Creative Access Description
Colour analogue video of a piece of performance art. The performance opens to a darkly painted stage illuminated by a yellowish spotlight. Two white waist high plinths sit on either side of a simple blue chair. A white woman with long dark coloured hair tied up in a bun wearing a black cloth headband, a loose black sweater, and a short black skirt over black tights enters the stage and writes in chalk on the back wall of the stage, which is painted with blackboard paint, 'a child was born.' in block capital letters.She exits the stage briefly, then runs back onstage with a clatter, her leather shoes making loud taps. She wears a long sliver streamer attached to the front of her sweater and dragging behind her on both sides. Circulating the stage, she pauses to catch her breath, exits the stage again, and then returns to the blackboard, writing 'she was told.', 'she found out.', 'she left.', and 'she considered' in successive lines under her original text. She sits in the chair holding a baby sized white lacey dress aloft in her left hand and unfolding a piece of paper on her knee with her right. She looks down and reads a short passage from the paper. Finishing, she picks up the chair and exits the stage. She returns and repositions the plinths next to each other at the front of the stage.
She exits again and returns with two halves of a globe that has been cut in two along the equator. She sets inverted halves atop each of the plinths, one is filled with a pile of peas, which she eats one by one with one hand while moving her other hand around the surface of the second globe, which is filled with sand. She begins eating rapidly and digs her fingers into the sand before stopping, collecting both halves and removing them from the stage.
She returns again, this time dribbling a basketball around the stage as though playing. She stops, catching the ball and sings a short song, pausing between lyrics to dribble, bob and weave, and toss the ball up in the air. She bounces the ball of the wall and a few audience members giggle. She exits the stage and the lights drop.
A few sweeping and shuffling noises are made in the dark room. After a long pause, footsteps sound in irregular patterns. The lights come up, revealing that both plinths have been laid down on their sides. An upbeat funky track plays and the woman returns to the stage with the chair and a white poster sized piece of paper. She sets the chair down and lays the poster on the floor, looking underneath it and arranging it to her liking. She then sits in the chair facing perpendicular to the audience and begins to slouch toward the floor. Twitching and wiggling her way out of her seat, she lies on the floor and scoots backward until her arm lies across the poster, before flipping up the poster to reveal the words 'She fell in love' to the audience, who chuckle knowingly. The woman rises to her feet and places the poster underneath her writing on the blackboard wall. Adjusting her hair, she writes 'She wanted.' on the blackboard.
She approaches the front row of the audience where a medium sized black dog stands between two audience members. She grabs the dog's leash and attempts to lead it on stage. The dog resists and the audience laughs, someone says 'stage fright' aloud. The camera pans back to the woman who holds her head with one hand, quivering a bit, before returning the leash to the audience, and walking offstage again. She returns with a pair of binoculars, turns the chair 180 degrees, sits in it, and raises the binoculars to her eyes. A recording of her voice reading a short passage plays while she looks through the binoculars. The recording ends, she lowers the binoculars, walks to the wall and writes 'She forgot.' on the blackboard. She thanks the audience, who applauds as she picks up and carries the chair offstage.
Description
Video documentation of Dani K's Sustain performance. Shot by Mike MacDonald.Identifier
1991.0606 SUS V001Extent
1 Hi-8 tape, 00:17:42Tape Number
91-012Language
Videographer
Mike MacDonaldArtist
Dani K.Performer
Dani K.Related program
Sustain (Related)In copyright. For uses outside of Fair Dealing please contact grunt gallery.