occupy space?

How am I going?

Have I gone too far?

Are you with me?

Are you me at all?

Can I ask you to dance?

Can I ask you to notice that you are dancing?

For me?

Can I feel your moving?

Should I be more reductive, factual, objective, down to earth, everyday, pedestrian, neutral, more and more less until I best cancel myself out completely? Should I get my coat?

This paper is called

If you think I'm sexy

This paper is called

The beginning of an ending

Just being myself on stage

I is not one.

I is collusion.

I is in the condition of being one

I is real

I is not about the real world out there

I is the real world in here. (STAND ON ONE LEG)

I no longer know what I want.

I am unable to form my desires into words.

I am formlessness.

I am hyphen

I get in between

I am I turned on it's side

I combine

I am no thing.

I am zero - a score of nothing

I am love - a score of zero

I am an amateur

I am right here. I am right now.

I am insecure

I fall and submit

This paper is called

It's always me me me (LIE DOWN HEAD TO AUDIENCE AND LEGS UP)

I am a one-night-stand

I am erotic

Honestly

Always cruising, always touching you and myself.

Writing has brought me here, to an image of my own sex organ pulled right out and over my whole face, the surface of my skin tremors with an intensity… the soles of my feet, the back of my neck, not to mention my beating heart, my shallow breath, my sweating palms and my dry mouth.

(SIT AND FACE AUDIENCE ON CHAIR)

This body is called a living memorial.

This body is called my you-ness

I am sampled, bootlegged, consumed, spat out, misquoted.

I am headings, chapters, subchapters, edits and postscripts.

This body is called

And another thing

I am beginnings, middles, endings, footnotes, citation, cross- referencing. I am anecdote and lie and I am inscribed with many truths that without you will never be the whole truth

This body is called

This is your life

A vote for love

An affirmation

A yes for pleasure

This paper is called

I can't get you out of my head

You're shit and you know you are

Discourse is not my life

Its time is not mine.

This paper is called

Untitled

This paper is called the end

Bring it back bring it back bring it back bring it back bring it back bring it back bring it back.

It's freezing in here.

Thank you and good night.