Re-creation of a Dream, video documentation
Zachery Longboy
September 12, 1992
Creative Access Description
Colour analogue video of a work of performance art. The video opens with a tall Sayisi Dene man with short dark hair, naked arranging performance objects around a gallery space. Another man wearing an orange t shirt and a feathered headpiece crouching and moving slowly and deliberately about the room, his arms spread wide like a bird. In one hand he holds a bundle of organic material. A soundtrack of trickling water plays, fading in and out and several bundles of sticks and other organic matter stand in arrangement around the room. Audience members sit and stand around the perimeter of the room.A woman with long brown hair wearing a blue sleeveless dress and holding a bundle of organic material walks slowly around the room and another man wearing tan slacks and a white button up shirt pours water from a bucket into a metal basin on the floor. The camera follows the man with the headpiece as he moves backward about the room, arcing his outstretched arms slowly above his head and approaching audience members who move aside to allow him passage. Another videographer, an Indigenous man with long black hair tied back in a ponytail, moves with him, taking a close-up shot of his face. Newly arrived audience members wander through the periphery of the performance space searching for seating.
The performers continue to circumambulate the room until a projection appears above the audience on the wall: a video clip of Queen Elizabeth giving a speech and blessing to Indigenous people during a tour of Canada in the 1970s. The clip ends and replays on a loop several times. The Sayisi Dene man emerges from the shadows adopting a mirrored pose to the man in the headpiece and they move about the room in synch before the Sayisi Dene man climbs into the basin and washes himself. The performer in the button up shirt crouches next to him and helps wash his back and shoulders with a cloth. The men stand together and continue washing as the other performers, photographers and videographers move slowly about the room. The Sayisi Dene man then steps out of the basin and drys himself and the man in the button up shirt removes the basin from the room.
A woman begins to sing Dick Van Dyke's 'Put on a Happy Face' a cappella and the Sayisi Dene man picks up a small metal canister. Reaching into it he begins to scatter small particles, perhaps woodchips or ashes, around the room in all directions. He crouches on the floor and spreads a pile of soil into a ring around him, clearing a circle. Other performers assist in smoothing the edges of the ring. The man stands, wipes his hands clean of the dirt and then moves a stack of papers into the circle. He picks a piece of paper with a cartoonish illustration of an Indigenous man wearing a feathered headdress of the Plains style and holds it out at arms length, rotating to show it to in four directions to the audience. He produces a lighter and burns the paper, holding it until fully ablaze before setting it on the floor. He repeats this action twice, burning a piece of paper with the 'Indian-head' TV test pattern, a photocopied logo from a fruit company with an Indigenous person. He then picks up a paper with a short poetic text about memory, fear, existence, truth, and the four cardinal directions and reads it aloud. When his lighter fails he smile wryly, accepting a replacement from an assistant and lights the paper before dropping it to the ground. Delivering a final line he puts on a white button up shirt with a red geometric pattern across the chest and back and a pair of slacks.
He picks up a few rolled poster size papers from a box and gives one of them to each audience member before returning to the box for more. A woman sings Ethyl Merman's 'Everything's Coming Up Roses' a cappella. Smiling as he finishes distributing the posters, the man makes his way off stage and the lights fall. After a moment, the house music plays, the lights come up, and the audience begins to chatter.
Description
Video documentation of Zachery Longboy's Re-creation of a Dream performance, featuring appearances by Denis Belland, Mary Alice, Richard Jerome Desroche, and others. Shot by Mike MacDonald.Identifier
1992.0912 REC V001Extent
1 Hi-8 tape, 00:31:33Tape Number
92-009Language
Artist
Zachery LongboyVideographer
Mike MacDonaldRelated program
Re-Creation of a Dream (Related)In copyright. For uses outside of Fair Dealing please contact grunt gallery.