Conceptual Performances
I am often confused as a Conceptual Performer but I’m a Conceptual Artist that uses Performance as a tool in my tool kit of mediums. Performance is a direct way to communicate and a way that my brain breaks down information processing. Most of these performances are related to bigger projects but were considered the “Audience” performance related to a larger project. Exceptions are at the Forever Basement in Brooklyn.
HE LOVES ME. HE LOVES ME NOT.
The Forever Basement in Brooklyn, New York. I was the only Conceptual Performer with a set list of Experimental and Folk Musicians. My performance lasted the duration of the event, maybe 2-3 hours.
Dating had been a nightmare in my early thirties and I decided to make a commentary about the tribulation between love and deceit from emotional reaction. It’s less about his reliability and more about my challenges with trust and boundaries. At times, I switch my contemplation to other people whom I struggle to trust. Sometimes I ask if He Loves Me, other times, I ask if She Loves Me, as well as Do They Love Me. Photos (Left) Performance Debut. Photographer: Nora Charters. The Forever Basement. 2018. Display Photo (Top/Right): Photographer: Joe Witkowski. 2019. Lake Michigan, Chicago, Illinois. Also performed at the Jesse and Forever CD release party. Kinfolk, Williamsburg, Brooklyn New York.
CONFUSION TO KEEP AWAY
BOUND BUT NOT SILENT
Confusion To Keep Away is a Conceptual Performance playing as a physical metaphor to how some of us create confusion in our lives in order to prevent us from connecting with people. This performance started out in The Nicky Watts In A Box Tour as a way to identify a symptom of Emotional Isolation. The debut performance was in Chicago, Illinois at The Curio Show in 2013. In addition, I have performed it twice in Las Vegas, Nevada in 2014 at the former Brett Wesley Gallery and in Jersey City, New Jersey in 2018 at the Jersey City Theater Center. In New Jersey, it was expanded to have a collaborative drum group named Sirelo playing throughout. Photos: (Top) Photographer: Alexander Moran. Jersey City Theater Center. (Left) Photographer: Ginger Bruner. Brett Wesley Gallery.
Bound But Not Silent was my first official performance in a gallery. At the time, I was running a gallery called New Works Gallery in Chicago, Illinois. I wanted every type of art represented and no one submitted a performance, so I did this one. It was a commentary towards the genocide that was taking place in Africa at the time, 2005.
Each of these performances relates to an atrocity in the world at the time of the performance. It’s a time specific poem that I write. The costume and installation is site and topic specific. I’ve performed this five times. In order most recent; The Bach Store on Broadway, New York City, 2019. Eloheim, New York City, 2018. Architype Gallery at 660 Studios, Jersey City, New Jersey, 2017. Federal Court Building, Las Vegas, Nevada with Jules Jameson 2016. The debut performance at New Works Gallery, Chicago, Illinois, 2005. Photograph: (Top) Photograher: Unknown. The Bach Store. (Bottom Left) Photographer: Elizabeth Nelson, Las Vegas Court House. (Bottom Right) Photographer: Dahlia Reigns, 660 Studios.
BALLET #2: HEBREW ALPHABET
Ballet #2: Hebrew Alphabet is part of a larger project in which I combine the process of learning Ballet with learning Judaism. Here, I’m learning the Hebrew Alphabet by writing the letters on the cupcakes and I’m learning ballet by jump is between production table and catering table to the guests. I had just started to learn both, Hebrew and Ballet. This performance was in Henderson, Nevada at Dragon Ridge Country Club. Both Photos: Photographer: Lucky Wenzel, 2016.
LIFE’S PRESSURE
Life’s Pressure was the first Conceptual Performance I presented after moving to New York City in 2017. It was at Architype Gallery in 660 Studios and was in collaboration with Alex Pergament, Jordan DeLiso and Nick Afflitto who were playing improvisational jazz in response to the movements of the performance. I asked for eight audience volunteers. After an activity in which they each yelled their own personal personal pressures in each other’s faces, I put them into groups. Three groups of pairs were each assigned a unique life pressure, giving yarn and told their job was to wrap me in the yarn, not knowing I would be using movement to escape them. I took the remaining couple, gave them staples, and instructed them that their role was when life pressure wins. They had to take the yarn and staple it to the white circle on the floor. I had never met anyone involved prior to the event. Photographer: Unknown.
KISSING BOOTH CONFESSIONAL
Kissing Booth Confessional is a visual representation of sexual repression. In it, I am contained in a box filled with steam. I am in the nude. Audience members come up to me one at a time and choose between giving me a confessional, pressing up to the relief plastic barrier for a kiss, being able to feel a hardened version of my chin/lips, palms, and chest with me pressing up against my imprints from the inside, or the audience could choose to participate in both, a confession with a kiss. Security keep a strict no contact rule and are required to pull me out, give me water, and breaks every twenty-minutes. The security represent relentless boundaries based of fear of being hurt. Photographer: Marshal Bolt
ATTEMPT TO FOCUS
UNVEILING TRUTH
Attempt To Focus is a what I like to call a Ritualistic Performance. In the performance, I meditate on a future goal. I often choose a location that allows me to stare my goal head on. In the top photo, I am at Art Basel outside of SCOPE. I was meditating about my desire to work with the art establishment in the future instead of continuing to be an Outsider Artist maneuver mostly through public space and pop up. To the left, I’m engaging in a collaboration with Ohio musician, Raw Milk. My focus was to broaden my collaboration with musicians. Attempt To Focus has been produced in Chicago, Miami, Las Vegas, Los Angeles, and other cities. I want to perform it on the border between Israel and the Palestinian areas and on the border with Syria in the Golan Heights, at the point of Israel, Syria, and Jordan.
Unveiling Truth was part of a larger exhibition topic in which many artists were grappling with understand what truth meant to them. I was exploring the process of unwrapping someone, like an onion. Slowly learning each other. In this performance, a volunteer was on the other side of the screen. We unwrapped each other through the screen of our own interpretations of each other. One piece of linen at a time, we worked to metaphorically unveil each other’s truth, never fully getting to each other’s center and never seeing each other beyond the screen we held up. This performance was performed at Jersey City Theater Center in Jersey City, New Jersey and it is unlikely is will be performed again. There were three volunteers total, Sarah Ligon, Joe Zappa, and B. Photograph: Dahlia Reign